currency

Scotland must solve its own business case if ‘Yes’ is to win an #IndyRef2

Mick Fealty on January 5, 2015, 10:13 am

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I admit there were a few occasions when I thought I’d stuck my neck out a little too far after I’d solemnly declared the Scottish #IndyRef to be over in February. It wasn’t of course and, as I also predicted at the time, it has brought in a lot of new business to the SNP, and neatly decapitated Scottish Labour into the bargain. The paradox of the currency question is that it had two immediate but contrary effects when it crystalised back then. Most …

CNBC: Ireland we hardly knew ye!

David McCann on November 4, 2014, 3:19 pm

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I know we like to think that our wee island packs a punch beyond its size, but any illusion that we are a household name kind of comes crashing down with one interview on one of America’s most respected financial networks CNBC. If you have not been following this story, the Chief Executive of the Irish Development Agency, Martin Shanahan was invited onto the programme to discuss Ireland’s tax system which has been debated in the corridors of power in …

“Introducing a new Scottish currency has always been the most sensible option….”

Mick Fealty on September 16, 2014, 1:22 pm

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Okay, so let’s for argument’s sake assume the premise of my previous blog is roughly true. Why is Alex Salmond want to mash up the media playing field between now and Thursday. It’s the conclusion from a short paper by Angus Armstrong and Monique Ebell of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), called simply, Is This Plan B: In 2016, Scotland is likely to face twin deficits in the year that it might become an independent nation. …

#IndyRef: Rejigging Scotland’s currency arrangements requires restructuring (and damage)

Mick Fealty on September 11, 2014, 5:37 pm

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So yesterday three ‘boys’ from Westminster went to face the man of Scotland. As it happens all four major party leaders have been immersed in the art of politics since young, but Alex Salmond’s has twenty years on his more ‘senior’ rivals. Time and time again it shows. For much of the last three years whilst the ‘boys’ were in Westminster trying either to hold together or prize apart Her Majesty’s Government in the Palace of Westminster, there has only …

The Scottish referendum campaign: personal relations are affected as the arguments become keener

Brian Walker on January 30, 2014, 12:24 pm

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Both sides of the independence referendum campaign are busy spinning Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s warning to Alex Salmond that “some ceding of national sovereignty” would be necessary as the price of independent Scotland’s desire to keep the pound. The Nats are treating it with all the appearance of calm acceptance; the No campaign, championed here by former Scotsman editor Iain Martin, that Carney has spiked Salmond’s guns. The Nats’ case has rested forever on the allegation that the Westminster parliament …

Greece hammered by the markets

Mack on April 28, 2010, 10:23 am

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Constantin Gurdgiev interprets the 2 year Greek bond yields – This is it, folks. No where else to run. Greek interest on public debt would swallow over 19 percent of their GDP annually! Ouch! FWIW, that is almost half what a normal country would take in tax revenues, being used to meet unproductive interest payments.. In The Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard argues that the ECB will have to intervene soon and begin purchasing sovereign government debt. The European Central Bank may …