****ing Nigels. Even ER, a Nigel by birth, hates being a Nigel. Freedom, alcoholism and smack. That's all we need
Money raised from tourist revenue possibly. The Royal Opera House (magnificent building) just happens to be in Covent Garden. There are other Opera Houses scattered around the UK but I doubt they're ever full. The V & A Museum just happens to be in South Kensington, just next door to the Natural History Museum. Have you seen those buildings? can you imagine them existing in Stoke on Trent or Paisley? London's the capital city, deal with it. Meanwhile, do you really deny that the Scottish capital doesn't gobble up more resources than the rest of Scotland put together? Those bagpipes aren't cheap you know, nor those ostrich feather hats. Who's paying for them?
Er, I'm struggling to think of better incentives? Other than tax, of course. Are you saying an independent Scotland should be a tax haven for revenue dodging business's? How does that tie in with the high spend on public services?
An independent Scotland can set their taxes to whatever they want. They will be competing with the rump of the UK.
Well obviously. But low taxes = low public spending. High public spending = high taxes. It's called maths.
I think Alex Salmond has every intention of lowering the likes of the corporation tax rate for Scotland, even if he loses the referendum. Cheap staff, cheap property prices and most importantly cheaper taxes (for their entire EU operation) leads to companies moving the headquarters of their operations to that territory, with higher paying top jobs stopping the local brain drain. We are based on the Isle of Man but I struggle to recruit top staff locally, so we import from the UK and Ireland - so because of the tax regime here there is a reverse of the brain drain, where the local economy is filled with highly skilled jobs. "revenue dodging business's" - I am an Irish person serving mostly Asian customers from a company which was established on the Isle of Man, having never been based anywhere else - we are not dodging any taxes, and as a business we owe the likes of the UK nothing (apart from maybe a thank you for rearing and educating many of our staff).
The IOM spends more on public services per head than the UK, and takes in more tax per head than the UK - since people get paid higher wages a smaller proportion of those wages is needed to fund services.
It's working for us: Amazon.com - World's largest online retailer, Located in Dublin Apple Inc. - EMEA Headquarters, Hollyhill, Cork City Baltimore Technologies - (Renamed to Oryx International Growth Fund Quoted on LSE) Cisco - located in Oranmore, Co. Galway Cúram Software - produces Social Enterprise Management software, acquired by IBM DCC - (Quoted on ISE & LSE) Dell Ireland - (Subsidiary of Dell, quoted on NASDAQ) Dropbox - to open EMEA Headquarters in Dublin in 2013 eBay - EMEA Headquarters, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15 EMC Ireland - Subsidiary of EMC Corporation Facebook - EMEA Headquarters, Barrow Street, Dublin 4 Glen Dimplex - Manufacturer of consumer electrical goods Google Ireland - EMEA Headquarters, Barrow Street, Dublin 4 Havok - acquired by Intel Corporation HeyStaks - Collaborative Discovery software, based in NovaUCD, Dublin. Hewlett-Packard - Liffey Park Technology Campus (LPTC), Leixlip, Kildare IBM - (Quoted on NYSE www.ibm.com/ie) Intel Ireland - Leixlip, Dublin - largest manufacturing plant outside of the United States IONA Technologies - (Acquired by Progress Software in 2008) LinkedIn - EMEA Headquarters, Wilton Place, Dublin Logitech - R&D, S&M, Finance, Cork Microsoft Ireland - (Subsidiary of Microsoft, quoted on NASDAQ) NewBay Software - acquired by Research In Motion in 2011. Sold to Synchronoss in 2012. Norkom Technologies - now a part of Detica Openet - produces software for the Telecoms Industry Oracle - Oracle EMEA Limited based at East Point Business Park Fairview Dublin 3 PayPal - EMEA Headquarters, Blanchardstown, Dublin Salesforce.com - SFDC Ireland Ltd. based in The Atrium Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18, Ireland SAP AG - SAP SSC Ireland Ltd. based in Citywest Business Park, Dublin 24 and Galway, Parkmore Business Park Symantec Ireland Twitter - EU Headquarters, Dublin Xilinx FPGA and EDA Tool Company Zamano - Quoted on AIM
No more exporting hard-ons to the world though http://www.independent.ie/business/...market-as-viagra-patent-expires-29369262.html
Yup, Central Belt greed. You have finally agreed with my point about disparity of wealth distribution in Scotland and it will be even worse if Independence happens.
