How about some stuff on the oil. It was an argument that always grated my nerves during the last indyref and if we're possibly on our way to a new indyref I wanna be prepared cause that bad penny argument will pop up again.
So. Oil. I’d like to approach this by first saying I’m not an oil economist. I’m a student who has access to data. However, if you define that oil economist as someone who accurately predicts oil prices year after year then the job doesn’t actually exist at all.
I’m sure most of you have seen the news. The oil price has dropped and this is largely to do with economic fighting between the USA and Saudi Arabia. And the result is that the oil price has dropped thus scotland went from £4 billion in 2013/14 to £1.8 billion in 14/15 figures.
Now this may seem like a sizeable chunk but in real terms total Scottish revenue only dropped by £600 million from £54.05 billion to £53.44 billion. Just a smidge over 1% of total revenue.
Now here’s something that some people fail to understand. Oil isn’t just this ‘liquid gold’ and it sorts everything and if the price ever falls then it’s the worst thing ever and the country will be in an apocalyptic hell.
If the oil price falls then fuel and heating becomes cheaper. This allows your average consumer to save more money which will have them spend a bit more in the local economy. For families with a lower income this could be a huge lifesaver as even saving £20 filling up your car can have a significant difference.
So people have more money to spend, they spend it which, in turn, drives up demand resulting in more non-oil orientated jobs.
So what the unionists like to quote to us is the fact that oil GDP in the North Sea dropped £5.67bn, from £18.2bn to £12.5bn. Yet they totally ignore the fact that the economy onshore increased by £5.54bn. When put into consideration that this oil crash resulted in roughly a £132 million (0.09%) shrinkage to the Scottish economy, its really not too bad for a country ‘totally dependent on oil.’
That’s my take on oil. It’s really not half the issue unionists try and make it out to be.
For any skeptics out there the source I used was the UK government’s GERS figures which can be found here:
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00495386.pdf
Important diagrams I used were figures 1.1 and 1.4. I definitely suggest taking a look for yourself.
Thanks anon for a good suggestion and I hope that’s answered some of your questions, if you’ve got anything else then don’t hesitate to let me know!
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