the scottish independence referendum

Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB 20h
Wow. Edinburgh council says 89.6% of postal votes have been returned. That's massive. #indyref http://bit.ly/ZpOZMk

Rebecca Gray ‏@Rebecca__Gray 4h
By 10am, 18.5% of Scots had voted! Huge turnout. #indyref http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/u/indyref-live-vote.18092014718

big turnout as expected

The Stiglitz column is solid: http://www.scotsman.com/news/joseph-stiglitz-independence-has-costs-and-benefits-1-3541038

how do scottish people itt feel about conservative leaning people in the southeast of england who want or claim to want scotland to vote for independence?

the thing that worries me abt scottish independence from an economic perspective is they seem dead set on a currency union of some type which is not the best imo

has this been posted yet? fun to see how other areas are reacting http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w

neither krugman or stiglitz are particularly convincing because they are speaking in generalities from afar

thought this piece was better than both in prognosticating (or disavowing prognostications about) the likely economic consequences

not a nobel prize winning economist but a shrewd writer, and not american

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/15/scottish-economy-viable-scots-state/print

Great column. Thanks.

There was this also, written in February:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/23/scottish-referendum-salmond-independence-oil

lol at Niall Ferguson being described as an "Economist"

"I have to say that after the events I've been facing over the past few days, assassination would be a welcome release."

-- British Prime Minister David Cameron, quoted by National Review.

wow someones a lil stressed out

the sterling sharing agreement would presumably be a medium term thing until scotland is stabilized enough fiscally for a new currency and the formalities would certainly take longer than 18 months or whatever to set up as it says there

that fiscal stabilization would be painful though, to some degree by necessity else the usual capital wolves are at the door, and also because of domestic corporate or liberal interests mitigating social democratic aspirations

a new scottish currency would probably have to be in some sort of ERM with sterling in the immediate term anyway? even in ten years' time there will be huge amount of sterling denominated mortgage debt in scotland

lol at Niall Ferguson being described as an "Economist".

Economists, yep, they rarely get things wrong and are noted for their unanimity in most matters.

niall ferguson is personally unpleasant but amid all of the risible 'defence of small nations' dogshit still being current among uk politicians and commentariat wrt 1914, he deserves some respect for go against the grain

no reason to bother reading anything he writes about current uk/scottish politics

the sterling sharing agreement would presumably be a medium term thing until scotland is stabilized enough fiscally for a new currency and the formalities would certainly take longer than 18 months or whatever to set up as it says there

See, that would at least be an answer and/or make sense. But no, it's use "continue to use sterling".

I wouldn't say "Scotland = Ireland" would be likely. It may happen but the assumption is the SNP would be the biggest party to carry out policies that would result in 'plaything for multinationals', but if things aren't working they could disintegrate as a poltical force.

Great column. Thanks.

Aditya Chakrabortty rocks.

yeah ive said here before that he is the best guardian writer by a furlong (although some days that is not unlike being celtic in scottish football)
elliot is quite good too

do you think salmond seriously wants to remain under ecb dominion forever xps? not a rhetorical question, maybe he does idk
seems more like a temporary step that is given prominence to reisssue scottish debtors, its not like hardline nationalists wont vote yes anyway

#reassure#

What's the point of a 49.9%/50.1% score? Shouldn't it be "at least 75% of the votes" or something?

are u arguing this should be a supermajority vote

Not supermajority perhaps, but too close and we'll never hear the end of it from the losing side.

fairly sure if it required say 51% and 50.93% voted yes you would get rather more rancour.....

Setting up an independent country in which, say, 49.5% of its inhabitants don't want it to it exist does seem a bit crazier than the other way around.

i keep wondering what would happen to, say, a scottish family living and working in marseilles.

Could keep UK passport and apply for Scottish one if they wanted it.

huh!

Setting up an independent country in which, say, 49.5% of its inhabitants don't want it to it exist does seem a bit crazier than the other way around.

― Alba, Thursday, 18 September 2014 16:57 (8 minutes ago)

49.5% of its inhabitants voting no ≠ 49.5% of its inhabitants don't want an independent scotland to exist tout court

As far as I know, nobody will be forced to give up a UK passport unless they apply for a Scottish one and the UK decides to ban dual passports, which they won't.

Setting up an independent country in which, say, 49.5% of its inhabitants don't want it to it exist does seem a bit crazier than the other way around.

What are they going to do, all move to Northern Ireland, like the Orange Order imagines?

shd just vote with twitter http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w

People would get used to the idea and get on with their lives... if actually happened, which it won't

My brother has moved back to No because, in his words, "the Yessers are a total embarrassment"

To be fair, almost any large scale movement looks like a total embarrassment.

Not supermajority perhaps, but too close and we'll never hear the end of it from the losing side.

there are some legitimacy arguments wrt the majoritarian plebiscite for something as significant and irreversible as this

then there is the rejoinder that if votes were weighted by life expectancy in order to favour those who are most exposed to the perils of living in a new country, there would be a clear if not super-majority

shd just vote with twitter http://trendsmap.com/v2/Lf62/w

― lag∞n, Thursday, September 18, 2014 12:11 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tons of yes tweets coming from catalonia

Until a few weeks ago I was firmly No (voted No on this thread), then I was sure I wasn't going to vote at all because I wasn't confident about either side; then 20 minutes ago I decided to vote and voted Yes out of overwhelming curiosity to see what it's like if independence does happen.

Remember when Twitter was small enough to have a world map like that just showed any old tweet?

twittervision

'stoked 4 the madness' vote could be key

has there been comments on this whole by Wales or NI officials? is there any chance the Welsh follow suit?

No fucking chance

Until a few weeks ago I was firmly No (voted No on this thread), then I was sure I wasn't going to vote at all because I wasn't confident about either side; then 20 minutes ago I decided to vote and voted Yes out of overwhelming curiosity to see what it's like if independence does happen.

I get this. The economics adage of you pray for the change because natural experiments are the only experiments.

The stoked 4 the madness vote makes sense if your life is either so good or so shit that you can hardly imagine it being worse, I guess. I am middle-aged.

there do seem to be enough people in the central belt of scotland for whom life is miserable indeed

Many of whom will be voting for the first time ever - or that's what we're told, I hope they do but I can see the turnout being not as big as predicted

Can you imagine if poor people voted all over the UK? Wow, hold on to your hats, if not your seats.

Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB 20h
Wow. Edinburgh council says 89.6% of postal votes have been returned. That's massive. #indyref http://bit.ly/ZpOZMk

Rebecca Gray ‏@Rebecca__Gray 4h
By 10am, 18.5% of Scots had voted! Huge turnout. #indyref http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/u/indyref-live-vote.18092014718

big turnout as expected

― lag∞n, Thursday, September 18, 2014 10:25 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on track

Alba, you don't seem to be particularly keen on democracy atm.

tbf democracy is bad