Scotland can have a job guarantee or the Fiscal Commission plan, but not both Richard Murphy

First, of course I welcome this.

Second, a job guarantee is a logical part of a Green New Deal, which offers work in every constituency by ensuring jobs are available everywhere to transform our green infrastructure, and most especially our housing.

Third, it has to then be noted that this policy is linked to modern monetary theory, which is the only current school of economic thought that makes full employment for those who want work its core objective.

And fourth, and inevitably, this policy is in opposition to the SNP’s commitment to Andrew Wilson’s Growth Commission plan for Scotland....

Tax Research UK
Scotland can have a job guarantee or the Fiscal Commission plan, but not both
Richard Murphy | Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London; Director of Tax Research UK; non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics, and a member of the Progressive Economy Forum

Nicola Sturgeon indicates a Job Guarantee would be part of a Scottish Green New Deal — Sean Bell

The GND proposed in the US already includes a JG. Now it looks like Scotland is in play, too.

• Asked if a Job Guarantee would be part of her vision for a Scottish Green New Deal, [First Minister] Nicola Sturgeon says: “‘Yes’ is the short answer.”

• A Job Guarantee would involve the state acting as an ‘employer of last resort’ to the unemployed, and was last year proposed in the United States by Senator Bernie Sanders

• Finance Secretary Derek Mackay warns that more powers over employment law would need to be devolved

Common Space ((Scotland)
Nicola Sturgeon indicates a Job Guarantee would be part of a Scottish Green New Deal

Sean Bell

Bill Mitchell — Some MMT considerations for an independent Scotland – Part 2

This is the second and final part of my series on Scotland as I prepare for a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow this week. You can see the details from my – Events Page – and I urge interested readers to support the events that are run by activists. I will be talking about issues pertaining to the monetary arrangements that might accompany a move to Scottish independence. I have noted in the past that this is a controversial issue in itself that is also made more divisive because it has become intertwined with the vexed issue of EU membership. In Part 2 I provide a detailed critique of the so-called ‘six tests’ that the Scottish Growth Commission put forward as being determining factors as to when Scotland could move off the pound. I find the tests to be just neoliberal artifacts designed to keep Scotland on the pound indefinitely and thus curb any real independence. I also consider issues such as EU membership. And I provide some historical details of the way a monetary union might dissolve....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Some MMT considerations for an independent Scotland – Part 2
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

David Jamieson — Bernie Sanders' adviser to join advisory group for new indy economics organisation

Professor Stephanie Kelton to join group of economics advisers to new MMT Scotland group

• New Scottish economics group to argue for Modern Monetary Theory policies for independent state.
• Some of the worlds most influencial MMT advocates to join advisory panel, including key Sanders 2016 campaign adviser Prof Stephanie Kelton.
• MMT part of a new wave of economic thought around the developed world.
• Heterodox economic school sets economic thinkers in opposition to Growth Commission Sterlingisation proposal.

ONE of the advisers to Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign will join a panel of prestigious economic advisers for the new Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Scotland group being launched at meetings in Glasgow and Edinburgh in May.…

The advisery panel will also include Warren Mosler and Professor Bill Mitchell, two of the world's leading MMT thinkers, Professor Mathew Forstater of University of Missouri-Kansas City and Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University, among others.

Commonspace
Bernie Sanders' adviser to join advisory group for new indy economics organisation

David Jamieson

Ben Wray — 5 big ‘rock the boat’ ideas the indy movement could take from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

MMT for Scotalnd. Scotland for MMT.

Common Space
5 big ‘rock the boat’ ideas the indy movement could take from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Ben Wray

Bill Mitchell — Oh Scotland, don’t you dare! – Part 1 & 2

This is Part 2 in my two-part series analysing the 354-page report from the Scottish Growth Commission – Scotland – the new case for optimism: A strategy for inter-generational economic renaissance (released May 25, 2018). In Part 1, I considered their approach to fiscal rules and concluded, that in replicating the rules that the European Commission oversees as part of the Stability and Growth Pact, the newly independent Scotland would be biasing its policy settings towards austerity and unable to counter a major negative shock without incurring elevated levels of unemployment and poverty. In Part 2, I focus specifically on the currency issue. The Growth Commission recommends that Scotland retain the British pound, thereby surrendering its independence. Moreover, while it is part of the United Kingdom, the British policy settings have to consider the situation in Scotland. Once it leaves, it will still be bound by British fiscal and monetary settings but those settings would be designed to suit the remaining British nations. So if the British government continues with its austerity obsession, Scotland would be forced to endure that end. Hardly, the basis for an independent nation with progressive aspirations.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Oh Scotland, don’t you dare! – Part 1

Oh Scotland, don’t you dare! – Part 2

Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Neil Clark — Blame neoliberalism, not Salmond, if the UK breaks up

History lesson.

RT
Blame neoliberalism, not Salmond, if the UK breaks up

Neil Clark

Greg Palast — Scotland Should Declare Its Independence From Alex Salmond

I mean, what's the bloody point? Why pretend to declare your independence only to chain yourself to a coin with a British snout on it and simultaneously beg to become a colony of Angela Merkel's Fifth Reich, aka the European Union?

I realize that, as an American and an economist, I carry into this debate a double dollop of disrespect from Scottish readers. But, with thousands of miles of salt water separating me equally from London and Edinburgh, I think I can see clearly what you miss from having your head inside the fish bowl.

There are two overwhelming and undeniable advantages for Scotland to declare its sovereign independence: to end both Scotland's damaging enchainment to the British pound and the debilitating tyranny of European Union membership.

Yet, weirdly, inexplicably and inexcusably, Alex Salmond promises to throw away the two most valuable benefits of national self-determination.…

Scotland Should Declare Its Independence From Alex Salmond

Greg Palast

Chris Cook — Credit Scotland

The reality underpinning modern finance capital and monetary & fiscal systems long represented financial pornography which no decent newspaper would publish. However, the continuing financial crisis since 2007 has brought into the light all manner of details and practices previously hidden, and many of the myths which constitute modern economics are now being dispelled.

One of the interesting aspects of the Scottish independence debate is that new national monetary and fiscal systems must be built from scratch. Clearly, 21st century problems cannot be solved by 20th century solutions – the irony is that structures and instruments which pre-date modern finance by hundreds, if not thousands of years, point the way to sustainable and decentralised monetary and fiscal systems…

Good observations from Chris, as usual. Why the British pound is irrelevant to the debate over independence.

Pieria
Credit Scotland
Chris Cook

Tim Johnson — A short comment on money and independence

During the (now ironically labelled) 'Arab spring' I read Alistair Horne's A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. Reading the introductory chapters describing the state of the French Departments of Algeria in the first half of the twentieth century it struck me that control of the financial system was essential for a political entity to be truly democratic....

Fundamentally I think the whole focus on the currency issue is an expression of the alienation of people from money. If people appreciated money as a social relationship, the significance of the currency would be obvious but the debate would be on the nature of the relationship between England and Scotland, not the embarrassing, unproductive slanging match that, unfortunately, has been the reality of the independence debate….

Money, Maths and Magic

A short comment on money and independence

Tim Johnson | Lecturer (associate professor) in the Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

Neil Wilson — Scottish Independence Myths: the currency board

More neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, and neocolonialism dressed up as "freedom."

Nice Mosler quote, too.

3spoken
Scottish Independence Myths: the currency board
Neil Wilson

Neil Wilson — Scottish Independence - a Modern Money analysis

Neil gets real. Forget about the money, look at the reality. Scotland has everything it need to be an independent nation and then some. The rest is just bookkeeping.

3spoken 

Scottish Independence - a Modern Money analysis
Neil Wilson

George Soros must be senile or coming down with Alzheimer's because he forgot how he broke the Bank of England

Soros must be getting senile or he has Alzhemer's or something because he's clearly forgotten how he nearly "broke the Bank of England."

He is commenting here on how, if Scotland were to break away from Britain, it would be a bad idea to have its own currency because the currency would be vulnerable to attack.

Too bad the total opposite is true.

A free-floating, non-convertible Scottish currency might be vulnerable to speculative attack, but it wouldn't get very far because it would have ZERO power to destabilize Scotland's economy. The country's monetary and fiscal policy would be totally unaffected by changes in the exchange rate and therefore, speculators could push and push and push, but they'd be pushing against who? Against themselves, that's who. That's becaue the central bank or Treasury would not be forced to take the other side of that trade in order to defend some arbitrary exchange rate. So the spec attack could hardly last very long.

Believe me, I know. I spent years as a floor trader. When us guys (speculators) on the floor wanted to push the  market around it was always far more effective if we knew there were outsiders who were on the other side of that trade and vulnerable to margin calls or stops or whatever. If we just sold (or bought) against each other, the move would go nowhere fast.

Soros made a billion dollars by betting that England would pull out of the ERM in 1992. Why? Because the Bank of England was taking the other side of his and other speculators' sales. Eventually, the BOE could not defend the exchange rate anymore and it pulled out causing a HUGE readjustment in the pound. Soros covered his shorts when that happened and the rest is history.

He seems to have forgotten all this.

Seriously, does he not see the pitfalls of borrowing in someone else's currency? George...look at the countries in the Eurozone...hello??? Now look at Japan or the U.S. or Britain. See any difference?

George is lost, but the media and probably Scottish proponents of independence will follow his advice for sure. That's bad news for the Scots.

Marshall Auerback — George Osborne Is Right: Scotland Under Sterling Is Not Truly Independent

How about talking about currency independence being necessary for national independence instead of currency sovereignty being necessary for national sovereignty? 

"Independence" seems to me to be more forceful emotionally than "sovereignty."

Macrobits
George Osborne Is Right: Scotland Under Sterling Is Not Truly Independent
Marshall Auerback

Kevin McKenna — Scotland has the most inequitable land ownership in the west. Why?

Scotland still operating under the manor system of late feudal times?

The Guardian | The Observer

Scotland has the most inequitable land ownership in the west. Why?

Kevin McKenna | The Observer

Simon Wren-Lewis — Scotland's future exchange rate regime

The real problem for Scotland is that, in forming a sterling currency union, it will be dealing with a government that thinks like Germany. What is worse, although Germany can sometimes be persuaded to go against its austerity instincts for the sake of European unity, after an independence vote rUK is unlikely to let its heart strings be pulled in a similar way! The problem for Scotland is that the rUK can provide something that in fact costs it very little, but the absence of which would cost Scotland a great deal, so rUK will be able to ask for a high price. Unless the new Scottish government is prepared to pay for a Bank of England LOLR role with some of its oil revenues, it may find it has nothing to bargain with. If no agreement can be found, the Treasury paper is quite right to conclude that using sterling unilaterally would not be attractive for Scotland. So rather than accept damaging fiscal restrictions, the new Scottish government may end up with its own currency after all.

mainly macro
Scotland's future exchange rate regime
Simon Wren-Lewis | Professor of Economics, Oxford University

Currency Choices for an Independent Scotland: Response to the Fiscal Commission Working Group

Another monetary union in the works?

Currency Choices for an Independent Scotland: Response to the Fiscal Commission Working Group — April 2013
(h/t Alex Little via Twitter)

Here's the call for austerity already.

The Guardian (UK)
An independent Scotland could endanger sterling, Treasury warns
Severin Carrell | Scotland correspondent, The Guardian