The Holyrood opposition parties and Unionists everywhere have more or less abandoned rational argument about Scotland’s capacity to function as an independent country. Instead, they fall back on what they think of as their best line – “What happened to Alex Salmond’s Arc of Prosperity?”
Bankrupt of real arguments and bereft of new ideas, they are nonetheless determined to maintain Scots in a dependent, mendicant mindset by trying to convince them that Scotland could not survive on its own.
The IMF (The International Monetary Fund) does understand global economics and has some respect for figures, unlike The Three UK Stooges – Gray, Goldie and Scott.
I have taken some figures from their April 2010 database for Iceland, Ireland, Norway – the arc of prosperity – and the United Kingdom (IMF link) and their report for the years 2009 and projections for 2010 to 2015. It shows the GDP (gross domestic product) based on PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) and per capita GDP. The tables themselves can be viewed at (link) but I have presented them showing the top country – Norway in every year - as 100 and the others as a percentage of that, to give an instant feel for the relative positions.
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Norway 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Ireland 75.1 73.7 74.1 74.5 74.9 75.4 75.8
Iceland 72.3 69.4 69.6 69.8 70.1 72.1 73.7
UK 65.9 66.2 66.8 67.5 68.2 68.8 69.3
Anyone can check these, and other figures for themselves. What this clearly demonstrates is that, in spite of a global collapse, the three countries in the arc of prosperity are all still doing better than the pathetic performance of the UK, and are projected to do better for the next five years by the IMF.
There is another arc at work here – the Arc of Economic Nonsense talked by The Three UK Stooges, Gray, Goldie and Scott.
Norway, of course – most comparable to Scotland - is comfortably top of the heap because nobody stole their oil, and they run their own country and their own affairs.
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Norway is enjoying a boom that will run out sooner or later so it is just another bubble waiting to burst - like Ireland (EU subsidies) and Iceland (Dodgy banks).
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Scotland is its dire economy - little manufacturing, bloated public sector and thanks to its propensity to vote Labour it shows no signs of getting better, only getting worse. Where is the Scottish Paper Industry these days?
Better together with its larger neighbour than out in the cold on its own
Key parts of Scotland's industry were destroyed by Maggie Thatcher(UK Prime Minister) while Scottish oil revenues were being used to build the M25, the Channel Tunnel and bail out the UK economy.
ReplyDelete(See 'Diomhair')
The most recent poll shows that more Scots support independence than are against it, but how that will play at the ballor box in May 2011 we must wait and see.
Leaving aside all the economic arguments, two things alone are enough for me -
1) The UK is committed to a nuclear deterrent - WMDs. The SNP is not. I am not.
2) I would rather be poorer (although I don't think we will be) than be part of the rump of a faded and failing empire.
I welcome England as our neighbour, but with its own Parliament, a separate proud nation again, as Scotland will be.
I don't want to be a beggar with my cup in one hand and the other at my forelock.