Yesterday, I watched whilst the britnats almost fall over one another to shout the news that IFS (which is not an unbiased source no matter what anyone says) had run a projection and found that Scotland would hit a perfect storm in funding 50 years in the future with regard to reducing oil revenues and a population that was aging faster than the rUK if Scotland were independent. It would mean either an increase of 8% in taxation or a similar reduction in public spending. DEATH OF A THINK-TANK (IFS) Now Im all for giving the britnats the benefit of the doubt to make our argument even more credible and stronger but for any think tank to try to make a prediction 50 years in the future beggars belief even by anyones standards. As one friend said Can the IFS tell me what the price of teabags will be in 2040 because I really need to know. Okay, having said that, for the next five minutes well take what they said seriously and therefore deal with it in that way.... In any predictive model certain assumptions have to be made just the same as when you are planning to take the family to the beach, one prediction that youd make would be the weather and any trip to the beach is always better when the sun is shining or at least its not raining. The IFS prediction is so far in the future that its like you predicting the weather for that trip to the beach one year in advance ensuring its not raining. And thats quite a prediction without a crystal ball. Yesterday, we also had several people on the pro-independence side showing why the IFS prediction was (for want of a better word) *pants*. Here I have used the words of one bright individual because those words give a feeling as to just how incredible the prediction is. Assumptions of the IFS 1. An independent Scotland will continue with the same disastrous political and economic trajectory as the current Westminster coalition 2) We will inherit our population share of the UK debt, rather than a historical share based on the higher level of revenue contribution and debt over-repayment of £64 Billion we have made over the last thirty years (which is a matter for negotiation). 3) An independent Scotland, buoyed by significant oil and gas revenues would either need or wish to pay down inherited debt at the same rate as Westminster. 4) That oil and gas revenues will simply be used up in general public spending rather than invested creatively to prepare for a high tech, re-industrialised post oil economy. 5) That the most pessimistic projections for oil and gas revenues (the Westminster governments OBR projections), rather than the much more optimistic projections of the Department for Climate Change or the oil and gas industry itself, are the ones that should be used. 6) - and this is a beauty - that it is somehow not automatic that Scotland would receive its geographic share of oil and gas revenues once independent but only a share based on population i.e. that in defiance of common sense and international law we would still hand over the bulk of our oil and gas revenues to rUK!! In essence, what the report really says is that a low wage, low job security, service sector based economy (exactly what they UK has delivered for us in the last thirty-five years) would be difficult for an independent Scotland to sustain. However we dont want to sustain that kind of economy. We want to build a high wage, high skilled, high end economy based on production of real wealth. And I havent even mentioned anything about our population aging faster than that of the rUK. I certainly know that at the moment we die sooner if that helps. Does it help? Ill let you figure out that one. Kindest regards, David Milligan Lvss
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 08:42:25 +0000
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