I was always very glad when we left Scotland - I had a really bad feeling about the way things were going there. We saw large companies coming in and taking free investment deals from the government to setup large factories and technology facilities there, and we saw them close those plants in a year or two, walking off with the investment money. I really have no idea how they did that or what kind of deal was going on there. I just know people who lost their jobs over that.
Anyway, what brought this to my thoughts again? This article on yahoo.com (of all places). It's a pretty damning assessment of the state of the scottish economy right now. My choice quote would be:
Cutting edge e-commerce and telecom companies in Scotland have experienced such a collapse in value that the entire sector is now valued at less than that old economy stalwart, Belhaven Brewery.Ouch.
It must be working for someone. There's always a handful of ads like this in the Economist every week. Singhapore has been running these kinds of ads for years. Maybe the Scots are making it too easy to take the money and run?
Re:It's not over
Matts on 2002-08-08T17:05:32
The problem is that the workforce isn't highly educated. The majority of the educated workforce in scotland migrates to London (I don't have stats for this, it's only based on talking to people while I lived there). This "brain drain" is a really well known factor in scottish economics.
What I don't know is where they're getting their money from. I have a feeling that Scotland is separately governed, but not separately funded. Does this mean there is a financial drain towards Scotland? Perhaps. Or perhaps I just horribly insulted 5 million scots.Re:It's not over
darobin on 2002-08-10T01:08:42
What I don't know is where they're getting their money from.
Petrol, tourism, and banking. By tax collection standards the state is doing well, iirc better than England which might explain why they can try to give some of it away?
