Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 82 posts

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#41

Post by rayiner »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
rayiner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe has been unable to recreate Silicon Valley for a large number of reasons none of which have anything to do with why they can't move their financial center to Frankfurt. I'd argue that a lot of the reasons overlap. The key ones being: pre-existing access to capital, access to talent, and tolerance for risk-taking.

Capital is very easy to move (and is already moving), banking talent is not rare and tolerance for risk taking? We're talking about banking here. The tolerance for risk taking in banking goes just so far that you are not fired if the risk is covered before you are found out. Start-ups and banking have very little to do with each other. I'd like to see a start-up succeed under the kind of risk-averse attitude that's p…

20-somethings at Wall Street and City firms are making billion dollar trades--ones where even a small amount of risk can yield huge losses. That takes an appetite for risk. Those firms have pipelines funneling in the top graduates from the top schools. They've got access to (rare) talent. They've got the connections with individual and institutional investors that can raise billions of dollars on tight timelines to finance mergers, acquisitions, or expansion. That's access to capital that could move but isn't necessarily going to. And they've got a well-developed supporting infrastructure of accountants, lawyers, and analysts helping to keep the gears turning.

You can't easily recreate that somewhere else.

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#42

Post by sidek »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #39
BurningFrog wrote: post #27

The UK has granted independence to more countries than any other, they know how to do it well, and how to have a good relation with the new nation.

Lots of those countries had to get it through violence.

Most of those countries did come under, and were maintained under, British rule because of violence.

But I don't think it's accurate to say that lots of them had to be violent to get their independence. The British largely gave that politically.

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#43

Post by [deleted] »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #29
duncanawoods wrote: post #24

There is a huge problem that the EU and IndyRef questions are mutually dependent and cannot be fairly resolved by asking independent questions in sequence. I believe the nuance of the situation requires multiple questions to be asked at the same time. Given we have already had IndyRef1 and EU1 the defaults are that Scotland is part of the UK and that there will be a Brexit. There is something wrong about repeating re…

Scotland leaving the UK was a reasonably foreseeable result of Brexit, so voters in England and Wales should have asked themselves question 2 when they voted on Thursday. Britain, as a whole, voting for leaving the EU wasn't foreseen at the time of the Scottish independence referendum, so voters in that wouldn't have asked themselves question 1. So the Scottish government should at this stage try to negotiate a Danis…

[deleted]

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#44

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

sidek wrote: post #42
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of those countries had to get it through violence.

Most of those countries did come under, and were maintained under, British rule because of violence. But I don't think it's accurate to say that lots of them had to be violent to get their independence. The British largely gave that politically.

Here are some polities that had to use violence to achieve independence from Britain: US India Pakistan Kenya Egypt Burma Sri Lanka Malaysia

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#45

Post by dijit »

atmosx wrote: post #9

The EU membership will most likely come with a change of currency, which means leaving the BoE for the ECB. Given the ECB's track record and it's inability to do what a central bank ought to do - protect banks from bank runs, devalue, etc. - I believe that it's suicidal. The QE was was a joke. Surplus recycling is nowhere to be found in the European Union, vis-a-vis Germany Scotland will have deficit, hence it's doom…

Sorry, but the point of the EU is not to just let everyone mooch off of the central banks and beg for handouts.

Scotland outside of UK and part of the EU is a Scotland ripe for service industry. If the EU helps it's member states to be better than they are individually, which is supposed to be how it works, then there's no reason to assume Scotland will be running at a deficit forever.

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#46

Post by pm90 »

atmosx wrote: post #9

The EU membership will most likely come with a change of currency, which means leaving the BoE for the ECB. Given the ECB's track record and it's inability to do what a central bank ought to do - protect banks from bank runs, devalue, etc. - I believe that it's suicidal. The QE was was a joke. Surplus recycling is nowhere to be found in the European Union, vis-a-vis Germany Scotland will have deficit, hence it's doom…

Agree with most of your comment. One nit: interest rate (and monetary policy in general) isn't as important as the independence to determine fiscal policies. The two are related of course if you don't have an independent currency. That is my biggest beef with the Euro.

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#47

Post by pm90 »

dijit wrote: post #45
atmosx wrote: post #9

The EU membership will most likely come with a change of currency, which means leaving the BoE for the ECB. Given the ECB's track record and it's inability to do what a central bank ought to do - protect banks from bank runs, devalue, etc. - I believe that it's suicidal. The QE was was a joke. Surplus recycling is nowhere to be found in the European Union, vis-a-vis Germany Scotland will have deficit, hence it's doom…

Sorry, but the point of the EU is not to just let everyone mooch off of the central banks and beg for handouts. Scotland outside of UK and part of the EU is a Scotland ripe for service industry. If the EU helps it's member states to be better than they are individually, which is supposed to be how it works, then there's no reason to assume Scotland will be running at a deficit forever.

It will be initially though, which is what we know for certain. Whether they will become a service industry utopia, is something which remains to be seen. In that case, it makes much more sense for Scotland to have control over its monetary and fiscal policies and not have them dictated by the ECB.

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#48

Post by jcfrei »

atmosx wrote: post #9

The EU membership will most likely come with a change of currency, which means leaving the BoE for the ECB. Given the ECB's track record and it's inability to do what a central bank ought to do - protect banks from bank runs, devalue, etc. - I believe that it's suicidal. The QE was was a joke. Surplus recycling is nowhere to be found in the European Union, vis-a-vis Germany Scotland will have deficit, hence it's doom…

Why should Scotland join the Euro? As you've outlined it's not in their interest.

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#49

Post by tehabe »

atmosx wrote: post #9

The EU membership will most likely come with a change of currency, which means leaving the BoE for the ECB. Given the ECB's track record and it's inability to do what a central bank ought to do - protect banks from bank runs, devalue, etc. - I believe that it's suicidal. The QE was was a joke. Surplus recycling is nowhere to be found in the European Union, vis-a-vis Germany Scotland will have deficit, hence it's doom…

Sorry, you are in almost everything wrong. Deficits are not really a problem. Currently, the lack of a deficit is the main reason, why the ECB set the interest rate to zero. Almost all European governments cut spending and remove money from the economy. The results are awful is most economies, except those which can export more than import. They live on the deficit of other countries.

BTW Germany is currently the country which suffers the most from the low interest rates of the ECB.

The problem is that countries like Greece, Spain, and Portugal are being forced to cut spending, which doesn't end their crisis but will prolong them and make everybody poorer in the process.

There is certainly a point in which the deficit is too high, but where this point is, is unknown. It is the same with inflation, a little bit inflation is good for an economy. It gives incentives to spent money and to invest now and don't wait for lower prices. But too high inflation will hurt an economy badly.

Re: Sturgeon seeks Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership

#50

Post by jacalata »

jcfrei wrote: post #48
atmosx wrote: post #9

The EU membership will most likely come with a change of currency, which means leaving the BoE for the ECB. Given the ECB's track record and it's inability to do what a central bank ought to do - protect banks from bank runs, devalue, etc. - I believe that it's suicidal. The QE was was a joke. Surplus recycling is nowhere to be found in the European Union, vis-a-vis Germany Scotland will have deficit, hence it's doom…

Why should Scotland join the Euro? As you've outlined it's not in their interest.

All recent new members have been required to, I believe.
Post reply on HN