Indy2, Scottish pound, and house prices

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Conrad wrote: »

QUESTION:

Does anyone know whether Scotland would have to contribute to EU coffers and if so by what net amount?

ANSWER:

Nobody cares. We get back around £10 in economic benefit for every £1 spent on EU membership. It's the deal of the century.

Conrad

I keep hearing Nats claiming the next referendum debate will be about coming together in a spirit of shedding light on the facts, that the heat and bad tempers wont feature this time round.


I find this hugely naïve.

iwilson16

So if Scotland had a Scottish pound, and it devalued against the GBP, Euro, USD etc., then I can see the property market being seriously affected.

If buyers with GBP/Euro/USD are allowed to buy in the newly devalued Scotland, then local buyers will be priced out, even more so in desireable areas such as Edinburgh, St Andrews and holiday destination.

Or if restrictions were placed on foreign buyers, then property values (in terms of GPB etc) would be reduced.

What would happen to pensions, savings, and investments?

The Scottish govmnt would keep paying the same state pension at the same rate, say. But because of devaluation, a lot of goods and services would be more expensive.

If I had £10k sitting in my First Direct savings account, what would happen to that? would it be converted to Scottish pounds if my address was in Scotland? Would it remain in GBP? Would I be given a choice? If the latter, surely no-one in their right mind would convert GBP to SP.

What about my mortgage in GBP? Would that be converted to SP? But most banks are UK based, so would they want mortgages in SPs? If it stayed in GBP, and I'm paid in SP, then that becomes more expensive as well after devaluation.

Scotland is so intertwined with the rUK economy (and oil, priced in USD), that x% devaluation would pretty much equate to everyone in Scotland being x% poorer. And thats *before* the tax rises and austerity.

It seems like a nightmare scenario ....

Ian

kabayiri

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

ANSWER:

Nobody cares. We get back around £10 in economic benefit for every £1 spent on EU membership. It's the deal of the century.

iScotland should borrow £50bn off the rUK then, and give it all to the EU.

They would get £500bn back, and every single socialist dream in Scotland could be met twice over

molerat

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/180642

edinburgher

Scotland is so intertwined with the rUK economy (and oil, priced in USD), that x% devaluation would pretty much equate to everyone in Scotland being x% poorer. And thats *before* the tax rises and austerity.

Well it's already happening with Brexit, shouldn't you be more concerned about that instead of worrying about a 2nd independence referendum? The value of the £ has plummeted vs. other currencies.

Tromking

edinburgher wrote: »

So what is the 'right way' for us to gain the representation we 'crave'?

Simple.
Nationalists must persuade enough fellow Scots to vote for independence.
Tough ask of course as that longed for representation comes without the rUK subsidy.

mayonnaise

iwilson16 wrote: »

Scotland is so intertwined with the rUK economy (and oil, priced in USD), that x% devaluation would pretty much equate to everyone in Scotland being x% poorer.

Conrad keeps telling us in the Brexit context that devaluation is the best thing ever.

westernpromise

The SNP has already significantly damaged the Scotch economy with its posturings.

I couldn't care less. Most intelligent Scots left Scotland years ago.

Like Australia and Canada, Scotland produces more decent graduates than it has decent jobs for, so they all have to leave.

Shakethedisease

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

e.

@edinburgher - when you've looked into the SNP claims and found them to be lies time and time again you'll view them with disdain too, most of this I did whilst trying to persuade Shakethedisease that she's wrong about independence. If they were squeaky clean standing up for the working Scot and telling the truth about what an independent Scotland will look like then I wouldn't call them liars and purveyors of grievance and division.

The problem you have with me is assuming that I'm an oddity or on the fringe in Scotland rather than just an ordinary run on the mill working Scot with a family. I'm fairly representative of your average Scot. Oh and political debate interests me.

ps :- Whyte and Hague are having an awful day of it on Twitter with this fellow.

Why might the data be misstated? First, there simply isn’t enough data to reliably estimate Scottish GDP. We have no figures for where sales take place in the UK, for example. VAT returns are an utterly unreliable source for this: a UK company does not submit data separately on sales in Scotland from elsewhere. The same is largely true on spending. So forget Scottish GDP data: we just don’t know what it is.
Then there are tax revenues. That VAT point still stands. And the truth is Scottish Revenue are struggling to be sure who is resident in Scotland whilst on corporation tax there is no way of knowing where revenues are earned at present. And so on.

So we come to spending. The allocation of government spending to Scotland will be arbitrary: how much defence should it pay, for example? Or interest? The arbitrary areas will be too great for this number to really be reliable.

In which case what of Scottish imports and exports? Let’s be blunt: no one has a clue what crosses the borders from Scotland to England and Northern Ireland. These numbers are literally made up in that case.

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/03/14/why-economic-data-provided-by-london-will-not-help-the-scottish-independence-debate/

Richard Murphy (58) is a chartered accountant and a political economist. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK.