They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!

Tony_Tarantula on 21/9/2014 at 20:25

Technically he's correct. They've already reneged on the first promise to bring the issue before Parliament. I also think that a more in depth analysis will reveal the economic concerns to be not only unfounded, but completely correct. First off Scotland(http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/real-reason-britain-freaking-scottish-independence.html) would have kept 90% of North Sea oil revenues. Second the potential existed for massive economic capital inflows as institutional investors fleeing the Eurozone's sovereign debt crises would have heavily invested in the Scottish economy. Most likely Scotland would have occupied the place that Switzerland forfeited due to their abandonment of their previous banking rules

The big winners of this is the EU, as Scottish economic independence posed a threat to the Euro experiment. Besides the economic trends I've mentioned(which touches on the issue about as deeply as dipping a yardstick into the ocean) there is another factor in that a "yes" vote would doubtless have fanned the flames of the numerous separatist movements emerging in Europe. Rumor is(I have some extended family who are first-tier executives in global financial institutions) that Brussels was directly involved in the campaign to defeat the independence vote.

Make no mistake, the European elite was in a panic over this issue. What is a mistake is to think that it's over.

Tony_Tarantula on 21/9/2014 at 20:32

Quote Posted by ffox

I suspect that one reason for the skewed polls was that some Yes campaign supporters were so aggressive that some No voters pretended to go along to keep the peace.

On another tack, on 5 Live a woman from Inverness asked "how can the No voters be happy with things as they are?". Most of the Nos probably are not that happy, but thought that things would be even worse with the alternative.

It was head over heart in many cases.

The age breakdown gives some clues.

Quote:

In terms of age, the 16-35 year-olds were divided, yet there was a pro union majority for the over 65 group counting on pensions.

16 and 17-year-olds voting 71% yes.
18-24-year-olds voted 52 to 48 against independence.
25-34-year-olds voted for Independence.
65s+ voted 73% to 27% to stay in the Union.

The results show that the No campaign won among men and women. Unsurprisingly, 95% of Conservative voters backed the Union.

This is illustrating the great disparity between generations. Not that they are hostile within the same household, but as groups - most definitely and this will only get worse as the economy turns down.

If you look at which groups voted the most strongly, that could potentially be a lot. I have a hypothesis about why the 65+ age group would be terrified of leaving the UK but I'm curious of anyone else here comes to the same conclusion(which is supported by polling data).

Edit: Screw it. They believe it was (http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/19/scotlands-vote-wont-be-the-last-battle-of-the-generations/) due to fear over losing their pensions.

Gryzemuis on 22/9/2014 at 02:44

Quote Posted by ffox

It was head over heart in many cases.

No. The reason the no-vote suddenly won in the end was FUD. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

FUD is a marketing strategy. Used by companies. Used by big companies to beat small companies. One famous saying is: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

IBM was the big computer-firm in the sixties and seventies. Even in the eighties they were the biggest computer company in the world. Their mainframes were expensive, very expensive. Way too expensive. Their services too. Everything that came from IBM was over-designed, over-expensive, and old technology. But it work. It was proven. You knew you would get zero technical progress. You would get something conservative, overpriced, and no chance of improvement whatsoever.

IBM sales-men had one big trick to pull when they would lose a sale. They would ask: "this other product by this other company, it is cheaper. It might look like it is working better. But are you sure ? Are you sure it won't break at the wrong time ? Can you depend on it ? Our competition is a small company, with no experience. And with no proven track-record. How can they beat IBM on reliability ? If you buy that other product, and it breaks, your company might be on the front page of every newspaper. Are you willing to take that risk ? Is your company willing to take that risk ? Are you personally willing to take that risk ? Remember, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM !"

This IBM story is true for many other big companies. And the FUD strategy does not only work in sales. It works in politics too.

That is what happened here. I saw one speech by Cameron. And I read the news about statements made by the EU. I wrote that in an earlier post. Cameron was warning the Scots: "They don't know what they're doing". In other words: with us, the Brits, you know what you have. If Scotland becomes independent, do you know what you'll get ? Things might get really bad. Are you willing to take the risk to give control to unproven imbeciles ? All big companies will leave Scotland. All Head Quarters of Scottish companies will leave Scotland. Do you know if you still will get a pension ?

The EU added a whole other level of FUD. They claimed that Scotland might not be allowed in the EU. If Scotland would drop the British Pound, they would not be allowed to join the Euro-currency. There would be import and export restrictions. Everything that the EU had been fighting for, suddenly wasn't available to the Scots. In the light of all this, I immediately believe that the EU helped London with acts and with money to fight Scotland's independence.

I think that was a dirty fight. If you start telling people: "vote for me, or I'll shoot you in the head", that is deemed illegal. But if you tell them: "vote for me, or we will take your jobs, your money, your savings, your pension, your international travel, everything away from you", that is suddenly ok ?

So yeah, I think Tony_T touches a very real subject, when he states that fear of losing pensions was a key factor.

Politicians are scumbags.
London and EU politicians have proven that again last week.

DDL on 22/9/2014 at 08:16

Bit too much conspiracy theory stuff here. Scotland is an...interesting place. Tons of interesting, intelligent and amazing people, and yet also jam-packed with miserable belligerent wankers who hate everything and everyone. Sometimes these are the same people.

This was really (like many elections) very much about the 'undecided' vote.

A decent wedge of people would've always voted YES no matter what, because "love of scotland/hatred of england" (effectively synonymous) overpowers any and all need for rational discourse. Get stocious on a bunch of cans, vote yes while screaming "fuck Cameron", profit.

That's your SNP core demographic, really.

A second wedge of people were young and idealistic and probably a bit FUCK TEH ESTABLISHMENT LOL because...well, because 'young and idealistic'. That'd be why there was such a strong YES presence among the younger voters. When you're 16 you don't think "but what about my portfolio bonds? What about local property values?". You barely think about future job prospects, it's primarily all about ideals rather than rational, considered, often unpleasant but 'better than the alternative' decisions. Well, Ideals and whether you can get your mate Gavin with the fake ID to buy some cans, get drunk in the park and then maybe stick your hand up Jessica's shirt after the vote, coz she's well up for it.

So that's your fundamentally "YES no matter what" grouping.

A third wedge of people would've always voted NO because they were old, getting all their pensions from gigantic trusts/bonds/investments, and would've seen all those tank significantly if separation had gone ahead. Would you like to see your lifetime's earnings vanish because of this referendum? What's that you say? No? Quel surprise. Older people are usually more conservative (usually because they have enough investments to be that selfish), and honestly: you don't generally get to be old and wealthy by leaping at ideals.

Very little any side could say would change the voting intent of these groups.

So between those extremes, you have all your middling voters, who might genuinely be swayed one way or the other. And on the whole, they seem to have played it safe. If Salmond had actually sounded like he had a plan, maybe it would've gone the other way (I dunno, a 10% swing is a pretty tough ask), but in pretty much every situation where he was required to outline a definite strategy he pretty much ended up saying "yeah, we'll sort it all out after we're independent. INDEPENDENCE!!!!". Conversely, the opposition didn't really need to demonstrate they had a plan, because their plan is the current working model. At most, they could offer carrots in the form of minor concessions, but really all they needed to do was challenge Salmond to come up with any sort of strategy.
He did his best to deflect those sort of questions, trying to make the NO campaign sound like a desperate bunch of crazies scrabbling to offer "anything, ANYTHING to make them stay" (and to be fair, the NO campaign pretty much did degenerate to that by the end, despite the fact everyone knows they were lying), but ultimately I think most of the 'undecided' voters sat down and looked at "shit, but nevertheless working, system" on the NO side, and "MYSTERY BOX BUT IT'S AWESOME HONEST" on the YES side, and went with the safe option, even if it left a bad taste in the mouth. By voting NO, you might still get SOME concessions, and you also avoid the risk of everything going utterly tits up because FREEDOM NOW, PLAN LATER.

Honestly, slow but incremental change is a much better strategy anyway, for all involved. And that's happening continuously as we speak.

Gryzemuis on 22/9/2014 at 08:29

Quote Posted by DDL

... getting all their pensions from gigantic trusts/bonds/investments, and would've seen all those tank significantly if separation had gone ahead. Would you like to see your lifetime's earnings vanish because of this referendum?

And why would pensions and investments suddenly disappear when Scotland would go independent ? All pension-funds in the world deal with their customers spread out over half the world. And they invest in many countries. The fact that they work internationally does not decrease their values. Why would a Scottish pension-fund with investments in the UK suddenly lose their value ? Why would a British pension-fund in London not be able to pay their customers in Scotland ?

Suggesting that pensions would go up in smoke is pure FUD.

DDL on 22/9/2014 at 10:10

"Hi, we're going to pay your pension in...uh....what currency do you guys use now? Wait, you don't know?"

Also, for public pensions, paid out by the state...that gets tricky when you're no longer a part of that state.

Plus if you're retired and relatively content, SUDDEN SEA-CHANGE SCENARIOS, even if they're 'low risk', lose their appeal. I'm not saying they're correct, but I'm also saying their reluctance was entirely understandable. Hence, voting NO whatever. Plus it's not like they're going to reap the benefits of an independent scotland: they'd be pushing up daisies before the chaos sorted itself out. Specially with the life expectancy of scotland.... :p

Also, I like that you're not quibbling the "young people are idealistic idiots" issue.

faetal on 22/9/2014 at 11:27

The young 'uns voted Yes because they figure if the price of highland toffee in England sky-rockets due to import taxes (and staggered supply due to quarantine), there's more for them. If England wants independence from Scotland, it really needs to sort out its own toffee production. Ditto irn bru, small white dogs and those machines which are used to deep fry large quantities of stuff. Also, if Scotland became independent, it might start growing its own heroin, which would be disastrous.

Tony_Tarantula on 22/9/2014 at 16:48

Quote Posted by Gryzemuis

The EU added a whole other level of FUD. They claimed that Scotland might not be allowed in the EU. If Scotland would drop the British Pound, they would not be allowed to join the Euro-currency. There would be import and export restrictions. Everything that the EU had been fighting for, suddenly wasn't available to the Scots. In the light of all this, I immediately believe that the EU helped London with acts and with money to fight Scotland's independence.

I think that was a dirty fight. If you start telling people: "vote for me, or I'll shoot you in the head", that is deemed illegal. But if you tell them: "vote for me, or we will take your jobs, your money, your savings, your pension, your international travel, everything away from you", that is suddenly ok ?

So yeah, I think Tony_T touches a very real subject, when he states that fear of losing pensions was a key factor.

Politicians are scumbags.
London and EU politicians have proven that again last week.

Which also verifies my point that this independence vote was primarily a threat to the elite of the EU, NOT the well being of Scotland's population. The fact that they even made the threat indicates that there was(most likely) a fear in Brussels that an independent Scotland, separated from the EU, would be a more attractive economy to invest into than any country using the Euro as its currency.

Debt is also a major issue. Where would those previous debts go? Wouldn't Scotland gain a major advantage by separating themselves from the fiscal insolvency(ranging from municipal to state level) that is threatening to destroy the long term viability of the Eurozone?