The New Fat Scotland 'Thanks for all the Fish' Thread.

Shakethedisease

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

Lets try one more time.

Let's not and get back to the here and now. Interesting front page from the National tomorrow titled 'Beyond GERS'. Please note this is research from the Common Weal who are producing several papers on independence.. just before the usual SNP rants start. This is nothing to do with them.

I see the usual suspects like Fraser Whyte and Kevin Hague are also out of the starting blocks already putting the mockers on. Actually doing so before the article was released at midnight lol. However, their weaknesses have always been that both tend to concentrate on GERS itself as it is, offering nothing further simply dissecting and going deeper into them as time has gone on. This research bases it's starting point on the figures GERS produces, but then goes on to suggest potential deficit reduction models in a newly independent Scotland ( rather than Hague and Whyte's 'but ye cannae' approach' ).

A welcome chink of light in the same old, same old deadlock of GERS that's been going on for too many years now on both sides of the debate. Agree with or not, it's a new perspective at the very least. Their White paper next year will be worth looking out for.

Now research by the Common Weal think tank offering an alternative to GERS claims “modest” and “conservative” recalculations would allow the fledgling state to achieve “deficit parity” with the rest of the UK.

Part of the organisation’s ongoing White Paper series, which leads to a draft White Paper for independence early next year, the report bases the budget of an independent Scotland on the probable priorities and spending of an autonomous government in Holyrood, instead of transferring Westminster’s agenda.

This approach means the £3bn defence costs predicted by GERS are reduced to £1.95bn by supposing Scotland’s set-up is “in line with [that of] modern European nations”.
Meanwhile, closing tax loopholes to reduce the amount lost to the system would bring in up to £3.5bn, according to “modest” estimates, and a negotiated settlement over UK pensions liability would save the same sum.
The results, which do not include tax hikes or reliance on oil and gas, are said to represent a “ground-up construction of a first-year independence” budget.

http://thenational.scot/news/14912957.Beyond_GERS__How_to_calculate_the_finances_of_independent_Scotland/

Where the gains come from:

• Building a fit-for-purpose defence budget - £1bn saving
• Recovering one-third of lost tax revenue through new tax system - £3.5bn saving
• Negotiated settlement over UK Government pension liability - £3.5bn
• Clever negotiation and re-profiling of Scotland's debt - £1.7bn saving
• Accounting for tax income from influx of new civil service jobs - £720m

The combination of these approaches to building a hypothetical independent Scotland’s budget at the start of its life means that a “conservative estimate” of what Scotland’s deficit could be is £5.6bn (3.5% of GDP). This would be proportionately smaller than the UK’s current deficit at 4% of GDP. All of this is prior to any further policy changes that could be made after an independent Scotland’s first election, such as changes to tax policy or increased revenue from higher wages or reduced inequality, which could boost Scotland’s fiscal position further.

https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/9879/report-beyond-gers-scotlands-fiscal-position-post-independence

TrickyTree83

zagubov wrote: »

I am afraid that politics has been post-truth for quite some time. I also find that social science rarely supplies the kind of compelling evidence that natural sciences do.

I'm afraid that these writers either gave case studies from which generalisations can't be healthily made, or they tried to confect spurious connections for correlations. I don't despair (well certainly not about you) -you've described your viewpoint in quite measured ways and you have a good grasp of how modest the claims of these writers are.

But they're not making any kind of a link between the SNP and anglophobes.

There isn't (AFAIK) a link between catholicism and prostate or breast cancer. But if you found out that the Vatican was the country with the highest rate in the world for prostate cancer and Alzheimers but the lowest for breast cancer and chicken pox, and concluded that catholicism protects against one but encourages the other, you'd be reading too much into the facts.
Correlation isn't causation and links don't always imply what we think they do.

What's this mean then?

Yet interestingly their
analysis finds that having a strong sense of Scottish identity and being an SNP
voter are both associated with high levels of Anglophobia.

That's from the Edinburgh University press commentary on the study by Hussain & Miller (2006).

Correlation isn't causation, but I don't think the paper is alluding to any causation, just the correlation - as am I.

I find it hard to reconcile what you said here:

But they're not making any kind of a link between the SNP and anglophobes.

With what the analysis by Edinburgh University says here:

Yet interestingly their
analysis finds that having a strong sense of Scottish identity and being an SNP
voter are both associated with high levels of Anglophobia.

Either they are making a link, or I can't read anymore.

antrobus

Shakethedisease wrote: »

.. This research bases it's starting point on the figures GERS produces, but then goes on to suggest potential deficit reduction models in a newly independent Scotland ...

That's right you need a 'deficit reduction model'. Otherwise known as austerity.

Where the gains come from:

• Building a fit-for-purpose defence budget - £1bn saving
• Recovering one-third of lost tax revenue through new tax system - £3.5bn saving
• Negotiated settlement over UK Government pension liability - £3.5bn
• Clever negotiation and re-profiling of Scotland's debt - £1.7bn saving
• Accounting for tax income from influx of new civil service jobs - £720m

So that's based on the notion that 'negotiations' are going to result in the UK giving Scotland £3.5 bn a year, and UK gilt investors giving you another £1.7 bn a year, together with some magic new tax system that is going to generate another £3.5 bn.

That's all a bit magical. I mean, after all, how can the influx of new civil service jobs produce a gain, when you have to pay the salaries of this new civil servants in the first place.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

...A welcome chink of light in the same old, same old deadlock of GERS that's been going on for too many years now on both sides of the debate. ...

There is no deadlock. It's simply that a number of enthusiasts for independence are little bit delusional when it comes down to money, and can't quite face up to the reality of what GERS is telling them.

kabayiri

antrobus wrote: »

That's right you need a 'deficit reduction model'. Otherwise known as austerity.

So that's based on the notion that 'negotiations' are going to result in the UK giving Scotland £3.5 bn a year, and UK gilt investors giving you another £1.7 bn a year, together with some magic new tax system that is going to generate another £3.5 bn.

That's all a bit magical. I mean, after all, how can the influx of new civil service jobs produce a gain, when you have to pay the salaries of this new civil servants in the first place.
...

If the people of Scotland want to give this a go, then it's up to them.

I think Nicola and her mates should put it to the voters in another indy ref.

Remember, negotiations work 2 ways too. If iScotland negotiates £3.5bn dividend from pension liability, then rUK could equally negotiate some profitable deals leasing back services to an iScotland.

For example, why would iScotland need ambassador services if they could lease services from rUK. They could lease DVLA functions from the Welsh as well.

I think it's a good thing to create some healthy competition between rUK and iScotland. It will encourage entrepreneurs to work hard to gain business from both sides.

antrobus

kabayiri wrote: »

If the people of Scotland want to give this a go, then it's up to them....

Absolutely. It's entirely down to the Scots.

kabayiri wrote: »

..I think Nicola and her mates should put it to the voters in another indy ref..

We've already had one referendum not that lomg ago, and the Scots said 'no'. I suppose you can keep on running them until you get the answer you want.

kabayiri wrote: »

...Remember, negotiations work 2 ways too. If iScotland negotiates £3.5bn dividend from pension liability, ...

It's a very big 'if'. The National Audit Office has the cost of the four largest public sector pension schemes at about £20bn for 2008-09. A hypothetically independent Scotland would bear 9% (whaever) of that cost. Why would the UK pay Scotland £3.5 bn in year one? Shouldn't they be paying us money?

kabayiri wrote: »

..then rUK could equally negotiate some profitable deals leasing back services to an iScotland.

For example, why would iScotland need ambassador services if they could lease services from rUK. They could lease DVLA functions from the Welsh as well...

That's a given. And let's be honest, they are going to be profitable deals for the UK.

Plus of course there are things an independent Scotland is just going to have to pay for itself. Such as their own central bank.

kabayiri wrote: »

..I think it's a good thing to create some healthy competition between rUK and iScotland. It will encourage entrepreneurs to work hard to gain business from both sides.

There isn't really a shortage of countries about. There is already plenty of competition. I suppose one more won't do any harm, although I can't see it will make much difference.

Thrugelmir

Accounting for tax income from influx of new civil service jobs - £720m

How can you count income tax from people that are paid out of the public pursue?

That's double counting.

Civil Servants aren't generally productive nor wealth generating.

.string.

A link for those who are interested and have not yet found it.
http://rwbblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/gers-beyond-laser-engineer.html

A critique of the beyond GERS stuff by Kevin Hague

His Blog on Twitter
https://twitter.com/kevverage?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Edit: I'm having trouble with that link - hope it's resolved and you can pick it up
.
Shakey calls him one of the "usual suspects" - there's a long list of those people. One of them, apparently, is [FONT=&quot]Dalzell - who according to Hague, "made a complete pigs ear of currency options for Scotland". If that's a reference to the ludicrous listing of currency options in the earlier [FONT=&quot]publicly[/FONT] funded SNP Prospectus know as "The White Paper", I'm not surprised at that description except that Shakey told me it was done by two Noble Prize winners (or was it three). Whatever, it was a simple-minded effort.

In due course, I'd like to see a spreadsheet with these various things on it (gains, losses, balance) and something more profound, if there is such.. As Hague mentions, we've seen much of it before in various guises and it seems the normally [FONT=&quot]woolly[/FONT] SNP stuff.
[/FONT]

kabayiri

antrobus wrote: »

...
It's a very big 'if'. The National Audit Office has the cost of the four largest public sector pension schemes at about £20bn for 2008-09. A hypothetically independent Scotland would bear 9% (whaever) of that cost. Why would the UK pay Scotland £3.5 bn in year one? Shouldn't they be paying us money?
...

Who knows who ends up paying who

That's the thing about negotiations. It depends how badly you want something, as to what price you are willing to pay.

We are often told Scotland is a wealthy country. They will find the money if the will is there, if there is a net payment to rUK.

Besides, they can make it all back by selling us super cheap hydro and wind 'leccy...just don't tell the USA president elect!

.string.

The matter of pensions is also a matter of semantics.

edit: to clarify what I mean. Simply referring to the rUK as the UK is a semantic strategy: the roles played by both are different because the citizen base is not the same. The rUK would not be expected to pay those who become Scottish housing allowance or pot-hole top-ups or any of a number of things which would become the responsibility of the Scottish Government.

There is thus an argument to be made that paying the pensions of the people living in Scotland should be paid by the Scottish Government since that part of their separated liability/responsibility, as with the national debt, is now apportioned according to the relative populations of Scotland and the rUK. One could extend that also to Scots living in a foreign country, like England, that would become part of the responsibility of Scotland. Naturally, as is common practice in the EU for example, Scottish residents in the rUK would be taxed in the rUK.

As kabayiri says, it is a matter of negotiation.

I would think all Scots everywhere would like a democratic involvement in any referendum since such a thing would govern their lives..

Shakethedisease

.string. wrote: »

A link for those who are interested and have not yet found it.
http://rwbblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/gers-beyond-laser-engineer.html

A critique of the beyond GERS stuff by Kevin Hague

His Blog on Twitter
https://twitter.com/kevverage?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Edit: I'm having trouble with that link - hope it's resolved and you can pick it up
.
Shakey calls him one of the "usual suspects" - there's a long list of those people. One of them, apparently, is [FONT=&quot]Dalzell - who according to Hague, "made a complete pigs ear of currency options for Scotland". If that's a reference to the ludicrous listing of currency options in the earlier [FONT=&quot]publicly[/FONT] funded SNP Prospectus know as "The White Paper", I'm not surprised at that description except that Shakey told me it was done by two Noble Prize winners (or was it three). Whatever, it was a simple-minded effort.

In due course, I'd like to see a spreadsheet with these various things on it (gains, losses, balance) and something more profound, if there is such.. As Hague mentions, we've seen much of it before in various guises and it seems the normally [FONT=&quot]woolly[/FONT] SNP stuff.
[/FONT]

Actually Hague is pointing to a blog by Neil Lovatt. They definitely are all the usual suspects when it comes to GERS.

Is good the Common Weal are addressing this head on. Since rightly or wrongly ( as we can see is all debatable ) this hasn't been done before. And this particular paper only covers the immediate year after independence before elections and political party policies take Scotland in one direction or another.

This immediate time after independence is the one where the media usually blare out the same sort of doom and gloom catastrophic predictions as George Osborne did before the Brexit vote. Hague, Lovatt and Whyte all do the same. So is excellent to see the possible very short term implications of independence and negotiations being addressed and some ideas finally emerging. It should also be pointed out that Dalzell is a Green which possibly reflects in his work. Again string, this is nothing to do with the SNP, so no need to shoe horn them into this one.

He didn't do any work on the last White Paper on currency options. That was indeed nobel winning economists among others. And to be fair the currency options are all exactly the same as last time anyway.

Here's a link to the fuller version, and he says himself that it's not the final word on the matter.

http://allofusfirst.org/tasks/render/file/?fileID=87DEEC95-C459-02D4-0248DDE75B7ADDB9