Malaconotus wrote:Scotland has wind, water, and oil. It has a history of producing some of the finest minds and many of the industrial revolution's greatest inventions, and has three of the top 100 universities in the world. It has no population pressures. And it's beautiful. Why would it want, or need, union with England?
Your second sentence "It has a history ...." just supports what I was saying above (unless you have some dodgy ideas about race.) Rather than being expolited, I'd suggest that Scotland has done pretty well out of the Union with England, largely though being at the heart of the British Empire, rather than being part of the rest. The fact that Great Britain lead the Industrial Revolution also played a part in all our prosperity.
The question you pose sounds fine and dandy, but rather misses the point that the union already exists. The issue then, is one of staying or leaving. In the post-Empire, post-Industrial Britain, things are changing and we are dropping down the international tables. The financial situation of western world is shaky, and seems to be put at further risk because nobody has much idea of the extent of the debts. Things seem to have got much worse recently, because attempts by a number of governments to stimulate their economies with cheap money have sucked in imports from the Far East (something I presume you know all about in the bike trade) and increased reckless risk-taking by the banks (including Scotland's own financial institutions.) For there own separate reasons, some of the smaller countries which seemed to be doing so well when the going was good, such as Ireland and Iceland are now in the mire, and with nobody really to turn to when the going got tough.
It seems obvious to me that disentangling all the complications of such a long period of union would be a difficult endeavour, even without political manoeuvring. I don't pretend to be able to tell the difference between people who are highlighting real potential problems and those who are just muddying the waters in support of their own preferred outcome. When sentiment among international investors (AKA lenders) is so sensitive to the slightest hints of default, both sides in this debate may be overcome by events outside their control, but of their own causing. I fear that the question of who controls the oil revenue may ultimately be quite insignificant.
I think things are much more profound than your analysis. (Which may be why Salmond seems to be keen to avoid a simple IN / OUT? referendum.)
