In the last day I have speed read two versions of the new book by Robin McAlpine from the Scottish think tank Common Weal entitled ‘How to start a new country’.
..
Having addressed the transition in an appropriately robust fashion that I think soundly legally grounded the book makes four things clear. They are that Scotland must have its own currency. It must have a strong macroeconomic framework. This must work for everyone. And at the heart of making it do so there must be a robust tax system based on a proper understanding of the role of tax in a modern economy. I confess that the last issue, as addressed in the longer version of the book, appears to have been influenced by my thinking. This is a new state to be built on the understanding that MMT coupled with modern tax practice can deliver.
Super, so the Scots can do the experiment and we can all watch, right?
“I confess that the last issue, as addressed in the longer version of the book, appears to have been influenced by my thinking.”
Pass the fvcking sick bag.
Perhaps the Voyagers we launched should have simply broadcast extracts from Richard Murphy speaking to show aliens who really wears the intellectual trousers around here on Planet Earth.
“Scotland must have its own currency.” Jolly good. So he’s agin the Euro, is he?
They have tried this before, it was called The Darien scheme. And later Arnold Nesbitt, Scots Irish, created a magic money tree and The Ayrshire Bank via Fordyce and Son, Scots, in The City managed to crash the First British Empire..
So thats Scotland, independent, with its own currency, but in the EU (and the Single Market and the customs union). And presumably with no ‘hard border’ with its largest trading partner, the out of the EU England, Wales & Ni.
How doable on a scale of 1 to 10 is that then?
‘They are that Scotland must have its own currency. It must have a strong macroeconomic framework. This must work for everyone.’
What must work for everyone?
‘And at the heart of making it do so there must be a robust tax system’
Everyone must be robustly taxed.
‘based on a proper understanding of the role of tax in a modern economy.’
Taking money from people has a role in a modern economy? Statist rantings.
“Pass the fvcking sick bag.” +1
And I taught Stephen Hawking all he knew about black holes and radiation.
Here have a sick bag 🙂
Well, perhaps he still thinks Wee Jimmy will pay him a wedge, or make him Laird of Wester Hailes, or something.
Hard Border anyone?
It’s time to rebuild Hadrian’s Wall. No smuggling of toilet rolls into Scotland can be permitted
Common Weal a “think tank”? It’s a playpen for whinging nationalist socialist dimwits.
@ Diogenes
The main stalwarts against invasion by the Scots were the Percy family* variously Lords, Earls and Dukes of Northumberland 99+% of which lies north of Hadrian’s Wall.
*Plus their retainers, of course – if Percy had, alone without retainers, faced Douglas at Chevy Chase it’s a safe bet than Douglas would have fought him one-to-one but odds-on that the Scots would have slaughtered him afterwards if he had won.
There is *no such thing* as an economic framework, stromng or weak, that will work for *everyone* – one that works for the workers and the deserving poor doesn’t work for the shirkers.
“Having addressed the transition in an appropriately robust fashion that I think soundly legally grounded the book makes four things clear.”
Er no Richard, it can only make THREE things clear. It is only ever THREE things. If you depart from your formula you will disappear in a puff of smoke.
I find speed reading an interesting idea. Whenever someone tells me they have speed-read a paper of mine they always spend the next 10 minutes demonstrating they haven’t read it in any meaningful sense and certainly haven’t understood it.
Er no Richard, it can only make THREE things clear. It is only ever THREE things. If you depart from your formula you will disappear in a puff of smoke.
Well, he’s certainly not going to disappear in a puff of logic* now, is he?
*classical reference
abacab a puff of logic
I give up, unless the answer is Alan Turing.
Think we had a vote on this kinda thing a while back. No thanks.
abaca: hhgttg
One of the reasons I invented Green People’s Quantitative Easing was to ensure that life forms throughout the universe could reach their potential in truly sustainable way. (In tandem with Planet by Planet accounting, which I believe is central to the delivery of robust grants to public intellectuals in all parts of Ely).
I don’t mind people stealing my inventions. They are there to be used after all, and I ask little for myself. However, limiting the benefits of Me to just Scotland is a failure of imagination, of courage, and seventhly of candidity.
An independent Scotland can have its own currency or it can be in the EU. It cannot do both. Of course none of this is worth the steam off a tramp’s piss. Even wee Lego Heid knows the likelihood of independence in the near future is effectively nil.
Ironman, that and cherry-picking only the bits that he agrees with and suits his agenda.
@tmb – Bloke in Aberdeen got it. Hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy
@abacab – thanks. I had misread “puff” in any case.
Fair enough if they go independent and we don’t have to pay for it.
Oh lordy. Living up here, being a native porridge-wog and having had experience inside the asylum of the corridors of government, there is every chance that large chunks of both TPTB and the wider population will skip merrily and enthusiastically to their doom under the WGCE’s tutelage.
[makes mental note to check that nominee account is based in England and adds shotgun cartridges to shopping list]
So he invented MMT too?
Rob said:
“So he invented MMT too?”
And M&Ms too, probably.
Even judged against the extremes of mad Scottish socialists Robin McAlpine is nuts. No surprise Ritchie liked him.
“They have tried this before, it was called The Darien scheme.”
Didn’t the hated English have to bail the fuckers out? That plus inflicting Charles 1, Blair and Gordon Doom on us means they owe us big time.
Forget ye not that half the Scots actually like us (the English) and may be considered our cousins and our friends, the other half not, and it was ever thus.
Yes and no. The Darien Scheme brought the Scottish economy to its knees, but the English didn’t bail the Scots out for their love of heather and haggis, they simply saw an opportunity to exploit the weakness of an enemy (as the Scots had been since at least the time of the Reformation) to neutralize them.
The fact that the English used more carrot than stick to get the Acts of Union passed both English and Scottish parliaments in 1706 & 1707 doesn’t alter the fact that the Scots were bought out of national penury to ensure that they could no longer easily (or at least legally) threaten England since they were at best a favoured vassal.
I know others may see it differently, but being Manx / Irish raised in England and currently dividing my time between homes in Perth, Scotland and Penang, Malaysia – I have a rather different perspective.
It was only by the grace of god that my beloved Isle of Man wasn’t similarly enslaved to the UK.
“It must have a strong macroeconomic framework”
What does that mean?
“It was only by the grace of god that my beloved Isle of Man wasn’t similarly enslaved to the UK.”
I thought the IoM got left to the British Crown by some local Aristo in his will?
Not quite as straightforward as that.
The above dealt with the transfer of claims of title, but the more significant problem was the attempt to incorporate the revested Isle of Man into the UK as part of the historic county of Cumberland, which would have amounted to the outright usurpation of power from Tynwald without consent of either the islands parliament or its people (both of whom objected stridently and made it quite clear that any attempt do so would be resisted by all means possible including armed insurrection).
Since the British government had dealt with the threat to revenue driven by Manx smuggling through the acquisition of the feudal title of the Lord of Mann, it was felt unnecessary (and indeed counter-productive) to further antagonise the local populace and aristocracy whose support was necessary for the governance of the island.
This is the only reason why the Isle of Man was not incorporated into what is now the UK back in 1765.
There’s more to the Isle of Man than the TT and cats without tails you know…
“There’s more to the Isle of Man than the TT and cats without tails you know…”
Thanks for the info. very interesting.
I’ve only been once, about 30 years ago, sailed across with my dad and brother. We landed at Castletown and spent the night there before sailing back the next day. Might have to go back and have a proper look round.