Freedom for Tooting! And other similar nutty fringe communities

[chrisp65]

15 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

It is still going along so with the limited tools at their disposal its not a total disaster.

I wonder if it would be a lot better if their eye wasn't 100% on Independence though.

Question to anyone really : Is there an estimate of the GDP of an independent Scotland ? I think The Netherlands is approx. 950 B.  Approx. 50% population in Scotland,  I guess it as 500 B? (This is Austria / Belgium / Ireland level)

This is from 2016, almost not worth discussing the last few years:

 

Scotland as a whole, bang average European GDP in 2016.

But the comparison has a flaw. That’s the GDP of Scotland, under Westminster rule.

In 1919, the GDP of Wales was equal to the GDP of Ireland. In 2022 the GDP the GDP of Ireland is about 6 times that of Wales.

What changed during that time period?

[blandy]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

What changed during that time period?

Coal and Steel went out of fashion and you were born, plus Father Ted was discovered in Ireland. That concludes the lecture on correlation and causation. Please make your way out via the 2 exits to the rear.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

What changed during that time period?

Apart from the obvious(Who rules them),  technology and coal did Wales in.  Lost the coal and Ireland got loads of investment via tech companies and the like.  I don't think anything replaced the coal industry.  Nothing ever could I suppose.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

Coal and Steel went out of fashion and you were born, plus Father Ted was discovered in Ireland. That concludes the lecture on correlation and causation. Please make your way out via the 2 exits to the rear.

Would you lie a cup of tea ? Go on.

[blandy]

[CVByrne]

16 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Apart from the obvious(Who rules them),  technology and coal did Wales in.  Lost the coal and Ireland got loads of investment via tech companies and the like.  I don't think anything replaced the coal industry.  Nothing ever could I suppose.

The United States with massive historical links to Ireland. Ireland in the EU and low taxation with free 3rd level education. You get a highly educated English speaking workforce that is in the EU. All during the boom period for technology with the birth of the internet. 

So opportunist, there is no way an independent Scotland is suddenly going to replicate Ireland. 

What happened to Ireland between independence and 1990 though when the boom started? Those were 70 years of hell for everyone. Scotland would have massive pain if it had Independence to start with

Edited June 30, 2022 by CVByrne

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Coal and Steel went out of fashion and you were born, plus Father Ted was discovered in Ireland. That concludes the lecture on correlation and causation. Please make your way out via the 2 exits to the rear.

 

1 hour ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Apart from the obvious(Who rules them),  technology and coal did Wales in.  Lost the coal and Ireland got loads of investment via tech companies and the like.  I don't think anything replaced the coal industry.  Nothing ever could I suppose.

 

Wales is currently a net exporter of energy (which makes it all the more odd we need to locate some new nuclear power stations here, but I digress), but doesn’t get to set the tariff. Wales is also an exporter of water, but doesn’t get to set the tariff. This obsession with Wales was coal and now coal has gone, well it kind of illustrates the problem. People from outside an area with limited understanding of an area presuming to know the ills and solutions for an area.

And yes, technology has moved on but hasn’t been truly exploited within Wales, where investment decisions, for decades were made solely in Westminster. Now, that’s changed very slightly, Westminster now decides to give the Welsh Government some money it can then spend on specific things. Which is quite nice for Westminster because they can now say it’s Wales government under investing in technology.

There’s a bit of a gap here in the thinking. Without autonomy, with others deciding the budget and the areas of for investment a country cannot exploit its natural resources, including it’s people. It then gets told it needs to be looked after as it is relatively poor compared with the country holding the purse strings and attracting the talent. 

I’m not sure how else I can explain that. 

[blandy]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

This obsession with Wales was coal and now coal has gone, well it kind of illustrates the problem. People from outside an area with limited understanding of an area presuming to know the ills and solutions for an area.

My reply you quoted was tongue in cheek, but also trying to make a point about "it's complicated" (the answer to your question and it's easy to pick something and say "look this correlates with that, and therefore that's why it happened". 

It is nevertheless true and a fact that Wales used to rely, way back, on Coal mining and Steel making for a large chunk of its GDP and that situation has changed, due to China, Globalism, Thatcher (for @tonyh29, that one) and much more. Those industries are much, much smaller now and one of the reasons for a drag on GDP compared to say a tiger economy, such as Ireland's became. An Ireland which has changed from a pretty much rural farming economy to something much more than that - with various low tax incentives for the likes of Apple and tech companies to set up there and impact GDP. The EU membership is another part of it for Ireland, the peace process helped and the removal of borders with the UK and thus the flow of more trade...

None of that, not one bit of it is to "do down" or pretend to know "solutions" for Wales. Whether Wales is independent or not, you're right that there are natural resources still in Wales, including energy and water and wind and tides and solar, and there could be much more in the future, regardless of who precisely is in charge of governing Wales and to what extent. I'm personally unconvinced that a different form of Government changes any of that, but am open to persuasion.

I'm not sure I get the point about "Wales" not setting the tariff for water? The various water companies set the tariffs and there's an upper limit set by Westminster, as far as I know. Of course, there's no specific reason why Wales couldn't ask for/be given that control for water tariffs for welsh water company(ies) and choose to set a higher limit and make your water more expensive, or for Welsh water not to be able to sell water to the nasty lot next door at whatever price they wanted to ask for. Fine by me. And English companies could do the same for the stuff sold to Wales. It's one of the things we've seen with that Brexit that there was - the UK has suffered economically for leaving a bigger union and is in a weaker position as a consequence. Things that the UK was a leader at are particularly suffering a migration away from the UK and to Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt and so on. And it's not just the money men. Science too has taken a hit from Brexit. Co-operation generally has fallen, there's more paperwork and admin. Welsh exports go in significant part via England nad even if Wales was to join the EU as an indie nation, that hurdle will remain, with all the associated problems caused by Brexit.

Where I completely agree with your sentiments (I think) is that the centralised control of the UK from London which has become much worse since Thatcher is very counter productive. All the people doing the government of elsewhere are based in London and dictating how (more for English regions than Wales or Scotland, which have more autonomy) and where money is spent and stuff is built. Favourites are picked and political gerrymandering goes on. It's crap and it's partly fuelling independence sentiment and just resentment in Wales and Scotland (and the rest of England).

[bickster]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

there is no way an independent Scotland is suddenly going to replicate Ireland. 

Is that because they won't break EU Law and give illegal tax breaks?

[Genie]

Ireland nearly went bankrupt not so long ago. Are they back to standing on their own 2 feet now?

[CVByrne]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Is that because they won't break EU Law and give illegal tax breaks?

No it's because that ship has sailed. The internet and tech boom has happened and those companies now have their EU headquarters in and around Dublin. Ireland decided low corporation tax and high income tax was the way to go.

Big tech obviously used their leverage to concoct elaborate tax avoidance schemes involving Amsterdam and Ireland to lower their tax burden even more. Those loopholes are gone and a global corporation tax floor should stop any further schemes.

[CVByrne]

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

Ireland nearly went bankrupt not so long ago. Are they back to standing on their own 2 feet now?

Second wealthiest country after Luxembourg in Europe per capita. 

Good video explaining 

 

[bickster]

21 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

No it's because that ship has sailed. The internet and tech boom has happened and those companies now have their EU headquarters in and around Dublin. Ireland decided low corporation tax and high income tax was the way to go.

Big tech obviously used their leverage to concoct elaborate tax avoidance schemes involving Amsterdam and Ireland to lower their tax burden even more. Those loopholes are gone and a global corporation tax floor should stop any further schemes.

That's not really the case with Apple is it? The EU Commision found that what Ireland did with Apple breached State Aid rules as it gave an unfair selective competitive advantage. A 13 billion Euro illegal state aid advantage over 10 years.

That's obviously just one company

[CVByrne]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

That's not really the case with Apple is it? The EU Commision found that what Ireland did with Apple breached State Aid rules as it gave an unfair selective competitive advantage. A 13 billion Euro illegal state aid advantage over 10 years.

That's obviously just one company

That was political posturing really more than anything. The ruling was annulled in EU courts. The Commission had made their judgement based on Apple breaking EU competition laws, not that they had illegally broken tax laws.

The political point being made was be tough on tech tax. Ireland had already closed all those loopholes in 2015 and gave companies until 2020 to to find new tax arrangements within the laws. 

Ireland doesn't really have any tax advantages anymore other than a slightly lower Corp tax rate than UK.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

This obsession with Wales was coal and now coal has gone, well it kind of illustrates the problem. People from outside an area with limited understanding of an area presuming to know the ills and solutions for an area.

Honestly it was more of a question (I admit to limited understanding,  was no having a go),  I cant help been from the outside (50% welsh or not).

[chrisp65]

So, I think what all the (genuinely) interesting chatter around GDP and tax and investment shows, is that there are interesting and vitally important details to discuss. But there are arguments some more compelling than others, to both sides of everything. There are always at least three sides to every story.

You’ll never predict the future. Who could have predicted when voting for Brexit that we were in a land where the Prince of Wales receives carrier bags of cash and Boris Johnson gets blowies off job candidates if Private Eye is to be believed. Or that war in Ukraine would make for such interesting times.

So for all the detail, for me, it still kind of comes down to ‘feels’.

The usual caveat: this is only interesting chatter, on a forum. I know it was absolutely in jest but Blandy ref’s ‘nasty lot next door’. I usually really try and stay away from any language like that, even in jest. Eventually those joking little jibes get taken too far and someone somewhere either gets upset or ups the anti and it all gets uncomfortable. All I can say, from personal experience, is I know lots of Scots and Welsh that want independence (I also know more that don’t but they are wrong so can be discounted). I don’t know any that want it because they dislike English people. That would be racist and I couldn’t be doing with those sort of people.

 

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I know it was absolutely in jest but Blandy ref’s ‘nasty lot next door’. I usually really try and stay away from any language like that

There's a side to Independence campaigns that says worse far than what I wrote. It wasn't an attempt to put bad words in a nice person's mouth, more a reflection that such sentiments do exist within Nationalist arguments and campaigns for independence wherever in the world that may be. Sturgeon is very good at complaining about "Westminster" and never about "The English", but go down a few levels and you soon find a different tone.

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

There's a side to Independence campaigns that says worse far than what I wrote. It wasn't an attempt to put bad words in a nice person's mouth, more a reflection that such sentiments do exist within Nationalist arguments and campaigns for independence wherever in the world that may be. Sturgeon is very good at complaining about "Westminster" and never about "The English", but go down a few levels and you soon find a different tone.

Oh absolutely. On all sides that is very true. I wasn’t attempting to complain, I’d have done that direct.

I steer clear of those people and if this forum was moderated in a way where that was acceptable, I wouldn’t be here ‘cos I’m a pussy.

This is one of the few places where it’s kept ‘nice’. Weirdly, the other place for me where it stays nice is the local football team, where side by side we have Welsh Republican black star flags, and Derby County / Barry Town mash up flags.

[CVByrne]

A series of things that would need to be discussed and worked out exactly before any referendum campaign could be anything other ideological nationalism.

1. London and the South East contribute to the rest of the UK Economy more than the other parts contribute themselves. This is always the case with countries with a giant global hub city like London. Ireland has the same thing with Dublin. The money generated by London is redistributed to fund hospitals, schools, pension etc.. throughout the UK. So what is Scotland's plan to cover that massive funding shortfall? 

2. The future of Scotland with the EU. If Scotland intended to join the EU there would have to be a hard border with England which would be a big barrier to trade between the two countries. As Scotland was part of the UK the economic ties with England as far far deeper than the UK had with the EU. 63% of the Scottish trade is with the rest of the UK. It is inevitable this would have a significant impact on the Scottish Economy creating trade barriers with the UK that would have to exist because of EU rule. 

3. The Pound. Would Scotland have to create its own currency and own Central Bank and what National Debt would Scotland have to take on. How would Scotland raise debt on international markets? If Scotland wasn't part of the Euro nor the Pound this could bring a very uncertain future economically. 

4. Assuming the first three items have been decided. What would Scotland's plan be to grow the economy in the future? 75% of Scotlands economy is in the Services sector of which almost all of it is Financial and Business services. These are fundamentally linked to the financial centre in London. As those two will be in different countries with different regulations and potentially different currencies. This key sector of Scotlands economy would likely suffer badly as Financial companies based in London would need to move jobs to England. Interestingly Birmingham would be the perfect location with HS2. 

I don't think the SNP are any different from rag tags bands like Sinn Fein in Ireland if they can't answer clearly their position on the fundamental issues that Independence will cause.

This isn't like Catalonia, who will stay in the Euro, keep freedom of movement of people and are the most prosperous region in Spain so would have a surplus of tax revenues to spend. 

[MakemineVanilla]

When considering Scotland's inequality and social problems, which includes 1200 drug deaths per year, I always arrive at the same question: can politics solve the problems of geographic disadvantage?

It is quite common that a country's wealth is concentrated on the coast and that the interior is poorer. This probably applies to Ireland where the hi-tech industries create wealth in Dublin, Waterford, Galway and Limerick, while the midland counties are much less prosperous.

Spain has most of the wealth concentrated in Madrid, Barcelona and Zaragoza, while vast areas of the interior are hardly populated.

Russia would certainly have a much bigger GDP if most of the country wasn't frozen tundra, and they had more warm-water ports.

The lagging development of Africa has been explained by its geographic disadvantages, like lack of sheltered ports and navigable rivers.

No system seems capable of offsetting such disadvantages.