Hi,
Scotland does indeed have other industry sectors which contribute to it's wealth generation, those you mentioned are the ones I was also referring to.
Here's the website I'm looking at which gives Scotlands main industry sectors
http://www.scotland.org/about-scotland/business-and-economy/key-industriesLooking at the exports page, the workforce page and just generally around the site, it's impressive, shows Scotland at it's best and that indeed translates into providing confidence to people who may not know too much about the place overall. I've only had the chance to visit 3 times and had a great impression overall upon each visit, I've worked with people from Scotland and asked about their views etc and recently, for my own business objectives, have actually been in touch with some of the Electronics industry specialists mentioned in the website!
So, it's easy to see how and why there is a significant amount of support for a Yes vote including you both, Woadgrrl and DrSuperL99 ! As mentioned, when you are independent, you wouldn't have to channel some of your money into funding those nuclear weapons, westmister MP's and military operations and other public service departments as currently exist by being a part of a union.
However, on the flip side and away from the fanfare of the elements above, the more 'boring' aspects need to be considered. This is what will make up a complete picture.
If the supporters of independence want to vote yes, then be just that - BE Independent. This means forming your own government, government departments, currency, army, health service, welfare state, create and distribute your own wealth etc etc. Act on the world stage and form your own alliances, trade partner countries and look to attract investment.
Just taking one aspect of the above for example - Defence. How will an independent Scotland defend itself and it's citizens? how much of it's budget will it allocate to such activities? who will Scotland look towards in forming any allies ? will it stick to conventional weapons or consider it's own nuclear arsenal? on a more basic level, out of it's 5 million population, how many of them will it want to recruit to various defence related areas?
You can ask that and more for many of the other daily life aspects that a country will need to provide for itself.
So to put that all into perspective, out of approx 5 million people how many are of working age 17-65? how many are of retired, pensionable age? how many are infants, schoolchildren and/or college/university age? - just take one element there, people of working age. How many are there? perhaps between 1.5-2 million? breaking that down, how many are highly skilled, how many have specific or partial skills? how many are unskilled and how many choose to be unemployed or economically inactive? Can an Army, air force, Navy, Police service, Fire service all be suitably provided for the entire country from that pool of available working age people?
Again, you could ask the same for other daily required departments and services the country as a whole requires - health, schools and education, local council and government etc etc.
I suspect, there isn't enough available workforce to create the various departments required by the country as a whole for the basics to be covered. What would happen then in the case of not enough people saying they wish to be in the armed forces? will Scotland then make it compulsory for everyone from age 16-25 participate in active service duty for the country? or will it seek to recruit from abroad?
Ask similar questions for the healthcare department - are there enough doctors, nurses, health specialists, hospitals and the funding required to run them all properly and effectively? ask the same for the various other departments, roads and infrastructure, education and schooling etc etc.
Again, I suspect there isn't enough in the workforce pool to cover the basics a country would need.
I currently remain of the view that I fear for Scotland being independent and longer term seeing it go into decline or fail- I'd rather have Scotland as part of the united kingdom to better increase the current union's chances of climbing out of the current economic woes quicker. I consider it a 'family' if you will, and when things get tough, family often pulls together to help everyone out as best they can. Things are very tough overall for the UK at the moment, and I'd say there's better chances of pulling through and quicker if Scotland was to remain a part of the union. If however the vote does go to a yes, then it should be just that - be Independent. I think currently there's talk of keeping the English Pound as it's currency or consider joining the EuroDollar - I'd say for Scotland to then form its own. There's a potential big mess into deciding how much of the debt the UK as a whole currently carries which should be allocated to an independent Scotland, so that would need to be decided and it'd be up to independent Scotland to sort it out/pay for it.
There's so many aspects to this, and of course it's difficult to type it all up here and each aspect is open to individual evaluation and thoughts. I know not everyone will share mine or other's views, and will have their own opinion, I just mention the above from what I currently think. I'm sure, if I looked at some aspects in much greater detail my view could change, perhaps the leaders for the YES vote have indeed got their sums correct etc. - I don't know.
It'd be quite sad though, to see what will likely happen if the leaders of the Yes vote have got their sums wrong and they do convince a majority yes vote in less than a years time.
Lastly, from the above - I'm not looking to wind anyone up or be argumentative etc, It's a sensitive and difficult subject and will be the focus of many discussions from everyone, I'm simply looking here on UKY for a discussion on it.
Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!
