Scotland's new currency

[minestrone]

You seem to miss that the rapid growth of edinburgh as a financial centre has been at least partly due to the regulatory environment in the UK. Without the UK regulatory environment it would be a lot smaller, you wouldn't have had tesco, virgin and a host of US fund managers setting up shop there.

I continually see this reference by yourself to a sudden growth in the size of Edinburgh as a financial centre and I am totally mystified where you got this from. It is just completely made up. As someone who has worked in the financials there for over a decade the companies that you go there to work for have been there and have been very big for sometimes many hundreds of years.

Sure RBS grew too large buying into IB but they were always a large bank employing many thousands in the city. Tesco are there as they are nothing more than a cut from RBS, don't know much about virgin but fund management does not have to happen in the location of the fund registration.

Again people like to open offices there because there is a massive pool of trained financial staff and it is a great place to live and do business.

[doodab]

I continually see this reference by yourself to a sudden growth in the size of Edinburgh as a financial centre and I am totally mystified where you got this from. It is just completely made up. As someone who has worked in the financials there for over a decade the companies that you go there to work for have been there and have been very big for sometimes many hundreds of years.

Sure RBS grew too large buying into IB but they were always a large bank employing many thousands in the city. Tesco are there as they are nothing more than a cut from RBS, don't know much about virgin but fund management does not have to happen in the location of the fund registration.

Again people like to open offices there because there is a massive pool of trained financial staff and it is a great place to live and do business.

It grew over 30% in 5 years from 2000 - 2005, according to these people Scottish Financial Enterprise - Home - The representative body for Scotland's Financial Services Industry

I appreciate the likes of Scottish Widows and RBS have been there for hundreds of years but there are a lot of other firms that have set up shop there or expanded their operations considerably in the last 15 years, and that probably wouldn't have happened to the same degree were Edinburgh not in the UK. In particular the likes of Virgin & Tesco would have been unlikely to set up their UK headquarters outside of the UK.

Of course you could argue that the preexisting Scottish firms would never have become the size they are if Scotland wasn't part of the UK as well.

[scooterscot]

Just don't see why Scotland needs to keep the £.

Partly because we're already using. Secondly it pisses off the neighbours.

[scooterscot]

The rest of the UK are pretty apathetic to be honest. We aren't begging Scotland to stay, in fact a lot of people would be happy to see them go so if they vote to go their own way then we wish them all the best.

The trouble is that now Alex Salmond has been shot down by the three major political parties on the currency union thing and he's on the ropes because he doesn't have an alternative so it's all looking a bit flimsy.

It seems to me there's a point missed here. The map of the UK is in the hands of Scottish residents in seven months time. Whilst apathy might be plenty south of the border it's striking to see how little folks in the south seem to recognise the land they've known for centuries could shrink quite quickly all of a sudden.

[scooterscot]

Yep, I can fully understand that the UK is responsible for the debt and it can't let Scotland take it on (and potentially default on it). They need to make that crystal clear because unless they did it would destroy the UK's credit rating and raise the cost of borrowing dramatically so it's a no brainer isn't it.

However, your contention that the newly independent Scotland would be "debt free" is wrong, reading on a few lines later it says:

However, the Treasury, in addition to its guarantee, added that an independent Scotland would still be expected to pay its "fair share".

Exceptions are not facts. And I can see that being kicked into the long grass in the event an indepdenent Scotland is not in a currency union with the rUK. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Osbourne really should have come up with something better than an popular ultimatum.

[Zero Liability]

Partly because we're already using. Secondly it pisses off the neighbours.

But it also means a foreign central bank is essentially managing monetary policy. That said, the situation would be little different if the ECB were that bank. That may be good in a way, if that central bank refuses to indulge in loose monetary policy, as then politicians would have to be very careful with borrowing and spending, but from the CB's perspective it makes its work that much harder.

[minestrone]

It grew over 30% in 5 years from 2000 - 2005, according to these people Scottish Financial Enterprise - Home - The representative body for Scotland's Financial Services Industry

I appreciate the likes of Scottish Widows and RBS have been there for hundreds of years but there are a lot of other firms that have set up shop there or expanded their operations considerably in the last 15 years, and that probably wouldn't have happened to the same degree were Edinburgh not in the UK. In particular the likes of Virgin & Tesco would have been unlikely to set up their UK headquarters outside of the UK.

Of course you could argue that the preexisting Scottish firms would never have become the size they are if Scotland wasn't part of the UK as well.

Well I cant actually see what the 30% refers to but over those years I would imagine a 30% increase was made by most financials in Europe if not the world on a great many of the statistics you could use to measure financial centre growth. They are marketing Edinburgh as well so will use the best figure they have. TO suggest it has become distorted by recent growth is wrong.

But Salmond, who claims to have once been an economist for BOS, though that it was short selling that was causing the BOS problems, when it was announced it was mismanagement he completely disappeared for 3 weeks. He cant be trusted.

[amcdonald]

:
To answer your question. There can be no precedent for an independent country to be held to ransom by a private institution that would have put the saving of depositors at risk.

Would an independent Scotland had deregulated it's financial industry? I doubt it. And thus would not have got ourselves into the mess the tories have led us into in the first place.

Considering it was Gordon Brown (A Scottish socialist MP no less) who introduced deregulation in the UK, why are you so sure that your Scottish socialists wouldn't do the same in Scotland.

[Doggy Styles]

Unfortunately you don't seem to have read the analysis of economists and financial leaders, who have said that Scotland can't walk away from the debts, or that if they do then they can expect punitive interest rates to be charged, both to the new government and at the consumer level. The consensus opinion is that no matter what Salmond may say at the moment, there's no way he'd follow through with declaring Scotland debt-free.


It's a shame that so many supposedly intelligent people on this forum seem to drivel based on emotion without using any critical thinking.

It's not a shame at all. Our two economically clueless colleagues on here are great entertainment!

[AtW]

But Scotland would effectively be in debt to rUK for it's share

Or else what?