Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Interesting letter from "GUARDIAN" Letters

"
alternative3
08 September 2014 10:18pm

Recommend 44

I don't know why anyone thinks that the Tories actually want Scotland to stay in the Union. A few years ago, I read a letter in the Guardian that made so much sense to me as a Northerner, I cut it out and kept it. I'll reproduce part of it here, and hope the author doesn't mind:

"The Tories recognize that Thatcherism entailed selling our national assets and spending the receipts. Blair/Brown did not understand the consequences,
Cameron/Osborne do. Our reducing economy can only sustain a reduced standard of living. The Tory solution is to junk the superfluous elements of society and run the remainder of the country for those who can keep up. Their principal problem will be keeping enough people on-side to get re-elected. This can more easily be achieved by breaking off and discarding those bits of the UK that don't vote Tory".

So if anyone doesn't really understand what the game plan is, I think this sums it up perfectly. I'm sure they'd quite like to get shut of the NW & NE too. So it begins.

(Thanks to Martin L, Denbigh).

Good one Fred.


Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure the present comedians had enough brains to think it up.


Either way, jocks gone would be a win win.

The London political elite migrate to Scotland!

Cameron is a "passionate man".

He is passionate about the union and Scotland.

If they are so caring about Scotland why didn't they introduce the bright ideas 1,2,3 or 4 years ago.

Oh, I get it, they are new con party policies which they can U-turn or renegade on later. (Just before or after the next elections.)

What a bunch of self interested political creeps.

(Must watch my tail end in case Cameron becomes passionate again.)

In a speech to the TUC Carney said that real wages should rise next summer and accelerate after that. He also said that interest rates would not rise until next spring! (Maybe not even then).

Wouldanyone on here like to live in this?

No noisy neighbours, or screaming kids, or the sound of traffic, it looks good to me. How much do you want for it?

And as long as it is not in Scotland!

Hays posted...... - 09 Sep 2014 15:10 - 45661 of 45664

In a speech to the TUC Carney said that real wages should rise next summer and accelerate after that. He also said that interest rates would not rise until next spring! (Maybe not even then)................ends

errrrrr Hays just read what you have posted again.

THEN re-arrange this......... myself foot shot in the

09/09/2014

StockMarketWire.com

The FTSE 100 index changed little all day as uncertainty over the result of next week's referendum vote in Scotland continued to worry investors.

Sentiment was also not helped when new figures showed that the UK's trade deficit had widened to its highest level for over two years.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh have you seen that Hays. 2 years.

LOL, call me Dave is on his way to Scotland tomorrow.

The YES vote will grow even larger.

Is he going to play the role of the Loch Ness Monster or Looney?

I wonder whether Manuel is weeping or laughing at what his party has come to?

Let's us hope so.

Credit Suisse warns of grave deflationary shock for Scotland



By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Politics and society
Last updated: September 9th, 2014

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100028065/credit-suisse-warns-of-grave-deflationary-shock-for-scotland/


Here is the Credit Suisse note this morning on the shock in store for Scotland if it chooses to break up our Union, and if Britain declines to come to the rescue. It expects: recession; deposit flight; 20pc devaluation; 5/10pc cut in wages.

Just so you know, it is written by Andrew Garthwaite, Marina Pronina, Robert Griffiths, Nicolas Wylenzek, Richard Kersley, and Ashlee Ramanathan, a mix of nationalities.


In our opinion Scotland would fall into a deep recession. We believe deposit flight is both highly likely and highly problematic (with banks assets of 12x GDP) and should the Bank of England move to guarantee Scottish deposits, we expect it to extract a high fiscal and regulatory price (probably insisting on a primary budget surplus). The re-domiciling of the financial sector and UK public service jobs, as well as a legal dispute over North Sea oil, would further accelerate any downturn. In our opinion, as North Sea oil production slows, we estimate that the non-oil economy would need a 10% to 20% devaluation to restore competitiveness. This would require a 5% to 10% fall in wages, driven by a steep rise in unemployment.



Scotland can have a huge banking industry, or it can have independence linked to sterling, but it cannot do both unless the Bank of England props up its lenders as a lender of last resort. Perhaps the Bank will do that as a courtesy gesture, but why should it?

Currency options: We place a 40% probability on a peg to the pound (which we think would ultimately not hold) and a 10% probability on a freely floating currency. We place a 50% probability on a currency arrangement which would avoid devaluation against sterling: of this, we place a 25% probability on a formal currency union and a 25% probability on a Hong Kong-style currency board. We see a <1% chance of a Euro peg.

Significant deposit flight would require Scottish banks to offer much higher deposit rates, which would in turn increase borrowing costs for Scottish entities and individuals. This, in our view, would increase the risk of a severe economic downturn in Scotland post-independence.

With North Sea oil output in decline (with the Office for Budget Responsibility calculating that output has declined by an average of 7.8% per year since 1999 and recent estimates by Sir Ian Wood putting North Sea oil reserves at 15-16.5bn barrels versus estimates by the Scottish government of 24bn barrels), it is clear that the non-oil manufacturing base in Scotland would need to be clearly competitive in order to attract in capital.


Speaks for itself. I would only say that a Hong Kong style currency board is almost impossible because you need huge reserves to defend the peg – at least 50pc of GDP. Scotland would start with almost no reserves, since UK has almost none. (Not necessary if you have your own sovereign currency, and it floats.)

Credit Suisse does not address that point but it does say:

It cannot be lender of last resort. Moreover, if there was deposit flight, as would seem likely, there would then have to be a contraction in base money, which would likely trigger a sharp recession. This works in Hong Kong because wages can and do decline when there is capital flight, but it seems hard to envisage Scotland with such labour market flexibility.

I happen to think that Scotland could prosper eventually as an independent “Nordic” economy, just like Denmark. But there are a great number of analysts from across the world who fear that it will be an almighty fiasco for the next decade unless Britain props it up.

In my view, Britain will be forced to prop it up. Excuse me for feeling a slight irritation about this, as a Welshman.

I bet Wee-Eck hasn't bothered to tell the punters about that article.

And, as much fun as his reads are, AEP isn't the perennial eurosceptic/bear/hawk/grim-reaper?

Maybe, just maybe, one of these days (if we all wait long enough), he'll be right. On the balance of probabilities, it's gotta happen at some stage.

45668 - so are milliband and clegg .... like the red-tops you should learn to report accurately for a change