Tom Daley and his partner missed out on the medals and finished 4th in the mens diving
But he still has other diving events to try and get a medal
Tom Daley and his partner missed out on the medals and finished 4th in the mens diving
But he still has other diving events to try and get a medal
His partner? :sign12: That is a reward in itself!Originally Posted by bluechris1
Cunt Pride!
Oh I don't take your word for it - and neither do I take seriously the patronising, metropolitan claptrap in the Economist - which published a map entitled "Skintland".
Now you see, and don't take this personally mate, but your RBS argument is just based on ignorance.
Scottish GDP in 2008 was an estimated ┬г145 billion.
The cost to the UK of the RBS / HBOS bail out in 2008 was ┬г88 billion.
However the actual Scottish share on a per capita basis was ┬г8.8 billion, and on the debt accrued by the Scottish registered banks which would have been an independent Scotland's liability is estimated at ┬г2.4 billion.
Because there is one little detail you have totally forgotten (or more likely never knew)- as Andrew Hughes Hallett, Professor of Economics at St AndrewтАЩs University, put it:
"The real point here, and this is the real point, is by international convention, when banks which operate in more than one country get into these sorts of conditions, the bailout is shared in proportion to the area of activities of those banks, and therefore itтАЩs shared between several countries. In the case of the RBS, IтАЩm not sure of the exact numbers, but roughly speaking 90% of its operations are in England and 10% are in Scotland, the result being, by that convention, therefore, that the rest of the UK would have to carry 90% of the liabilities of the RBS and Scotland 10%. And the precedent for this, if you want to go into the details, are the Fortis Bank and the Dexia Bank, which are two banks which were shared between France, Belgium and the Netherlands, at the same time were bailed out in proportion by France, Belgium and the Netherlands."
So you see, mate, the RBS bailout would have required to have been financed by the rest of the UK to the tune of 90% in any event (and proportionately in other EU states in which RBS traded), so your argument that Scotland would have had to bail out the entire RBS/HBOS operations is just plain wrong. Plus you conveniently forget that all the years RBS/HBOS was making huge profits, the taxation revenue positively flowed into the UK treasury, so why shouldn't they accept the hit?
Let me move on to the "subsidies from London" :
A recent study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) think tank, based on official tax and spending figures, concludes that Scotland's North Sea oil and gas revenues, with other taxes, means it gets no net subsidy from the rest of the UK. Or, if you don't believe those figures, why don't you look at the UK Govt GERS figures which show that far from the rest of the UK subsidising Scotland, it's often the other way round.
Next, let's look at/destroy your "Armed Forces" argument -
Well, maybe we wouldn't be able wage illegal wars in Iraq or invade Afghanistan and sacrifice hundreds of our own young men and slaughter hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistani women and children - but I think we can do without that kind of thing don't you? If we were to believe people like lexusgs, after independence the Scottish defence capability would consist of a freefone number and a recorded message saying "We surrender" in six languages.
The difference would be that an independent Scotland would only require a defence capacity, Westminster requires an attack capacity.
Scotland's notional share of Westminster's Department of Offence spending amounts to around ┬г3.5 billion annually. Less than ┬г2 billion of that is actually spent in Scotland. Even if we were to maintain defence spending exactly as it is now, we'd still have an extra ┬г1.5 billion to play with. The savings we'd make by no longer coughing up for Westminster's pretensions to Great Power status would alone pay for investment in Scottish jobs and industry which would more than compensate for any loss of defence sector jobs.
And don't forget you'll be getting your nukes back as well - once the Olympic Games Cttee are finished using Eton Dorney you could maybe house them there? Too close to home? I f***ing bet it is.
Now to your most ludicrous assertion yet - that "Scotland would never be allowed to join the Euro" - WFT?
Are you living in a bubble?
Who the hell wants to join the Euro these days?
But hang on a minute - I thought the Unionist position was that Scotland would be kicked out of the EU anyway (there is no such provision of course, but they don't let that little detail bother them) - so where does "joining the Euro" come into it?
The currency position post-independence is clear - the pound sterling will remain the currency of an independent Scotland until the Scottish people decide otherwise. The pound is our national currency just as much as it's the currency of the rest of the UK, and Scotland owns a proportional share of the central bank, the Bank of England, which underwrites that currency. As an independent state, Scotland would have just under 10% of a stake in the Bank of England, and 10% of influence. 10% of influence is 100% more than the influence we have just now. The pound sterling is a fully convertable currency, Scotland cannot be prevented from using it, in the same way as Ireland kept the ┬г from 1921 until it got its own Saorst├бt pound in 1928, then the Irish Punt in 1938, all of which was pegged to Sterling until it joined the Euro in 2002.
Don't believe me?
Well, "Don't take my word for it" as you said - let's take a look at what the UK Prime Minister has said on this issue:
"Of course it is possible that Scotland can stand alone - that is true....I don't think we'd ever succeed in saving the Union by frightening Scots to say you couldn't possibly make it on your own."
So, if in the future you wish to debate any political or economic issues with me, mate, I suggest you get your facts right before opening your cakehole.
And here's a final though to keep us on topic - when you watched that Olympic parade of 200+ nations, did you think about how many of them used to be ruled by Mother England?
Exactly how many of them have regretted breaking free and have begged to come back into her suffocating bosom.
Why do you think the Americans, Australians, Canadians and many, many, more all celebrate their independence day?
Have a nice day.
:occasion9:
Fantastic !....GB mens team...get bronz in the gymnsastics !..best they've ever done in thier history..crowds going beserk!
arty
Apparently they got Silver before the Japanese complained, won an appeal, and were promoted form 4th to 2nd.
As Basil Fawlty said "Who won the bloody war anyway?"
:evil4:
I don't know I only read the news and thought that was fucked up.
No, the judges spent a lot of time looking at video evidence of the Japanese gymnast's performance, realised that they had made a mistake, awarded him extra points and then revised the medals table. It was a fair process, as conceded by Team GB. The real losers were the Ukrainians, demoted from third to fourth place and hence losing any sort of medal.
"The fruits of peace and tranquility... are the greatest goods... while those of its opposite, strife, are unbearable evils. Hence we ought to wish for peace, to seek it if we do not already have it, to conserve it once it is attained, and to repel with all our strength the strife which is opposed to it. To this end individual[s]... and in even greater degree groups and communities are obliged to help one another... from the bond or law of human society." [Marsilio dei Mainardini (c.1275-1342), Defensor Pacis]
Oh I don't take your word for it - and neither do I take seriously the patronising, metropolitan claptrap in the Economist - which published a map entitled "Skintland".
Wow MATE,
That must have taken you all night to formulate a reply. Sorry but I got bored by your second paragraph. I stand my my opinion. You can put whatever spin you wish to to make it look
favourable from your own point of view. The bottom line MATE is that Scotland would end up as just another Greece or some similar. Personally as I have already mentioned I hope Scotland
does break away. You are absolute proof of the type who moans on and on about independence at every opportunity. It's boring. Give it a rest man. (I mean mate :bounce
You have a nice day now :hello2:
I haven't read all the posts because I don't have much interest. But I have only seen one reference to one important thing - OIL! The oil that Britain has been benefitting from since the early 1970s lies off the coast of Scotland - not England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Without the revenues from the offshore oil and the employment generated - and taxes paid - by all the ancillary onshore service companies, the UK's economy would have collapsed decades ago without massive cuts in expenditure.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/real ... ndependentMost of the big oil fields lie offshore north of a Berwick-on-Tweed border while an enormous new area of hydrocarbon production is being developed west of the Shetland Islands. The southern North Sea тАУ off East Anglia - is still a significant area for gas production but nothing like what lies north of there.
London holds political control of the tax levels currently but the civil servants that work on North Sea regulatory affairs are based in Aberdeen. An independent Scotland therefore would have most of the brain power in place while all the big oil companies use Aberdeen as an industrial centre for their offshore operations too.
As for the gymnastics last night, the British team were amazing, given that the sport has only recently become popular - and it was competing against the giants of China and Japan. World Champion Kohei Uchimura was almost unbelievable, until his last surprising dismount from the pommel horse. I thought the whole event was riveting and cannot wait for the individual disciplines later in the week.
Lexugs you must be even thicker than I thought - a simple look at the timestamps will tell you how long it took me to formulate my reply.
It's not difficult or time consuming to argue with you, the figures quoted are not mine, they are official figures and official quotes.
All we have had from you is assertion, bluster, and insult.
Your tactic (and the tactic of the British state) is the trademark of the abuser and the bully - "you are too small, too poor, and too stupid to stand on your own two feet, so you better do as I tell you"
Even now, while you rant and rave about how Scotland would be an economic basket-case, your own Prime Minister, the Etonian toff, concedes otherwise - and he is the guy with the figures, rather than the guy (you) with the bluff and bluster.
Fountainhall's post is on the button - this is a large part of why the British state is shitting itself big time and deploying all the tactics and resources available to it. If Scotland goes, the overwhelming majority of Oil and Gas revenues go (by international law - there is no argument about it), and the UK's much vaunted AAA credit rating goes with them.
The British state has deliberately lied about the Oil for over forty years - a scandal that, thanks to the burying of evidence, almost nobody knew or cared about.
As Lexusgs says "dont take my word for it"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...nd-518697.html
:hello2:
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