Because an independent government has more chance of being able to influence house and land prices. This is one area which cannot be decided only by the free market.
Lets look at that area in specific, I'd like to learn how an independent government can influence house and land prices more effectively than a central government. My understanding is that in Germany there is very low rate of home ownership? My understanding is that supply and demand drives property prices along with finance availability. I guess government policy can affect this by reducing demand (reduce population by creating an environment people do not wish to live in or reduce life expectancy through healthcare cuts), increase supply (housebuilding has a cost to the public purse), reduce stamp duty (has the effect of increasing demand therefore increasing prices), what is the silver bullet that this independent government can bring to the table?
Germany has a very successful free market economy which even rescued the former communist eastern parts from poverty. It's trade unions took a more responsible attitude and agreed to keep wage inflation very much under control which in turn improved the productivity. Perhaps they took one look at Scargill, red robbo and fellow saboteurs to see how to not to benefit the working class.
Germany is still riding upon its success of the post war boom which was based upon high levels of consumer spending power. All of Germany's biggest firms, Daimler, Bayer, BMW etc. date from this period - and this was a period marked by a much higher level of central planning than would be conceivable in England - see 'Sozialmarktwirtschaft' there is no real translation in English. Germanys position has also be characterized by avoiding confrontation ie. avoiding excesses both of Unionism on the one hand and of a rampant 'Thatcherism' on the other. Just one more point - your idea of the former East Germany. I have lived here for 25 years, and therefore before and after unification. When I first visited the former East Germany in 1990 I saw no unemployment, no people living under cardboard boxes, no soup kitchens and no people begging - all of which I have seen in both London and New York. There are many people here who miss the public transport system, the health system and the situation for working women which were all lost to East Germany after unification. Germany could have taken the best of both systems but unfortunately didn't.
Germany is a federal republic Aberdeen where the individual states have much more legislative powers than in the UK. The fact that house prices might be rising rapidly in eg. Hamburg or Stuttgart has absolutely no consequences for eg. Berlin. Germany simply does not operate as one unit in the way that you imagine - because it has not been as centralized as in the UK, where an area like the home counties can drive prices in a certain direction and the whole country is affected by it. Also a state such as Berlin is in the position of being able to place a cap on possible rent per square metre etc. which would not be possible in any area of the UK.
The implication here is Scotland will return to the dirty, squalid days of life under James Callaghan and his Labour party if they vote for independence. It will be like living in Rigsby's boarding house from Rising Damp, but without the humour. Even Denis Healey was predicting painful cuts in state spending at the Labour conference of 178, because he and his forebears had made such a monumental cock-up of everything. I did my industrial training then and not knowing when the power would go off was a major worry and when it did was a complete nightmare. At least a shift to the right by the chattering political left has allayed this to some extent, but with Scotland's innate conservatism and resistance to political change I can see a very left wing government rising and wrecking the dream. Do the Scots really understand where they could end up with independence.
I note that Glasgow..... less affluent is going to a YES vote whilst Edinburgh... more affluent is leaning to a NO vote. http://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...ce-the-key-referendum-battlegrounds?CMP=fb_gu Interesting if the less financially secure folk are attracted to the idea of financial growth in an independent Scotland ( If only the grass were greener) whilst the more affluent are seriously worried about the reverse. Will be interesting if it a class or income related vote. In which case people seek to believe the pied piper's story .... oh dear...
Of all the greats people Scotland has produced; all the great orators, politicians, military men, scientists, campaigners, etc. They are going to sleepwalk into oblivion behind an odious little man who is not fit to polish the boots of Robert Bruce, William Wallace, Peter Guthrie Tait or Keir Hardie.
The same is true for the UK, the fact that house prices rise in London has no effect on house prices in Edinburgh and vice versa, this has caught some friends out who've moved both ways at peaks in the departure city coinciding with troughs in the arrival city. Local house prices and land prices are driven by local supply and demand which is heavily influenced by local authorities in the UK who control education and infrastructure that have direct impacts on an areas desirability. I fail to see how an independent Scotland will change this, it makes no sense at all.
Fully agree Aberdeen. Only way that local governments can control land and housing prices is through direct control i.e. massive investment in huge numbers of social housing and required infrastructure - that could impact the private rental market as a chunk of their potential tenants go away. That in itself could cause a short term drop in private house prices as some landlords sell up, but it would only be short term spike. If supply is still restrained then demand would start to push prices up. I could see this happening in Scotland as the SNP nanny state would start to take more control of more and more - they are already committed to a policy of increasing jobs through expanding public services and I am sure a programme of social house building would also be on the cards. Ultimately it could lead to a fall in house prices as the better off and more mobile head south to escape...
There seems to be a belief from many of you posting here that the only reason that people want independence is because of money. I don't believe this to be the case. The desire for self determination is far more important for many. This is a view that is inconceivable for those on the right of the current political spectrum, for whom money is the only real signifier. I'm not saying that money isn't needed but some people are prepared to trade money for other ideals. I am sure that there are many on the Yes side who are prepared to give up the security of being ruled by the English in order to be able to make their own decisions, even though they are aware that they will make mistakes. This, of course, will align them with the many people in the world.
They may be committed to expanding public sector and aspire to social housing building but they haven't got the funding so its a pipe dream. The foundation that they haven't addressed is increased economic activity in the private sector to provide the tax needed. All the policies I've seen will result in business moving away therefore finance hole and with the policy they have they'll need to increase tax on an ever decreasing pool of productive people and businesses which is why I see the project as a disaster.
Indeed inconceivable, I do not understand it. In Venezuela we still have an ultra left regime causing misery, duped that they are self determining and pulling away from the influence of the US but its a farce, there is as as I have said elsewhere an natural order and one regime is only replaced by another in their case China replaces USA but everybody gets poorer and has worse security. So Scotland will replace westminster with edinburgh, less opportunity for future generations to succeed, nett migration away from scotland, all on the belief that voting in somebody in Edinburgh is more valid than Westminster. Taking this argument for self determination to its conclusion you end up with the dissolution of society and promote individual rather than societal decision making. Seriously if Scotland becomes independent we must seek independence for Grampian.....
I think people make emotional decisions. Like with voting in the UK. People tend to vote according to aspiration. I posted you may remember that online programme that asked people to choose policies and then it told us which party proposed them. It was quite amusingly surprising.... In spite of that sort of thing people will choose the package they like. Trouble is we are not in a situation of growth worldwide so will be very tough if Scotland go independent.
I agree fully that it is going to be tough for Scotland if they go it alone. I also agree that many of those voting probably don't have an awareness of how tough but there comes a time when there is a collective urge to rise to a challenge. We are all products of our pasts and that moulds our decisions on what we are prepared to give up in order to gain something else. For the No campaign the returns are not worth what will be lost, whilst the Yes group are prepared to take that risk. There will be many people who have mis-calculated on both sides of the argument. Some will do much better than they expected and other worse, whichever way the vote goes.
But isn't that what Mrs. Thatcher said? There is no such thing as society, there is only individual freedom.
Someone wrote that is was big error for the NO group to accept the vote as YES or NO as NO seems so much more negative.... and YES of course feels and seems positive..... I am ambivalent about risk taking..... psychologically I support it... yet I cant help but thinking there is some delusional thinking going on here ( Well I would say that in my profession!)
Standard Life that is one of the largest global companies in the supply of pensions and insurance, have set up companies already in England to transfer their business to in the event of a Yes vote. I don't know how many of the staff would be offered jobs 'down south' but it would represent upheaval for them and their families. A call centre employee has been told his job will go because it is on a UK government contract, that will be placed elsewhere. These are hard facts for the people involved and I doubt that I would wish to put my family at risk on the tale of a better life with AS.
