To think its ok to tell voters that businesses will move south if its a yes?

[Loopylala7]

If these businesses do intend to shift south of the border if its a yes, shouldn't the voters know this is a possible outcome? Why is it considered unfair for this information to be out? Can somebody please explain? Am I being a bit dense?

As I said above. I am not bothered either way. However I saw this and thought it was very funny!

Chelsy
Sorry to confuse - JRF is the Joseph Rowntree Foundation - and of course, what you say is absolutely true.
If you live in a country where all of the children have diamond studded ipads and yours is purely gold plated, you're in poverty. A little flippant I know, but a valid point.

Chelsy your statistical analysis of the JRFs stats is just double speak.

Your doom mongering about the decline of Scotland based on your friend's lack of holiday bookings is naive.

Wow! I have to say I have been learning quite a lot from this thread & glad I posed the initial question. To the doubters who think I'm being silly asking 'banal' questions, I don't have a degree in business or economics so how am I meant to understand the full situation without asking such questions? - this is a really complicated web and I don't envy the voters, although think its quite bad that only one of the four home nations are able to vote on what is meant to be our joint union.

No Daughter - there was no double-speak, simply clarification (and correction).

Don't be so defensive. Chelsy was simply sharing her thoughts and experience, which is what the thread is about.

Loopy - I'm glad you started it too. I've learned a lot!

DaughterDilemma Chelsy your statistical analysis of the JRFs stats is just double speak

That must have hit home at you.

btw it wasn't a statistical analysis - it was a basic, common sense critical analysis.

If you say that to live in poverty equates with their parents or caregivers earning less than a certain percentage of average income, you are guaranteed always to have a certain percentage in poverty, unless you are a completely socialist state, redistributing all income.

What about actually doing something about poverty, rather than using it as a political tool?

Ireland still has a population 2 1/2 million less than it had in the 1840s. It is one of the biggest providers of migrants to the UK from any country, usually for economic or political reasons. Obviously it has factors specific to Ireland explaining this, but is it really the best example of what Scotland would be like on independence? Third less population than it has now in 150 years time because of net outward migration??

The huge drop in population in Ireland from the 1840s was entirely due to the effects of the great famine. Nothing to do with independence which happened in the early part of the next century.

I guess the Joseph Rowntree Foundation are just making it up thrn and poverty doesn't actually exist. I guess they should be grateful at least they get a hot dinner at school, no wait, that's only those on free school meals. The poverty stats only include working households.

Ireland still has a population 2 1/2 million less than it had in the 1840s. It is one of the biggest providers of migrants to the UK from any country, usually for economic or political reasons. Obviously it has factors specific to Ireland explaining this, but is it really the best example of what Scotland would be like on independence? Third less population than it has now in 150 years time because of net outward migration?

Whao, just whao!

I'm a bit shocked that you take something that was caused by Colonialism to defend it.

In what way is Scotland a colony?

"I guess the Joseph Rowntree Foundation are just making it up thrn and poverty doesn't actually exist. I guess they should be grateful at least they get a hot dinner at school, no wait, that's only those on free school meals. The poverty stats only include working households."

Oh, please calm down. Noone was saying those kids without enough food or basic housing don't existthey do, plenty of themjust that they probably don't constitute 27% of the population.

The surveys in question should really be understood as measures of INEQUALITY, more than absolute poverty.

Given that societies with high levels of income equality do better on most measures (mental and physical health, crime levels, general wellbeing etc.) than highly unequal societies even if the unequal societies are technically richer, it's perfectly sensible and reasonable to measure inequality levels in a society and worry about them.

But I do think that the people who design and write about these surveys should be a bit more honest that this is really inequality rather than poverty in the strict sense that they are talking about. Otherwise it just become a stick to beat the surveys with ("Look, these people are mostly not actually poor at all, this is a deliberately misleading survey, HA HA!") and distracts attention away from the issue of inequality, which as I say is actually a very important issue in its own right.

What's more, it is unlikely that inequality would reduce in an independent Scotland. The best way to reduce inequality is tax policy. However, Scotland doesn't vote for parties with tax-and-spend policies any more than the English do. We had 13 years of Labour, so we know what they think. The other party - the SNP - won't commit to a 50% top rate and want to reduce corporation tax to just about nil. That will make matters worse, not better, because big business and high wealth individuals will benefit disproportionately

Clearly Scottish politicians don't think there are many votes in tax-and-spend policies.

Even if the oil did provide much of a boost - and remember that Scotland outspent the tax it generated last year - it would be Tory-style trickle-down economics.

There would be food banks in an independent Scotland unless some senior politicians do a major about-face.

Chelsy, the population of the 1840's was decimated by famine caused by British economic policy. We were producing masses of food; wheat, meat, eggs etc... which was shipped out by the British government to sell to those who could pay a much higher price. Potatoes made up the bulk of the poors diet and they starved because they couldn't afford to buy food and pay their rents to the British landlords when the crops failed. The population reduced from over 9 million pre famine to under three million at the turn of 1900, that figure includes Northern Ireland. Nothing to do with independence, everything to do with being run by a foreign political class that oppressed and despised them. The entire island North and South has a population of about 5 and a half million combined now.

Astounding that some people here think that the Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians and the rest are desperate to get back under soviet dictatorship because they were so much better. They're much better off now as poor as they may seem compared to the west. There are all sorts of minorities and I'm sure a tiny few in those countries may long for the days of being dictated to, persecuted and starved to death from politicians thousands of miles away but I've yet to meet any and apart from a Russian minority in Eastern Ukraine who wish to return to people most like them, there is no majority will to return to Moscow. That's the majorities greatest fear because they remember the horror of it and the powerlessness to change anything.

It's up to the Scots to make their own choices. They can rule themselves for better or worse or they can choose to continue to be ruled by business interests from London. They can choose to determine their own foreign policy or continue to be dragged into resource wars they don't believe in. They can choose to take the power allowing them to do what's necessary to benefit their local environment or be dictated to by people who've never been there and don't care for the consequences of bad policies.

If some businesses move out, more will move in and be created if the government has the sense to offer a slightly lower corporate tax rate than Britain. They will have the power to do whatever they want to the benefit of themselves. It could be a wonderful opportunity for them to recharge their country.

Nobody needs Westminster, they're a boil on the arse of the world and Scotland would be well rid of them.

Astounding that some people here think that the Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians and the rest are desperate to get back under soviet dictatorship because they were so much better.

Absolutely no-one has suggested that. They have simply responded to the suggestion that the former Soviet countries are absolutely fine when manifestly they are not. I take it you're not seriously suggesting, Flyaway, that being part of the UK is akin to being under a Soviet dictatorship?

Flyaway, you suggest that the Scots are a homogenous mass all of whom dislike UK foreign policy, and that a Yes vote will lead to a Utopia where every decision of the Scottish government will be agreed and accepted by the entire happy Scottish population. Clearly that isn't going to be the case and it is idle, and indeed a serious misrepresentation, to pretend otherwise.

The breakdown of the USSR has shown us how government changes and independence in a healthy country full of educated people can work brilliantly. There is absolutely no reason why it won't in Scotland. The doom and gloom is just negative talk based on fear and mistrust.

The doom and gloom is just negative talk based on fear and mistrust.

Oh please the 'fear' thing has been done to death!

I think the NO campaign have made serious mistakes by focusing entirely on economics. This is not about short-term economics - it is about identity mutuality and destiny.

The dire warnings may be entirely true but if I were in Scotland they would piss me right off - it's as if the No campaign think Scottish people are incapable of running their own affairs.

Also, I think after the economic crisis, people don't trust politicians and economists any more. The Westminster 'brand' is seriously contaminated. Salmond doesn't look any better from here tbh but he's probably less stained than the Westminster lot.

I didn't say that at all Chunderella. Now look even you are getting it wrong. Have you found anything constructive of your to add to the conversation yet?

And if it all goes pearshaped there are plenty of nations prepared to help out and of course the European Union.

The EU's 'help' for Greece and Italy and Spain when they defaulted has almost finished them off. I have a friend who teaches English as a foreign language. She has never been busier and some of her clientele includes former head teachers who want to learn ENglish to come and work here . . . as cleaners.

Why would Angela Merkel be kinder to Scots than to Greeks or Italians if things go pearshaped? And where are these other nations who will help you out?

The EU supported the dismantling of the USSR, they know what makes sense. And the EU support Greece and Spain,they wouldn't be in the EU if they didn't, they are just aking them pay off some of their own sky high debts that they largely created themselves.

Are you saying the Scots wouldn't be able to handle their finances?

Earthwind, fear of the unknown is what is behind the No vote. It is done to death because that's the only reason for voting no.

Until Scotland has its own government nobody will know whether it was a good idea or not. In most democratic countries things change and evolve. The same will happen in Scotland.

The only people who can change Scotland's outcome will be the people themselves, after a yes vote. Stick with rUK and you lie in that partnership forever with their debt and their UKIP, their inequality and their Royals, wars and nuclear missiles.

So you are now comparing this to the USSR dismantling?