Seems the SNP wants another independence referendum and is looking at introducing a separate currency. They are to discuss this at their conference.
What would happen in practice? I understand the shops could be compelled to accept a new currency as it would be legal tender for settlement of all debts. Money paid out by the government would be in new currency.
What would happen to existing bank accounts denominated in Sterling? I know with the euro there was a compulsory conversion, but that was because the old currency was to be abolished. If a bank is based in Scotland (RBS) could the government compel conversion? What if the bank is based in England (Barclays)? What about dividends paid in Sterling?
Could they abolish ISAs and tax existing holdings as foreign income with no tax relief?
It would be the same as for any other foreign currency, surely, dollars, euros, whatever. The BoE would have no responsibility for it, that would divulge to the BoS. Our banks would probably accept the currency, as would bureaux de change. English shops probably wouldn't take it, any more than they accept $ or ? now (except maybe those shops regularly frequented by foreign visitors), but Scottish shops would happily take it. Whether they'd take English £ is another matter. I imagine that initially the Scottish £ would be on a par with the English £, so the value of your Scottish bank account wouldn't change in the short term, but would probably fall eventually as the Scottish economy and £ settled to it's true value.
Next time you are north of the border, look at the land given over to agriculture. Look at the food crops, the fishing industry. Look at the population level.
Money isn't a problem, the idiots in the UK suffered a major financial setback simply because they adopted the Euro with the queens head on the coinage.
Cash isn't going to be a problem at all, the only ones frantic to make an impact are the throwbacks that try to link currency to national loyalty, and a lot of the time these are the very leeches that rely on differing exchange rates to make a very good living indeed.
Sadly someone has to pay for conversion so for example the "victorious Brit" who's pensions and spending power were totally screwed on Black Wendsday is still happy to pay out a fortune in exchange rates to greedy workshy trough hoggers, simply to keep the queens bonce on their coinage. Why the flipping hell all thes morons prancing around with Union Jacks aren't demanding the queen adorns their debit [or more likely credit cards now], I will never know.
We'll probably all be made to be vegetarians anyway, with one sacrificial haggis a year allowed by the SNP People's Health And Methane Committee.
Now wondering whether Tesco Bank (a Scottish plc wholly owned by an English plc) is Scottish or English for the purposes of my life savings being turned into Thistles.
Even the unproductive stuff is free to be made productive. Try banging out a few compulsory purchase orders in Manchester to promote a bit more agriculture.
Post Brexit, it's academic. The farmers are already suffering labour shortages, so Scotland would have a distinct edge.
Sadly I do tend to wonder how the Scots would view vast troups of English crossing into an independent Scotland post Brexit. Scotland was the only place that I ever ecountered racism.
A drunk in Dunfermline [Wetherspoons] took a dislike to my English accent.
You are actually entitled to a Euro account if you wish to divert from Thistles. Nothing wrong with thistles incidentally, a perfectly valid unit of currency, I personally would switch to something less volatile though. If you don't use a wallet or purse, thistles can encourage squander.
That Scotland would be worse off after independence was a lie formulated by the rest of Britain.
It worked against the morons though, and the truth about Brexit sounded very much like the fiction used to dissuade the Scots from independence, now the whole of Britain is in the dire state predicted for an independent Scotland.
Deep joy! The ironic humour of it all is beyond anyones expectations.
I see no issue, here in Kingston Upon Thames we have the Kingston Pound its designed to keep the economy local. Its really no different to coupons or any other form of additional payment scheme. The problem starts when you want to trade in it internationally and since the gold standard went out the window who the heck knows what any currency is worth, but if you are not efficient and your work not cheap enough you get devalued. Brian
In my opinion, despite all the blustering from the "English" government, there is no reason why Scotland would have to abandon Sterling unless it wanted to. It would need to decide its monetary policy and if keeping Sterling were in its best interests, it could do so.
There are at least three, different examples of countries other than the USA which have adopted the US$ as their currency. Panama Canal Zone was annexed by the USA at the turn of the 20th Century rather as Crimea has been annexed from Ukraine by Russia in more recent times. The result was the complete acceptance of US$ throughout Panama and now even though the country is independent from USA the dollar is still the national currency. Parallels?
Equador had such a weak currency that nobody trusted it and insisted on payment in US$. Today the Sucre exists in name only and the official currency is the US$
Argentina - Wait! doesn't Argentina have the Peso? Yes, but it is going the way of the Sucre - nobody trusts it and the de facto currency is the US$. All big transactions are carried out in US$ - Property, Cars, International travel - etc. And I mean real dollars: banks have special rooms for property transactions where one party will pull out hundreds of thousands of dollar bills and pass them across the table to the other party. Peso inflation in Argentina has been between 20%-50% per year for the past several years and yet, as the Peso has devalued against the Dollar the prices of most goods in the shops - when measured in Dollars
- have remained roughly the same. Example: a pack of butter, which I can remember paying three Pesos for in 2002 when the Dollar bought three Pesos, now costs 60 Pesos - about a dollar and a quarter. In my opinion Dollarisation is only a matter of time.
As for Scotland: I see no reason why they wouldn't continue to use the Pound Sterling - unless they join the EU and adopt the Euro <grin>.
I would say that as a currency the thistle would trump it completely, merely because the residual value of a Kingston pound is about zero if the currency fails. There may be the odd one or two with solid fuel stoves of course.
Have you ever tried putting food in the "safe" end of a donkey, a satisfying, rewarding experience. For this reason alone, I would say that the thistle has the edge on most currency's.
Is everyone in Kingston keen to accept the Kinston pound? I had a dammned dificult job spending my Scottish currency in England, I must admit even with my poor opinion of the British educational system, the recipients go out of their way to help me to understand that I overestimated the final product.
But that is the point you see, to support local business, its precisely because its local that it stays in the local economy. Bring back the toll gate? Brian
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