I think you guys forget how many problems the US had to work out, especially money wise, after independence. Sure you guys will have problems, but you get the benefit of deciding for yourselves how to fix it rather than those in London telling you how to solve it.
That's it in a nutshell, James.
I could attack each and every post over the last few pages individually, but it would probably be best to just take a more general approach lest I burst a blood vessel in my eye due to straining as I read Mainiac's macroeconomic analysis:
Sergarr and Descan have argued well over the last few pages (giving points I would have given) but an important thing to note is that the other parties haven't really promised anything. The devolution proposals are terrible. I don't doubt that they'd get delivered, of course they would; but compared with full independence or full fiscal autonomy (also known as devo max) they are absolutely nothing. With regard to taxation Labour for instance would only give us the ability to vary tax rates by up to 15p, but we could only cut top rates if all rates are cut to stop us from trying to compete with Westminster. We are thus "neutered" by their proposals. Welfare should also remain almost entirely with Westminster apart from select things related to partisan Labour campaigning goals, like housing benefit, the attendance allowance and the work program. All other pensions and benefits stay at Westminster, same with broadcasting, corporation tax, national insurance, VAT, capital gains tax and air passenger duty (i.e. the stuff that will really make a difference). All of those will be retained at Westminster because Labour are terrible, power hungry wretches like the rest of Westminster. And the fundamental issue with the UK remains - all powers devolved are at the UK's discretion. As Tony Blair himself put it - power devolved is power retained.
What has actually happened is that the British government and the various Westminster parties have rehashed stuff that Douglas Alexander (BT campaign strategist and Labour MP) put out earlier in the year. Nothing is new in their devolution proposals; all they did was say "this is the time table for the consultation - it begins on St. Andrew's Day in October". If the Unionists are supposed to be waving a carrot at us on the end of a stick while they keep a spiked club behind their backs, there's not a lot of carrot and a whole lot of spikes going on here. At the moment they're just ramping up the fear factor as much as they possibly can, trying to scare us into voting No because that's literally all they have left.
For a bit of high-brow discussion of recent economic issues in the independence debate (e.g. the banks supposedly moving south) take a good look at this video with Andrew Wilson, former SNP MSP and now business consultant and political commentator. He also gives a lot of referendum analysis.
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