Thread: How the Union benefits Scotland and the Scots.

Originally Posted by alexa

That bank jibe is an old one and a lame duck. It has been answered too many times to need it yet again.

Now an advantage for Scotland?? just one?

I just told you.

If Scotland had been independent when Salmond and Goodwin screwed up they'd be making Greece look like Utopia right now.

Originally Posted by fredc

I just told you.

If Scotland had been independent when Salmond and Goodwin screwed up they'd be making Greece look like Utopia right now.

You are not presenting the picture as it was. In an independent Scotland this situation would not have happened. A vast amount of the losses were made in England by investment bankers in London, not Scotland. The UK did not bail out the vast majority of US subsidiaries that needed it, it left the US to do that.

England gained from and failed the RBS and as it enjoyed the good times, must endure the bad.

As you can see this was a British operation not a Scotland only one.

Now lessons hopefully will be learned from the past. With RSB anyway as Viv says we are getting optimistic claims on it's recovery....but Scotland not in the UK and not in the Euro, might even have tried an Iceland - and told the banks, tough luck. They I hear are now making a nice little recovery to the recession.

The RSB was a UK wide operation and hence a UK wide responsibility and hence cannot be taken as a benefit to Scotland.

Originally Posted by alexa

You are not presenting the picture as it was. In an independent Scotland this situation would not have happened. A vast amount of the losses were made in England by investment bankers in London, not Scotland. The UK did not bail out the vast majority of US subsidiaries that needed it, it left the US to do that.

England gained from and failed the RBS and as it enjoyed the good times, must endure the bad.

As you can see this was a British operation not a Scotland only one.

Now lessons hopefully will be learned from the past. With RSB anyway as Viv says we are getting optimistic claims on it's recovery....but Scotland not in the UK and not in the Euro, might even have tried an Iceland - and told the banks, tough luck. They I hear are now making a nice little recovery to the recession.

The RSB was a UK wide operation and hence a UK wide responsibility and hence cannot be taken as a benefit to Scotland.

Yes it was a British operation not a Scottish one.

But if Scotland had been independent it would have been a Scottish operation not a British one.

Originally Posted by fredc

Yes it was a British operation not a Scottish one.

But if Scotland had been independent it would have been a Scottish operation not a British one.

Yes, and it would have been different and just like the UK didn't bail out most US subsidiaries, if it had been operating as it was with an Independent Scotland, as most of the losses were made in London, England would have been picking up the ticket not Scotland.


Now a genuine benefit Scotland gets from the Union?

Originally Posted by alexa

Yes, and it would have been different and just like the UK didn't bail out most US subsidiaries, if it had been operating as it was in an Independent Scotland, as most of the losses were made in London, England would have been picking up the ticket not Scotland.


Now a genuine benefit Scotland gets from the Union?

No, England would not pick up the ticket any more than Scotland would pick up the ticket for English banks, Scotland would be up the creek without a paddle.

You know saying that England will bail Scotland out every time they screw up is not a very good argument for independence.

Originally Posted by fredc

Well it does mean that when their leading bank acquires toxic assets of over a hundred billion pounds because their corrupt and greedy First Minister, an ex and no doubt future RBOS employee, backed a corrupt and greedy Fred Goodwin in a corrupt and greedy takeover of ABN Amro the whole country doesn't go bankrupt.

fredc, if you are going to drag your biased and irrational crap into every thread on Scottish Independence on this forum....then I despair for the future of this forum, given it appears to be being over-run with haters and has fewer and fewer debaters.

Now, kindly explain to me, in words of one syllable, why you would expect Scotland to do any more than bail out the banks who operate in Scotland to the level of the percentage of those operations in Scotland? (which in the case of RBS has been quoted as variously being between 5% and 10% of the bank's world-wide activity....given that it was regulated and paid all its taxes into the UK coffers?

After all, The Federal Reserve stepped in to bail out US operations linked to RBS and HBOS. In Europe the governments of France, Belgium The Netherlands and Luxembourg joined forces to help the Fortis and Dexia Banks operating across their borders.

“This decision was not taken to protect either RBS or HBOS, nor specifically the Scottish markets, but to protect the financial stability of the UK financial system as a whole.”

HBOS’s operational head quarters were in Halifax, Yorkshire, so there was even less reason to assume Scots would be responsible for its rescue. But the indisputably Scottish RBS ran up most of its losses in the City of London where it was regulated: “It would be inconceivable that Edinburgh or Scotland as a whole could be held liable for that full bill.”

Scotland and the banking bailout time for the truth

If Scotland had been independent at the time of the bank bailout, and was the regulatory home country of the bank, then if they had been so lax as to allow the banks the freedom to be arseholes handed to them by the Tories in the 1980s, they would still have no obligation to meet deficits sustained by the operations of their subsidiaries in other countries just because those countries had been just as lax in their regulations as we had..and that would apply to subsidiaries in England as well as to subsidiaries anywhere else.

Those operations furth of Scotland could have been allowed to fail...but as we saw in the current crisis, many foreign countries chose to bail out some failing foreign banks at their own cost. So the UK did not have to bail out the RBS subsidiaries in the USA, for example....the USA did that....because it didn't want Citizen's Financial Group failing.

Despite the oft repeated levels of debt....the toxic debt was predominantly in the USA. It cost the UK £66bn in shares and loans to bailout both RBS and HBOS.

Given that Scottish GDP at the time was £145 billion and our remaining oil reserves, using the American Energy Departments cost calculations, are valued at a trillion pounds, we’d have been well placed to negotiate a good deal on the international money markets – which was how the UK, and other national governments, financed the banking rescue. Indeed given our valuable natural resources, we might have negotiated a better deal. if we had been independent.

Now, fredc.....you have facts and figures there. Do try and not simply respond with another opinion cobbled together from the media but address the facts and figures.

You may, and probably will not, agree with any of it...but debate requires that you address the points made, and give the requisite facts and figures to prove that they are wrong...and not continually limit yourself to spewing irrationality and bile.

Originally Posted by Oddquine

Given that Scottish GDP at the time was £145 billion and our remaining oil reserves, using the American Energy Departments cost calculations, are valued at a trillion pounds, we’d have been well placed to negotiate a good deal on the international money markets – which was how the UK, and other national governments, financed the banking rescue. Indeed given our valuable natural resources, we might have negotiated a better deal. if we had been independent.

Now, fredc.....you have facts and figures there. Do try and not simply respond with another opinion cobbled together from the media but address the facts and figures.

You may, and probably will not, agree with any of it...but debate requires that you address the points made, and give the requisite facts and figures to prove that they are wrong...and not continually limit yourself to spewing irrationality and bile.

Given that Scottish GDP at the time was £145 bn and the most Britain ever made from oil revenue in a year was £13 bn Scotland would have had to go into debt up to it's eyeballs to bail out the Royal Bank of Scotland. There could well be a trillion dollars worth of oil in the North Sea but all the Scottish government would get is license fee and tax.

The bank went bankrupt as a direct result of it's takeover of ABN Amro, a takeover backed by Alex Salmond and the Scottish government. Not something likely to instil confidence in foreign investors.

Originally Posted by fredc

Yes it was a British operation not a Scottish one.

But if Scotland had been independent it would have been a Scottish operation not a British one.

Totally hypothetic. I said totally hypothetic, not totally hyper and pathetic.

That bank is global. It owns assets everywhere., personal, business, private banking, insurance, corporate finance in Europe, US, Asia, ROI. Citizens Financial Group is the 8th largest bank in US and it does business in the Bank of China. If you are saying global corp will be confined only to Scotland after the UK dissolves, you'll have to evidence that.

What about Northern Rock, btw? Not that I'm hugely great on economic issues, but is that a Scottish bank? What about Lloyds TSB? Bradford & Bingley? But then it's hard to know what's going on. Are HBOS, Halifax, RBS, Lloyds.... interchangeable now in a lot of cases ..all international anyway.

If you're going to rule out the ownership of one of the world's largest financial institutions because of a temporary crisis, nobody will ever make any money be it UK or Scotland. I would say getting rid of UK will improve the profit margin, but it remains to be seen how RBS will end up. 84% public owned. What is the end game for that? It might be sold off to private investors who are not UK based and only pay taxes wherever it ends up trading.

Originally Posted by fredc

Given that Scottish GDP at the time was £145 bn and the most Britain ever made from oil revenue in a year was £13 bn Scotland would have had to go into debt up to it's eyeballs to bail out the Royal Bank of Scotland. There could well be a trillion dollars worth of oil in the North Sea but all the Scottish government would get is license fee and tax.

The bank went bankrupt as a direct result of it's takeover of ABN Amro, a takeover backed by Alex Salmond and the Scottish government. Not something likely to instil confidence in foreign investors.

How much RBS revenue did UK take in the pre-crisis years, Fred?

Originally Posted by Viv

How much RBS revenue did UK take in the pre-crisis years, Fred?

I wouldn't know, why don't you look it up and tell us?