Monday 13 June 2016

Has Cameron acknowledged Scotland would be like Norway if Independent?

I imagine most of those who read this Blog will already have seen this pn Wings Over Scotland but it needs to be shown as much as possible.






Cameron underestimates  Norway's population  it is  5.2 million  almost the same as Scottsdale at 5.3 million.
 During the Scottish Independence campaign much of the Unionist side and Media decried  any attempt  to use Oil revenues  as a example of how Scotland would prosper after Independence,
And since then with a Oil slump they have waived the figures in the face of the SNP and the rest if the Independence movement . Claiming that an Independent  Scotland will be in debt from day one.
There does not seem to be any panic in Norway  maybe they have exploited their share of  North Sea Oil in a different way
Norway's former Prime  Minister said a few years ago that ..

 indebted European nations should look to Norway, which has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world mainly by refusing to spend its huge oil revenues and placing them instead in a sovereign wealth fund.
"That way the fund lasts for ever," he said in a speech at Harvard University. "The problem in Europe with the deficits and the debt crisis is that many European countries have spent money they don't have. The problem in Norway is that we don't spend money we do have. That requires a kind of political courage."Norway, which has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world mainly by refusing to spend its huge oil revenues and placing them instead in a sovereign wealth fund.
"There are many, many other countries in the world that are in similar positions, that are facing the same kinds of challenges that we are facing: huge temporary income from natural resources," he said. "So, if there is a danger of an oil curse, Norway is really exposed to that danger. But we have managed to avoid it. The oil industry has been a blessing for Norway."
 Norway's sovereign wealth fund is the biggest in the world at £460bn. The fund generates money from its ownership of petroleum fields, taxes on oil and gas, and dividends from a 67% stake in Statoil, the country's largest energy company. Norway is the world's second-largest gas exporter and the seventh-largest oil exporter.

Now Cameron seems to acknowledge that an Independent Scotland (in or out of the EU) would have benefited from being Independent  over the 50 years of North Sea Oil exploitation.

Indeed we may see the  argument in a future  referendum by the argument that North Sea Oil is running out and not getting the same price  and any we have wasted 50 years of revenue.

No comments: