I can't believe it? Independence?????

[SIII]

It's a gamble.

If you think you are going to be better off personally, you are going to vote yes and vice-versa. I am fortunate, come decision time, my job will not be on the line and I support those that it possibly could have serious repercussions for.

But unless your income, career, family, etc are in the direct firing line, my opinion, as a nation and a people, we will be better off controlling our own national finances. I would not be very keen on the idea of my next door neighbour controlling what i spend my income on, just because he has a bigger house and more family. How is this a fair system?

There are going to be difficulties and we will probably have to be a little bit worse off than we currently are for a few years, but once we get all the little things sorted out, we as a nation are quite capable of doing a better job at running our wee country. As mentioned already, we have our own law system in place, we have our own education system in place (and from 1st hand expierence better, not at the whim of a jumped up little politician) and are quite capable of sorting the other stuff out. We have a very good history of being a productive and inventive nation.

The plans to actually save our oil revenue and earn from it, instead of squander it (Norway model IIRC) will mean we struggle to start with and taxes may go up, but in the long run (10, 15 years) we will be better off.

We only went into a union for monetary reasons and I think this is the main reason to exit. Not cos i hate english or more impotantly english politicians (I do) but because we will have the country and the people as our main focus and not the people of London and the south east.

Isle of Man have their own pound !!! No reason we can't continue to use, once BoE return our gold.

[Blue Flame]

Yes to the question about the pound !!

They could also decide not to join the EU if they want.

Indeed MBK could decide to move herself to Carlisle and then find she is out the EU as well if another upcoming decision making process goes a certain way. Everything is that vague these days.

Probably ,but for every pound issued by Scottish banks the security is lodged with the B of E so I can't get that part of Westminsters argument We already have I.O.M.,Guernsey and Jersey with £Pounds as currency and that system seems to work OK

[pegasus]

Originally Posted by PyroUK

Forgive me if my understanding is wrong but, they can keep the pound as a Scottish pound of their own can't they? We aren't the only country to use the pound.

They can call it what they like, however at the moment the currecy in The UK is The GBP £ (Great Britain Pound). There are I believe 3 banks which have legal and licensed rights to manufacture the Scottish version (RBS, Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank), however none of them are Central Banks, this privilege alone belongs to The Bank Of England, and they charge for the right to hold the funds which guarantee the notes that are passed into circulation.

Please correct this if any of my info is dated or incorrect.

I hope this helps,

P

[PyroUK]

Soooo if I understand correctly....

They take their gold back, make up a bank of Scotland and call it the great Scottish pound. Job done.

Or take the gold back, try to enter the eu and get the euro

Or everybody stops bitching and they keep the gbp and we keep the gold.

To be honest the whole thing just sounds like bitching on both sides, but to be fair mainly ours (uk). I will add that I haven't really looked in to it much as I don't think anything will really happen that quickly.

[pegasus]

Originally Posted by PyroUK

Soooo if I understand correctly....

They take their gold back, make up a bank of Scotland and call it the great Scottish pound. Job done.

Or take the gold back, try to enter the eu and get the euro

Or everybody stops bitching and they keep the gbp and we keep the gold.

To be honest the whole thing just sounds like bitching on both sides, but to be fair mainly ours (uk). I will add that I haven't really looked in to it much as I don't think anything will really happen that quickly.

you would like to think that its that simple, and actually it probably should be, however the "gold" or commodities or reserves that fund the accepted form of currency "eg GBP" were depleted years ago, and the currency is from what I hear traded in workforce, that is you and me - " eh!!??" you ask, I know its hard to understand but the workforce or manpower of the country is its commodity, but that is a completely different argument for another time, with a bottle of whiskey!

P

[PyroUK]

Bugger this I give up! Haha

Wake me up when it's all done!

[TamSV]

A formal currency union would mean Scotland would continue to use Sterling and BoE would be the lender of last resort.

In the absence of a formal currency union, Scotland could have its own wee pound and peg it to Sterling (which is, I suspect, SNP's Plan B). BoE would set interest rates but would not provide backing to a future Scottish bank failure, for example. Alternatively, we could peg it to the Euro or just let the currency float.

[Littlepeahead]

If the Scottish get to keep the oil do the English get to pass over a proportion of our debt in return?

[TamSV]

Yes, the Gold went some time ago. There is still much discussion to be had on equitable sharing of assets and liabilities. The currency is an asset that will be included in that horse-trading.