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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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But what if it does turn out to be all about the oil? Especially if there really are huge untapped reserves west of Shetland.
Clearly, since that first poll that said Yes, English politicians have been shitting themselves, and have been chucking as much Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) at the situation as they can. Classic negative sales tactics.
The role of HM Treasury in all this fog and misinformation is becoming even muddier. We're told (via BBC & MSM) that Scottish Oil reserves are dwindling and not significant. Nothing to see here, move along please(?)
And yet, as always, the bottom line is about leverage and bargaining power. It is here that, miraculously, things once again devolve back to, (drumroll please), oil, and the fact that an independent Scotland would keep 90% of the oil revenues! Scotland's oil may be the single biggest wildcard in the entire Independence movement.
First of all, consider the vulnerability of sterling after a Yes vote for Scottish independence. Even without North Sea oil revenues, the UK current account situation is a mess.
(1) The UK can now borrow cheaply using the giant Scottish oil reserves as collateral
(2) If Scotland leaves, the collateral (oil reserves) is no longer available
(3) So the cost of borrowing money for Britain skyrockets
On top of that, the deficit is an elephant in the corner. It is absolutely extraordinary for the UK to be beginning an economic cycle with a current account deficit of around 5-6% of GDP. Normally this is a level the UK or any other developed countries get to at a height of a boom after years of overspending on consumer imports. The maths for the rUK just don't add up - on the basis of an independent Scotland keeping 90% of the oil revenues the rUK current account deficit for the full year would have been around 7% of GDP instead of 4%
This would be heading into the kind of territory where the currency printing presses (or the Quantitative Easing) is running non-stop, to devalue the debt.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Boreades wrote: | But what if it does turn out to be all about the oil? Especially if there really are huge untapped reserves west of Shetland.
Clearly, since that first poll that said Yes, English politicians have been shitting themselves, and have been chucking as much Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) at the situation as they can. Classic negative sales tactics.
The role of HM Treasury in all this fog and misinformation is becoming even muddier. We're told (via BBC & MSM) that Scottish Oil reserves are dwindling and not significant. Nothing to see here, move along please(?)
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It is not just about how much oil there is, but the cost of extraction, and the cost of other energy.
There is no confusion, HM treasury is now getting declining revenues from NS oil (in fact they had under-predicted the extent of the decline, it was far worse than they expected).
The question is why did this happen?
The answer is firstly, oil production is simply falling, secondly, NS oil is getting more difficult to extract. Less barrels means less tax, more difficult extraction, means that the tax regime has to become less penile.
The SNP are apparently not worried about this decline, they think there might be other reserves, as you say in your post (fingers crossed). If the cost of extraction would fall, then Hollyrood would anyway be able to raise higher taxes on companies without hurting overall profits.
I will let you decide. One thing I can't figure is ...Why would the hated UK government have allowed energy imports to have risen to levels not seen since the seventies, and energy exports to drop lower than at any time since the eighties, if they knew they had cheap easily extractable oil on their doorstep....?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes / No
Grant 39% 61%
Wile 47% 53%
Mick 53% 47%
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A bronze medal at my first attempt!
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Grant
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Wile wins the prize.
My failure was to think that the "morons" who were going to vote for the first time would vote differently from the rest. In fact, they voted just the same.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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My failure was to assume the British government would ever let the true results come out.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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I sided with Wile.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Please note my cunning winning methodology. I simply took the rogue poll, (giving YES a lead) ignored all the sophisticated weightings added on by YouGov, and believed what the people had told the pollsters.
If folks said they would vote NO. I counted it as a NO
If folks said they would vote YES. I counted it as a YES
In other words, I ignored the respondents' age, place of birth, previous voting, false memory syndrome and so on which YouGov factored in, often referred to as balancing.
| Krellner wrote: | | In the past four weeks support for the union has drained away at an astonishing rate. The Yes campaign has not just invaded No territory; it has launched a blitzkrieg |
Is this a balanced statement?
Keep this in mind. YouGov at that start of the campaign was consistently showing that when compared with rival polls, it had a much higher recorded level of anticipated NO vote, mid campaign this changes and now, as the campaign becomes critical, they now come up with the highest anticipated YES vote in the whole campaign, (which again the other polls don't show.) How can this be? Why the dramatic change in Yougov polls but not the rest.
Stranger still the unbalanced figures in Yougov's results show No still ahead.
The answer is simple.
If you overbalance one side, then when you try to rebalance you overcompensate..........
You fall off.
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Tilo Rebar
In: Sussex
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | My failure was to assume the British government would ever let the true results come out. |
I'm with Mick.
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Grant
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| My failure was to assume the British government would ever let the true results come out. |
Eh? I thought Mick didn't believe in conspiracy theories.
Of course, they are fun, so here goes. Why were there no exit polls in the referendum? They weren't banned or anything. It was just that ITN, BBC, Sky and everyone else decided that they were too expensive. Too expensive! Surely ITN could have employed a couple of hundred students with clipboards for a few thousand quid.
No-one would have watched any other news.
Because of this "oversight" we are deprived of any analysis of the results. The broadcasters are guessing that pensioners voted yes and teenagers no, but there is no genuine information.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Funnily enough, just one minute after posting my 'conspiracy theory' I was directed by a Google Search to a site that claimed the referendum was rigged. The reason? A dispute between English Masons and Scottish Rite Masons. Comment, Boreades. If you dare.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Why were there no exit polls in the referendum? |
Of course there was one of sorts -- from YouGov. The people who started this particular hare (with their 50-50 poll last week) and summarily ended it by saying their exit poll pointed to 54-46 No. I think a more careful examination of "Peter Kellner" is called for. He certainly looks like a lizard, not that that is decisive in itself.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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A post-referendum poll has asked voters about their voting.
Q1. How did you vote in the referendum?
The NO vote was entirely secured by support from those aged 55+. The 'better together' camp failed to win any of the age groups below 55 years of age. For the 65+ crowd it was simply a walkover. 73% of them voted NO.
So in a nutshell, it was old people that blocked independence.
Ref: http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2014/09/scotland-voted/
Other analysis of the results produced a starker conclusion.
Ref: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...mber-2014.html
What does that mean?
Is it that old codgers (like us) pissed on their parade?
Or we all get more fearful of change as we get older?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Risk averse and wiser.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Boreades wrote: | | A post-referendum poll has asked voters about their voting. |
According to this 14% of folks who voted SNP at the last election then voted against independence.....perhaps they were so unhappy with the SNP in charge of Holyrood, they decided that independence wasn't such a good idea after all. (?)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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A perverse interpretation. Many people (including me theoretically) would vote SNP because they're presently the best governing party (which they obviously are) and No because they didn't want independence (which is a perfectly sensible decision).
Remember, AE says you should eschew all ideology in your political decision-making.
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