Yes but Scotland does nearly 70% of its trade with the rest of the UK so whatever happens, Sticking with the union will be in their economic best interests despite whisky exports potentially suffering.
The value of the pound
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Yes but Scotland does nearly 70% of its trade with the rest of the UK so whatever happens, Sticking with the union will be in their economic best interests despite whisky exports potentially suffering.
Meh, if Brexit is fine, then Indy is fine.
The arguments for either are ideological and political, not economic.
Caporegime
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My observation is that whenever someone use an economic argument, if it’s negative, it will be branded as project fear. Even if the argument is by an economist and expert. If it’s positive, its seldom supported by any evidence l.
Unless his GBP assets have actually decreased in value in GBP then it's not a loss though, is it? Unless the majority of his spending is in another currency it makes little difference.
If I buy a house for £100k and GBP is 1:1 against USD, and then five years later it's still worth £100k but GBP is 1:2 USD I don't think "great, my investment has doubled". Unless I'm relocating to America it means nothing.
The pound was at around $1.40 before the referendum, it's now around $1.20 — are you suggesting that he’s made a loss of ~14% on all of his GBP assets?
Those countries are pretty poor and aren't net contributors to the EU, not even close.
What does Scotland have to offer that England doesn't? Pretty much nothing except whisky and haggis. They currently take a few billion a year from the UK to keep running. Will the EU be willing to cover that, especially with the UK gone?
Soldato
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Well, there is gin tooscotland makes 70% of the UK's gin.
There are bloody gin distilleries everywhere now :/
Firstly you don't know what liquid GBP based assets he has or how the rest of his portfolio has been affected, again he's probably not got the whole lot invested in EM funds... ergo it is dubious to claim that simply because you want to attribute some of the dividends and some of the fund performance to Brexit that he's profited.
I'm not sure what his local spending has to do with anything here - it is likely trivial relative to his overall wealth even including the costs of employing "nanny" etc... given how much he is worth.
As for whether it is a loss if you want to look at it all purely in GBP terms and ignore any fall in GBP, firstly we don't know re: his liquid assets and secondly I'd suspect that the values of the properties in GBP terms have taken a hit recently too and might well do more so going forwards (the high end London market at expensive properties elsewhere are a bit different to the rest of the market). But that is rather silly, to ignore that the pound itself has fallen as well, especially when part of this discussion involves investment in overseas assets. If he liquidates any of those property assets then he's got much less to invest anywhere else - something which he clearly does with regards to liquid assets, albeit we don't know where and to what extent ergo the current basis for the claim that he's profited from Brexit is unfounded. I mean to take an extreme example, I've got a mate from Zimbabwe, he became a trillionaire many times over under Mugabe...
Soldato
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Aye, its a big market, and 70% of the UK's big market gin is in scotland!
Erm, other things off the top of my head... tourism is pretty big, film making is quite big too, and would be much bigger if there was not such a big tax, example - Ireland has low tax for that stuff and has mucho made there. What else? Tartan? Oh, renewable energy? Last year Scotland produced enough renewable energy to power all its homes twice over.... It also has a lot of water too!
Soldato
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That's the point i'm making. Scotland is richer than those counties, and has more to offer the EU than some of those.
What England has to offer the EU is neither here nor there since it won't be in the EU.
If the EU only allowed net contributors to join, it would only have 9 countries. Well 8 after Brexit.
Ok, if that’s the case and all of these Brexit-supporting millionaires are now so much poorer, why are they still pushing for Brexit?
Do they just really, really believe in sovereignty and they are willing to pay any price for it?
Are they too stubborn to admit it was a stupid idea and are now hoping just to get out the other side with their shirts?
I find it very hard to believe that they are doing it for purely altruistic reasons but if so, it’s just another reason to deride JRM. Again, it’s someone in a position of power and responsibility acting outside of the best interests of his constituency and his country.
It isn't a rich country, not really. It's rich because the UK is rich.
If the many billions they get from the UK stopped, that would change.
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Well if they have gone independent the last time, they would now be screwed.
This is why I find it strange Sturgeon is pushing for independence, they'd have no money and the EU wouldn't accept them. Good luck to them though.
I'll write to them all and get back to you...or shall I go fetch a crystal ball who are "they" and when did I say they're all poorer btw?
I don't see what relevance these questions have to what I posted, also this isn't the Brexit thread!
You could say that about virtually any political whose politics you disagree with personally and people with a different view to you could say the same thing about other politicians.
In fact do you agree with every vote on every issue by any politician?
This seems to have gone well beyond the pound falling and into you making demands that I answer for some other Brexit supporting rich people or reply to a point that some politicians don't act in what you see as the best interests of the country.... well no **** if everyone agreed on what the best interests of the country were then why bother with politicians in the first place... just let the civil servants get on with implementing the policies that everyone agrees are in the best interests of the country.
Scotlands GDP per capita is greater than England is though.
Only because of oil and gas. Your average Scot sees no benefit from that.
It was a rhetorical question. You have just spent the last however-many posts making the case that anyone with assets in GBP is now poorer, so it’s not a completely illogical conclusion to come to.
Well the fall in the pound is directly related to Brexit, so it’s not exactly irrelevant. However, you’re right, I don’t want to turn this into a Brexit thread.
I’m not making demands. As I said, it was rhetorical.
You have gone so far out of your way to explain that, not only has JRM not profited from Brexit, his total investments are now likely net-negative due to the fall in the value of the pound. In which case there must be some other reason/reasons for his initial and continued support and facilitation of Brexit.
It’s not as though the current volatility was entirely unpredictable was it?
And yes, you could argue that any political issue isn’t in the countries best interests if you disagree with it. However, there are very few single-issue policies that have such wide ranging and potentially damaging ramifications as Brexit, especially a no-deal Brexit which it appears we’re going to get thanks to JRM and chums.