Scots Begin Struggle For Independence:

You can see the rates here. They are more or less as I said. I remembered London being more but it appears they are £400 less. It remains that Scotland returns more than she receives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula

You have your choice for what you believe but the Rob Roy attitude belongs firmly with the Unionists and the decision will be made by Scotland by vote. You are the person showing small minded stereotyping rather than argument. You clearly know nothing about it and claiming you do because you claim ancestry to reivers is just beyond the pale. This is the 21st Century we are dealing with. Get over the unionist romanticism.

You let yourself down by just being able to come out with stale old unreal arguments. There really is no point if all you have to offer is throwing rotten tomatoes. I thought more of you. I have left a video before. Perhaps you would be best to look at it before coming up with more. Insults make it not worth arguing with you.

http://vimeo.com/12458284

 

I've not referred to wikipedia, I'd used the data from one of the latest research papers in the area, Christie and Swales (2010, The Barnett Allocation Mechanism: Formula Plus Influence? Regional Studies, Vol. 44, pp. 761-775):

There is little remarkable about the relationship between Scottish and UK per capita budget allocations, other than its stability. Throughout this period, the Scottish population fell as a percentage of the UK population, from 9.2% in 1982 to 8.5% in 2004. From 1978 to 1992, Scotland’s population within the Barnett formula was fixed and as a result of this discrepancy Scotland would have received more funds through the formula than it warranted. However, the formula was re-based in 1992 and subsequently updated annually from 1997. There is no evidence from Fig. 1 that the per capita budget allocation in Scotland fell relative to the UK due to the effect of the formula, nor that changing population shares led to step changes. At the end of the period, the Scottish relative per capita budget allocation remained exactly as it had been twenty-three years earlier. Over the whole period, the Scottish per capita budget allocation was 17% higher than the UK figure, and there is no statistically significant pattern of increases or decreases. Similarly, whilst others point to the Barnett squeeze operating in the post-devolution period, this is not apparent from these data.

A long history of corrupting Britain's regional aid policy!

An astoundingly ignorant reply! I've referred to the benefits of political disintegration. I've just been honest at the Scot nationalistic weaknesses. It is no different to the English cretins that bother draping themselves in the Norman's St George. It produces the same small mindedness, even though the Scots like to pretend superiority over them.

I chose to refer to it as I neither see myself as Scottish or English. Sorry it doesn't fit with your flag waving folly!

I bother with economic rationality.

I don't argue with nationalists. I sneer at them

 

Typical Scots. They seem to want independence, but want the English to keep subsidising them.

 

Then my son.....why do you lot keep on harping about holding on to a nation who doesn't like the politics you follow!
A nation which acres about it inhabitants!
Don't like the idea of being a charity case!
Don't like the thought of being abused any longer with your charity and barnet formula!
Who want there freedom back!
The treaty of union....a hypocrisy to the Scottish nation and to Scotland as it was in Ireland forced through murder, assassination, clearances and stavation!

But I hope you have a long and your nation have a prosperous journey.....with out us....as well!!!

Regards
Highander

 

Why on Earth do you believe we WANT to hang onto you ?
We used to think we were all one and the same. Just a family argument or two.
Now I am quite happy to see you cast yourself adrift.
I just don't believe (as Salmond as so many of your most dedicated Independece types do) that England should continue with ridiculous crap like the - Barratt law is it ? - and so many others. You don't charge for prescriptions. Because England pays the bill. No student charges - once again paid by England.
Many many subsidies like it. And many more we don't know about.
Maybe my own area would start getting some of the cash that has been thrown at an undeserving and unappreciative Scotland over the decades when you go your own way ?
North Sea oil ? Its not as clear cut as you clearly think.....

 

I imagine Highlander, like most of us, is just a little bit tired with English people not understanding the economics of the situation.

http://www.thesaint-online.com/2012/03/shattering-the-myth/

or have a look at this

http://newsnetscotland.com/index.ph...report-shows-scotland-in-better-shape-than-uk

now this one goes back to before oil

http://www.newsnetscotland.com/inde...-an-independent-scotland-be-financially-sound

It is just tiresome that certain English posters keep providing the same untrue spin. Possibly you would do better thinking about England's AAA rating without Scotland's oil, but at least stop moaning over what is not the truth.

 

The economics? That isn't difficult! That informs us that Scotland have missed the boat. Its too late to 'do a Norway''. That also informs us that north sea oil, by skewing resources, actually harms the rest of the Scot economy.

Whilst nationalists ignore these unfortunate truths, they peddle the usual anti-english rant even though they gain relative to the other British regions.

My advice? Stop flag waving, you're all coming across as folk on a par with Little Englanders

 

It's been a while since we did this debate Reiver and it is nice to see some decent debate in the Euroforum for a change. However, my advice to you and other unionists is to forget it and let it go. Scotland is not interested in UK, things have changed and that is the boat which is about to sail unless Salmond shoots himself in the foot.

 

The ridiculous crap is ridiculous crap. It is tactical, done deliberately to provoke the response you have just given and increase support for independence.

 

I'm not a Unionist. I'm all for the disintegration of the Union!

 

If that is the case, why talk Scottish Independence down rather than keeping your typing finger stuck up your behind where it belongs and off your keyboard altogether...or even use it to support Scottish Independence?

If we are prepared to accept the consequences of whatever we decide and live with it, and you are keen enough to see the end of the Union...what exactly is your problem?

The only problem I can see for non-Scots outside Scotland (and even some Scottish inhabitants of Scotland and Scots living in England), if we Scots in Scotland are prepared to accept, as a country, being no richer (or even perhaps poorer in the short term) and with no world clout, is that we will be taking Scotland out of UK control. So those people can be fairly described as Unionists, however much they say they are not....but talk as if they are.

Care to tell me the difference between how I read your posts and how you mean them?

Unionists may not want to be described as such, because that makes them come across as undemocratic and imperialist....but that is exactly what they are,imo. The invented 305 year old British nationality has, as far as I can see, in their minds, completely subsumed the fact that we are not one homogeneous entity, which thinks the same, reacts the same and are politically the same... but are four distinct nationalities with their own defined cultures and way of looking at things....and that invented "British nationality" is basically the English nationality extrapolated to apply to the every nation in the Union, because the English part of the pretendy "Union" is by far the majority and can force/impose their ideas, opinions, political ideas on every other part of the Union.

The reason for not wanting to let us go has nothing to do with us, what is best for us... or even any spurious claims to care about "the Union" or "a British identity"..or any other such utter twaddle ...it is much more because without Scotland tied to Westminster, the rUK Government would have to have in England the sh1t they don't want..and would lose the tax producing opportunities they do want.

the rUK would not have a "nuclear deterrent park" so they can be a "Nuclear power" even if if it is USA controlled.

the rUK would not have access to nearly the same levels of oil revenues.

the rUK would absolutely not be able to meet their international commitments to the level of carbon emissions by 2020.

the rUk would not have all those empty Scottish spaces to practise bombing to prepare them to trash countries America doesn't like but which pose no threat to the UK.

the UK has always had Dounreay to store forever(and ever it appears) the nuclear crap other countries don't want back because the UK Government didn't feel inclined to waste money in the far north of Scotland(we are expendable) to allow them the facility to convert nuclear waste to vitrified glass..so nearly every ounce of reprocessed nuclear waste removed from the UK and sent back home as initially intended now comes from Sellafield in England....so Sellafield in England...gets rid of its accumulated waste..and Caithness, in the far north of Scotland has to cope with storing nuclear waste for hundreds(at least) of years because the only method of storage authorised by the UK Government is not a method which is acceptable any longer by the vast majority of of countries.

And I'm not going to touch on the disproportionate casualty toll incurred by Scottish soldiers participating in UK wars.

Scotland, despite the Articles of Union, has often been the test bed to ascertain how much the UK government can take the p1ss out of the whole Union. When, by 1708 those Scots who voted for the Union and were added as an afterthought into the English Parliamentary system realised the mistake they had made, the response from one English commissioner, as the attempt to get out of the treaty was defeated by four proxy votes, was "We have catch'd Scotland, and we will bind her fast".

Would you care to justify, with facts and figures, as opposed to your personal opinion, and bearing in mind all your past posts with regard to Scottish independence and "nationalism", your assertion that I'm not a Unionist. I'm all for the disintegration of the Union! because you come across as a Unionist like any other..and given your opinion of committed Scottish Nationalists..completely irrational...and racist to boot.

 

I've already provided a 'non-nationalist' rationale for the break-up of the union. That you've ignored and just given a 'script' response arguably reflects the negative consequences of nationalism, which is linked to the authoritarian personality and a subsequent inability to appreciate individual argument.

For a summary of the economic rationale see Alesina et al. (2000, Economic Integration and Political Disintegration, American Economic Review, Vol. 90 pp. 1276-1296). Here's the abstract to confirm my argument:

In a world of trade restrictions, large countries enjoy economic benefits, because political boundaries determine the size of the market. Under free trade and global markets even relatively small cultural, linguistic or ethnic groups can benefit from forming small, homogeneous political jurisdictions. This paper provides a formal model of the relationship between openness and the equilibrium number and size of countries, and successfully tests two implications of the model. Firstly, the economic benefits of country size are mediated by the degree of openness to trade. Secondly, the history of nation-state creations and secessions is influenced by the trade regime

The problem of course is the political practicalities of disintegration and the negative repercussions of nationalism (being a movement typically constrained by economic irrationality). Thus the economic benefits are rarely observed. As an example, plucked out randomly from the available literature, see Akdede and Hwang (2008, Empirical investigation of disintegrations and nationalism, Applied Economics Letters, Vol. 15, pp. 1065-1071):

This article empirically investigates the relationship between government size and country size for the new countries that gained independence between 1990 and 1993. The relationship between democracy and country size is also investigated. It is found that new independent states have higher public expenditures in gross domestic product and this may be a sign of inefficient use of public resources. However, political disintegrations do not necessarily deliver more civil liberties and political rights

You do realise that you're not a race don't you? I have to ask as nationalists tend to have such warped opinions of themselves (and, whilst they rarely will admit it, have a slice of 'superior race' rhetoric behind their drivel).

I don't see significant difference between Scottish Nationalism and the EDL. Both are characterised by a lack of perspective, the authoritarian personality and a position alien to economic logic. The biggest difference is the former is more populated by the middle classes. They prefer to give their prejudice over a cuppa or on online forums after a cucumber sandwich. Much more civilised in their flag waving abhorrence

 

http://tompride.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/ed-miliband-accuses-alex-salmond-of-scottish-nationalism/

To pretend that Scotland is involved in any kind of right wing Nazi style nationalism is disingenuous and an insult to all the people of Scotland.

This is about politics, always has been about Politics and will remain about politics. Without this distinction being very evident and the foundations being created there would now be no likelihood of Independence. To pretend this is something to do with authoritarian right wing regimes suggests a mind unable to discern the situation and history which have led us to where we are today.

You let yourselves down by not knowing what you are dealing with

Find out more here.

http://sluggerotoole.com/2012/01/11/salmonds-civic-nationalism-a-problem-for-the-westminster-elite/

 

Other than flapping gums, how's the "struggle" going? Where, in fact IS the "struggle"? How is it taking place? Who is "struggling"?

 

Same ole beast despite the middle classes pretending to be all sweet-natured and bleedin heart liberal. We of course see it on here. It doesn't take much for the anti-Englishness and jingoistic flag waving to be knuckle dragging grunted.

I despise the dishonesty of the Scot nationalists. Now we could be all rose tinted glasses about it and just refer to the different forms of nationalism. Broadly speaking we can then refer to three types: civic, superficial and insular proud. However, honesty over the small mindedness is rare. We typically have to celebrate the Americans for at least being honest. See, for example, the research done by Euan Hague when looking at how SNP was marketing their view of "Scottishness" and how it attracted in the far right

 

What would that non-nationalist rationale you claim you offered have been? The economics? That isn't difficult! That informs us that Scotland have missed the boat. Its too late to 'do a Norway''. That also informs us that north sea oil, by skewing resources, actually harms the rest of the Scot economy. That one?

That's not a rationale, that's your opinion, and those of all other Unionists.

I assume the model used was a darn sight more accurate than those used by bank economists which ended up trashing the banking system and the economy........ or those used to prove that there is Global Warming....and to prove there isn't?

The article goes on to say a lot more than you quote.but I can understand why you quoted what you did as it could be read as confirming the Unionist POV.

The conclusion of the article says.....Trade liberalization and average country size are inversely related. The "globalization" of markets goes hand in hand with political separation.

While this paper has emphasized the link from trade regime to country size, one may argue that the opposite channel may also be operative; namely a world of small countries has to adopt a relatively free trade regime, because this is in the interest of small countries. The two channels are not mutually exclusive.

All the article proves is that I am glad I never went in for applied economics or mathematics....and that producing theories on just about everything might earn the academics their wages and grants...but they can no more forecast what will happen than you or I can. And we can all come up with our own possible scenarios.......my optimistic ones....and your pessimistic Unionist ones without the help of people in gilded towers pointing out the blatantly obvious.

But, by the way...The problem of course is the political practicalities of disintegration and the negative repercussions of nationalism (being a movement typically constrained by economic irrationality) out of your own biased head or something you noticed in an article? If the former, do you have examples of what you think of as economic irrationality,......and if the latter, do you have a link?

I never thought we were a race, and nor, AFAIK does the SNP........it certainly is nothing I've heard from anyone involved...though we are a nation, which is a different thing.

Re the race thing..tell your compatriots posting on the Independence threads that then, 'cos if we aren't a race the English aren't either....and then maybe they will stop using the term against the Scots and the SNP. If English people can call us racist bigots....why would anyone object when we reciprocate in kind. Shades of the EDL, the BNP and the National Front hiding within English posters on here, d'you think?

Then when was the last time the SNP took to the streets to foment hatred and encourage fights? When was the last time any SNP member earned these kinds of headlines Four EDL Yorkshire jailed for ten years for violent race attack

You are, I assume, aware that the membership of the SNP, (and I haven't been a card-carrying member for about 15 years) while being much the same in numbers as the membership of all three "Scottish" branches of the Labour , LibDems and Tory Parties combined, still constitutes only around 0.5% of the Scottish population of all races, nationalities, religions and classes? All those who vote SNP or would like independence would not recognise themselves as nationalists as you describe nationalists.......they are just Scots who want the best for their country and they are people simply using the democratic process to achieve that.

Nationalism is an aspiration for national independence in a country under foreign domination. Some Nationalism, as in the far right English groups mentioned above, and their Scottish branches, are chauvinist and fascist...but nationalism is defined as only capable of being something chauvinistic and fascist and something to denigrate by imperialists who would like to see a one world government (preferably with their superior national members in charge, of course) or Unionists in the UK who can see the last bit of the Empire they can still directly control starting to pack its bags.

But, hey, if you want to make yourself appear completely irrational by equating the SNP with the BNP, National Front and EDL etc, just because they have National and/or their national identity in their name.and without any facts with which to back that comparison....feel free. Unionists do completely irrational very well.

Cucumber sandwiches are a posh English thing.....we're much more likely to have a biscuit to dunk, preferably a chocolate one.

 

The problem is that, with the tendency towards the knuckle dragging script, the nationalist will attack without logic. Your reaction is therefore terribly predictable.

This is inanity.

I gave the abstract. Try to make sense!

I doubt your education would matter. Unfortunately a nationalist with an economics education will just tend to go with the script. Of course the argument is straight forward and you won't be able to dismiss it no matter what. We just have to refer to economies of scale after all, with the size of the domestic market critically important in an international economic environment characterised by protectionism

I didn't bother reading any further. I get bored when I see such tedious anti-intellectualism!

 

Makes a change from the anti-Scottishness and jingoistic flag waving by the Unionists, particularly the English posters on here....even those who say would like to see us go. Now, knuckle dragging grunters describes the English far right nationalists rather than the Scottish ones.



You had to go back to 1999, before foreign donations became illegal, to come up with something unsavoury in your eyes to trash the SNP. One of your Unionist compatriots has already been there and done that, though..but I don't suppose you are bothered about repeating a bit of misdirection using the conjecture of one person just because he is a "professor". Now if it had been the UK Tories......you could just have linked to any one of all the national newspapers over the last week or so. Or if it had been any of the English Nationalist Parties, you could have linked to something like this from today Now that is unsavoury, racist and fascist.

Nationalism is fraught with dangers, of course, but so is the blind refusal to recognize that attachment to one's own culture, traditions, and history is a creative, normal, and healthy part of human experience. A democracy that stifles debate on such vital and difficult matters by means of speech codes, explicit or implicit, is asking for a genuinely fascist reaction." ~ Theodore Dalrymple,

 

Actually it doesn't. Same ole bobbins by the same ole small mindedness

 

As does the Unionist......or the person who defends the Union while saying he/she doesn't want to keep it.

We can drag our knuckles over the same script from our different points of view.

Nope........inanity is thinking models, computer, mathematical or economic are any less GIGO than anything designed by people with some pet theory they want to prove (or some grant they want to be aided towards)

I made perfect sense...maybe my Scottish accent is putting you off being able to read. It certainly appears to have affected your ability to quote and respond to all points made, and not just those to which you think you can give clever/snide responses. But you are not alone in that, all your Unionist compatriots have exactly the same problem with Scottish accents as in reading and quoting.

Intellectuals are just people like any other people. If I'd gone to University, as I could have forty years ago..I would maybe now be an academic and have started to believe that my intellectualism gives me insights refused to any other lesser entity.

But where is the intellectualism in stating the blatantly obvious..bar the addition of the formula to model it, which only another intellectual would understand, anyway. Or do you think that it is a world shaking eureka moment to be able to prove with a model that the economic benefits of country size depends on access to markets or that countries looking to become independent are less likely to do it if their only trading partner is the country they want the independence from?

Jesus wept..any one in first or second year secondary school economics could have told you that.......though they'd likely not have been able to prove it with the formula...but then they'd have realised that it was a pointless showie offie intellectual exercise to prove an accepted economic fact.

We just have to refer to economies of scale after all, with the size of the domestic market critically important in an international economic environment characterised by protectionism

Nope..we don't have to refer to economies of scale at all......or protectionism. Maybe it would be fair to say the unionist will attack without logic.

You think we should refer to them because it suits you to think that, while logic understands that economics has as many variations on a theme as there are economists to vary them according to their own personal interpretations.

You do come across as a bit of a supercilious snob, Reiver.....or is it just that you see yourself as a bit of an intellectual and don't like to be reminded that intellectuals can produce as much crap as your average five year old artist?

People who see letters after a name or see that they are on the faculty of a University and confer on the individual guru like status however much they say nothing new, but in different ways, are simply Sun readers who would like to believe they aren't.

Now that is insulting.........because I do you the courtesy of reading your posts and responding to them point by point...even though I am bored when I see such tedious and irrational anti-nationalism/anti-Scot and anti-democratic posts from yourself (and others).

But then, unlike yourself, I don't have irrational delusions of intellectual supremacy, or even of adequacy, so I feel obliged to read the points of views of others, because that is what a forum is all about, is it not. I don't feel obliged to answer them, unless I have something useful to add to the debate (something Unionists seem to forget is the purpose of a debate forum as they troll for the Union.)

 

I'm not a Unionist. I stopped reading here this time.

 

And with this you prove the point in the post I have just made.

The refuge of someone with nothing to say to further debate is to say nothing with a supercilious sneer.

In any forum but this one it would be called trolling.

 

The problem is that you're not actually debating. You're giving a script, typically given to 'peas in the pod' English nationalists as you compare the scrapes on your knuckles.

I do hope the Union ends. It makes economic sense. However, if it doesn't, at least it will upset the nationalists. There's always a silver lining. And on that note I'm off. I just find no fun in replying to someone using a script. Bye!

 

You SAY you are not a Unionist..but you read like every Unionist posting on the Independence threads.and not any English Nayionalist who wants rid of us ASAP.

So...if you walk like a Unionist, and talk like a Unionist...you are perceived as a Unionist..but denial is a good way to save having to respond to a nationalist scumbag post to which you don't have a logical rational response.

Given I post the way I do, would you believe me if I said I wasn't a Nationalist and used that as an excuse to ignore your posts.......or would you be saying you had beaten me into silence?

 

Nope....I am not giving any script. The only entities I can think of which uses scripts are the Israeli Hasbara posters..and Unionists.