大象传媒

We have been royally shafted once more, the quicker the oil runs out the better.

Scotland has a commodity in abundance that's going to be very valuable in years to come. Due to the characteristics of this commodity, it will be near on impossible to steal especially when there is no oil.

Hopefully we will be independent by then................(sooner rather than later will do for me)

And the sooner you are independent the better. Maybe we'll see an end to the constant whining about how hard done to you are.

(sooner rather than later will do for me) definitely

poundsterling, You may not be passionate about your country's future, (why would you be ;).... but your whining about what you like to call whining does you no credit...

The point I'd like to make on the article is that it does grieve me to see the control of large companies leaving Scotland (and the UK), but that is the free market system we are slaves to! Not many countries are as cavalier about important wealth generating companies, as the UK .. Where the now badly discredited free market dogma is followed slavishly. Ministers are not usually slow to trumpet the takeover of a British asset by questionable foreign friends as 'Great for Britain' . 'an investment' even ..

One day when we find that the wealth has been completely stripped from our country, and most of the taxes are collected by a few rich foreigners, maybe we'll wake up.

Venture is not a Google or Microsoft and the takeover is not a foreign one. Only a united front can work out such energy challenges. We have already seen Venture hyping some of its assets and doing u-turn. What about the UK airports, water utilities etc. I would recommend to do an unbiased blog rather than looking at it from a Scottish angle.

# 4 Forgive me but I must have wrongly assumed that those of us who contribute to these blogs were at least a little biased and wanted to see our point of view in the open. How otherwise could we convert those we believe to be in the wrong.

I have seen a definition of bias as being a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result.

One man`s bias is another man`s skewed view

marinedeadline, i agree with what you're saying. Surely, as Scottish consumers we have to consider WHO we are paying for our energy bills:



Interestingly, a rather different 'headquarters' opened last week in Aberdeeen, which may point the way to a better future..........

Economic nationalism? France's President Sarkozy has long argued for economic governance in the EU; central banks should be answerable to politics. But this may not be feasible.

Certainly Berlin is opposed, however Germany's Joschka Fischer [an EU leadership candidate] argues pragmatically that his country should stop opposing the very principle of economic governance and lead the way in fashioning it. A big problem to be resolved is getting everyone to sign up to new financial rules, and allowing audit.

Next month's G20 meeting in Pittsburgh is a chance for Europe to present a united front. Will Scotland be allowed an official input to any deliberations beforehand?

It is very interesting to note that Sovereign Wealth Funds in the Middle and Far East are using their countries national wealth to diversify into other areas of interest.

This is so the one trick oil countries invest their national reserves in future assets that are not dependent on a Well running Dry.

What about Scotland? - we don't have a national wealth fund so we can't diversify.

We let Spanish, German and French Governments back Euro Companies, who buy our raw assets under the guise of retention of tartan fig leaf companies.

That's European countries ensuring their future energy supplies by owning Scottish renewable assets.

Once again we are serfs in a Land owned by foreign multi-nationals.

Look at the Utility company make up South of the Border - all the utilities are owned by foreign interests.

Even the National Grid is owned by foreign companies, Nuclear Power stations (will be foreign owned)

We have retained Scottish Water as a public asset, but it is noticable the amount of comments that surface now and again claiming that privatisation is the only way forward.

We need to own our own assets, we are part of an island and as such dependant on what gets shipped in.

Wouldn't it be a crying shame if Scotland's potential was allowed to be pumped, carried and squandered over the next 100 years and not a Scots person get any benefit from it?

Recent nationalisations were of course Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley and big shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS-Lloyds TSB. The dire state of the economy now has raised the spectre of UK default on its international debts, never mind borrowing even more to buy many big companies.

We might have to beg the IMF again.

Said PM Callaghan in 1976, 鈥淲e used to think that you could just spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you, in all candour, that that option no longer exists; and that insofar as it ever did exist, it only worked by injecting bigger doses of inflation into the economy followed by higher levels of unemployment as the next step. That is the history of the past twenty years.鈥�

Next month's G20 meeting in Pittsburgh is a chance for Europe to present a united front. Will Scotland be allowed an official input to any deliberations beforehand?

Is Iberdrola not a Basque Company?

"Next month's G20 meeting in Pittsburgh is a chance for Europe to present a united front. Will Scotland be allowed an official input to any deliberations beforehand?" [see #9]

Blimey, that was quick. 'EU Observer' reports today that EU leaders are to gather on 17 September for an extra summit to decide Europe's position ahead of global talks at Pittsburgh on financial reform.

Just the remaining matter now: the agenda. Will Scotland be allowed an official input? Some countries are averse to the international audit of their finances - the IMF reckons the global cost of the recent financial financial crisis is $12 trillion.