-Danielle- said:
Yeah I don't think Salmonds going to do anything he's saying to the Scottish people to get their vote. It's all empty words and there's not going to be any improvement in health, jobs, benefits, less immigrants etc if they split. Won't get better, won't get worse either....I don't think?
As said by Memorium, I'm not sure how leaving or staying would benefit either way. I'd like them to stay though. It'd be weird that they wouldnt call themselves British and that if they vote Yes and succeed.
The maina reas they think they'll be able to benefit from is by setting their own taxes, planning their own spending with regards to health, military, social etc etc. Salmond is claiming somehow that public spending will go up, but taxes will go down. He has yet to explain how this works, unless he is some sort of alchemist who can create something from nothing.
My concern is primarily on our economy. We have only just started to claw our way out of the last trouble it had, and if Scotland votes yes then potentially we could see the economy hit pretty hard. If the value of the £ drops then our buying power internationally decreases, so importing products would be much more expensive. I'm not talking about a Blu-Ray or a game, i'm talking about things like electricity, gas, food....importing these things would cost more, so as such we'd see increases in our bills and in our shops.
On the flip side, the value of our manufactured goods would be cheaper for people outside the UK due to the lower pound. There are many scenarios that this could create:
1) weaker pound means our products made from 100% british materials are cheaper for people outside the UK so exports increase and potentially balances out the pound weakness with regards to income for companies.
2) weaker pound means bringing in production materials from outside the UK is more expensive. This means that products made in the UK with outside goods would have to see their sale prices increased due to additional costs for the manufacturer. This could then lead to customers being alienated by the increase in costs from the manufacturers and going elsewhere.
3) weaker pound with no increase in exports see's a sizeable hit in terms of income for many companies who rely on export. This would then lead to job losses due to insufficient finances to keep operations going as they were beforehand.
It's quite a scary time imo. I hope if Scotland do get what they want that we aren't affected too adverseley.
I was SO happy when we kept the GBP all those years ago when it was questioned/up for discussion/deciding.
