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[Owlbread]

Or perhaps you guys have decided that because Scottish independence ended with a monetary crisis you should start your new independence with a monetary crisis for point of continuity?

Nnnngnggnnghh... I need to stop reading this but I can't stop myself. I will stop now and return later with replies but I must clear this up; Scottish independence did not end with a monetary crisis. It ended with 100 years of England actively undermining Scottish efforts to expand trade and colonise central America and Canada, including raiding our ships and allowing our colonists to starve to death and die of illness (English privateers did not help here) by refusing to provide them with aid when they needed it from Jamaica, basically turning them away. It was England's greed; they did not want Scotland to become a trading power as they had a monopoly on Eastern trade that they wanted to keep. They couldn't tolerate a trading power in central America.

Even at that stage our finances were not so unstable as to require Union with England. Scotland's finances were drained, yes, but nothing cataclysmic. That was only brought about when England realised that war with Scotland was a real possibility due to unrest North of the border about not having our own King who would actually support our efforts (instead, he/she actively undermined them in colonial matters). A Nationalist mob ended up publicly lynching English sailors (privateers) in retaliation for perceived English treachery over the Darien Scheme disaster and tensions were very high.

At that point the English establishment sent spies up to Scotland who bribed our politicians with vast quantities of gold in order to secure a vote for Union, but that treaty was then subsequently disregarded after it passed (according to the British government in 2012 or so) and Scotland was actually annexed and became a part of England. To hide this, England then renamed itself Great Britain and over the next few years used religious figures to pacify the incandescent Scottish population who were practically on the verge of open rebellion at that time, rioting in the streets.

Read this article for more information.

Maybe it's an attempt to get into the Guinness book of world records with the first nationwide multi-year LARPing event?

I didn't understand this bit. Could you explain that to me? Are you making reference to the idea that Scotland would be "LARPing" as other historical nations-in-financial-crisis or are you making some kind of Braveheart dig?

[notquitethere]

Hold up Owlbread, the English were right bastards that didn't help, but the Darien Scheme was ill-fated from the beginning: setting camp in a malarial swamp, bringing things to sell to natives that they had no interest in, allowing the settlers to drink themselves into ill-health. The Scottish wanted to be a colonial power and for once there was justice in the world in preventing it. That it was land contested by the Spanish was just icing on the cake. It was a folly from start to finish.

[mainiac]

I didn't understand this bit. Could you explain that to me? Are you making reference to the idea that Scotland would be "LARPing" as other historical nations-in-financial-crisis or are you making some kind of Braveheart dig?

It seems like a multi-year effort to immitate the East Asian nations that had the 1997 crisis.

Nnnngnggnnghh... I need to stop reading this but I can't stop myself. I will stop now and return later with replies but I must clear this up; Scottish independence did not end with a monetary crisis.

It doesn't matter who you blame, a large chunk of the wealth of the realm was wiped out, creating a crisis.

[Owlbread]

It doesn't matter who you blame, a large chunk of the wealth of the realm was wiped out, creating a crisis.

Scotland had no national debt after the Darien Scheme as the entire venture was privately funded. If there was a "financial crisis" it was due to the thousands of Scottish people and nobles that invested in the scheme losing their money:

Spoiler: Taken from the article (click to show/hide)

n 1695 the Bank Of Scotland was established and the Company Of Scotland was born, with its capital intended to be £600,000 raised by public subscription, of which half was to come from within Scotland and the rest from elsewhere. Investors in England, Amsterdam and Hamburg quickly raised their share, but the East India Company – fearing that their monopoly would be broken – used their influence on the king and English Parliament to persuade them to act against the venture.

The English government of King William III – anxious to be on good terms with Spain – didn’t need much persuading, as the proposed Scottish colony would be located on land the Spain had its own designs on. England was at war with France and hence didn’t want to offend the Spanish, who claimed the territory as part of New Granada. The East India Company threatened legal action on the grounds that the Scots had no authority from the king to raise funds outside the English realm, and obliged the promoters to refund subscriptions to the Hamburg investors, with English investors also quickly withdrawing their money.

This left no source of finance but Scotland itself, yet so fierce was the resentment at the duplicity of the king and English Parliament that Scots resolved to raise all the capital alone. Thousands of Scots put their own money into the enterprise alongside money from the nobles, and the Company raised just under £400,000 in a few weeks, with investments from every level of society and totalling roughly a fifth of the wealth of Scotland. This was an enormous sum for the time, amounting to about half the country’s available capital, despite it being a fully private venture.

Hold up Owlbread, the English were right bastards that didn't help, but the Darien Scheme was ill-fated from the beginning: setting camp in a malarial swamp, bringing things to sell to natives that they had no interest in, allowing the settlers to drink themselves into ill-health. The Scottish wanted to be a colonial power and for once there was justice in the world in preventing it. That it was land contested by the Spanish was just icing on the cake. It was a folly from start to finish.

The scheme was ill-fated, but it was not doomed. If we had received support from England, even meager amounts such as actually allowing us to communicate with the colonies in America and the Caribbean, as well as support against the Spanish, we could have established a very successful colony.

[Helgoland]

Waitwaitwait -did Owlbread just voice support of colonization?

[Owlbread]

Waitwaitwait -did Owlbread just voice support of colonization?

Of course I didn't. Where have I voiced support of the Darien Scheme?

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Waitwaitwait -did Owlbread just voice support of colonization?

Obviously the Caribbeans would be better off with kilts.

[Owlbread]

Obviously the Caribbeans would be better off with kilts.

Again, where have I voiced support for the Darien Scheme or our colonisation of Nova Scotia?

[Helgoland]

It sounded like you were pretty pissed that England prevented Scotland from becoming a colonial power. Knowing you, it was clear that this wasn't really support of colonialism, but it sure sounded like that.

[Owlbread]

It sounded like you were pretty pissed that England prevented Scotland from becoming a colonial power. Knowing you, it was clear that this wasn't really support of colonialism, but it sure sounded like that.

I'm not pissed about England preventing us from becoming a colonial power specifically, I'm pissed at the fact that our history books taught us that Scotland messed up its own finances, crashed and burned and needed England to rescue us with their benevolent annexation. In truth England had been trying to undermine us for 100 years. I'm even more pissed that "Scotland messed up" seems to be the internationally accepted historical interpretation. 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Obviously the Caribbeans would be better off with kilts.

Again, where have I voiced support for the Darien Scheme or our colonisation of Nova Scotia?

I never said that. Just saying Jamaican men in kilts is one of the best things I'd probably ever see.

I'm joking, damn you

[Owlbread]

I never said that. Just saying Jamaican men in kilts is one of the best things I'd probably ever see.

I'm joking, damn you

There's a reason why so many Jamaicans have Scottish surnames and there are so many Scottish placenames in Jamaica. After the treaty of Union, the Highland (pro-Union, Protestant, Hanoverian) Clan Grant basically made Jamaica. Jamaica is a part of Scotland's terrible colonial legacy, that's why the Jamaican flag is a Saltire; it's modeled on the Scottish flag and the Flag of St. Patrick. Many of the ancestors of Scottish Jamaicans like Colin Powell possibly came when Cromwell sent 1200 prisoners of war to Jamaica in 1656. Basically Scotland did colonise Jamaica, they just did it after the Union.

Don't forget too that prisoners like rebel, Gaelic-speaking Highlanders were also sold into slavery along with a number of Lowlanders; they make up part of the poor white Redleg population of countries like Barbados and have also integrated into the black population.

[mainiac]

Scotland had no national debt after the Darien Scheme as the entire venture was privately funded. If there was a "financial crisis" it was due to the thousands of Scottish people and nobles that invested in the scheme losing their money:

And?  Did I say it was?  Is there a historical dearth of examples of such crisis?

The '97 crisis was not characterized by government debts before the crisis and that was the example I chose.

[TD1]

Dammit, Owlbread, take a joke

[Owlbread]

Dammit, Owlbread, take a joke

I apologise, I realise how serious I came across when talking about Jamaica there but I thought it was interesting stuff.

Having read your post again Mainiac, you said "these questions need better answers yesterday" to prevent a financial crisis within 25 years but you only raised two from what I can see after cutting through jargon:

1: All legal contracts would require a systematic overhaul which would be difficult, causing a financial crisis within 25 years

2: If you're going to use the Bank of England as your central bank when it is in fact the bank of a foreign nation, won't that lead to problems where the rUK chooses interest rates that are unfavourable to Scotland and will thus cause a financial crisis within 25 years?

In reply to the first question; this is just something nations that become independent have to deal with. Given that 34 countries have become independent since 1990 (about 25 years ago) and the majority of them today are very stable, despite being wholly worse off than Scotland financially, I don't see why you would jump to that conclusion. Unless of course you were just pointing out a difficulty? If so, yeah, we're going to have difficulties. But difficulties are just that - problems to be solved. We get through them.

In reply to the second question; even if we are unable to gain any kind of lobbying power/representation within the Bank of England, why would the rUK choose interest rates that are detrimental enough to the Scottish economy as to drive us into financial crisis? If you hadn't gathered it is not in the rUK's interests for its closest neighbour to go into financial meltdown, just as it wasn't in the rUK's interests for Ireland to go into meltdown without support. That's why, despite not being members of the Eurozone and despite being in very deep financial trouble ourselves, we provided large sums of financial aid to the Irish to help them through their economic crisis. The rUK may set interest rates that are unfavourable to us, causing us problems, but those problems would not be insurmountable. There is a difference between difficulty, the kind Britain faces every day, and financial collapse, the kind Ireland faced in 2008.

Given that the currency-union is a temporary solution to a long-term problem, within 25 years Scotland will most likely have either joined the Euro or formed its own independent currency depending on what is most favourable to us at that point in time. A lot can happen in 25 years too. Who knows, the British economy could be the one taking a nosedive. George Osborne is already massively over-taxing the oil industry in Scotland along with our whisky industry (to the point that it is prohibitive for growth on both counts) just to scrape enough funds together to get by, even then there's an enormous wave of cuts coming over the next few years and I don't see an end to this. Right now Britain is broke. It remains to be seen if we can pull through and I think it'll be quite touch-and-go if we get sucked into another military intervention like we nearly were last year.

Spoiler: An unrelated aside that I found amusing: a slide from a man giving a pro-independence presentation (click to show/hide)