Quote Originally Posted by noahrab View Post
Thats all I want, honesty.

Those who want independence need to do better to convince people like me to go for it.

The blank piece of paper scenario shouldn't be too difficult for some economist to answer.

Its the easiest way to explain how our finances would look and I can't for the life of me understand how they shy away from it.
I think it is a tad more difficult than many believe.
It looks easy when people are throwing this £15bn deficit number around, but the actual fact is that this is absolutely no indication whatsoever of where an independent Scotland would sit financially. This figure is only the difference between what Scotland gave to the treasury, and what Scotland paid out in public spending last year. As has been pointed out, this is the first year in quite some time that the number is actually negative - but the surplus hasn't gone into some nice big wallet with 'Scotland' stamped on it... historically (ie, up until this latest figure) Scotland has been making money for the UK. It is therefore a wee bit of a cheek for people to try to slap nationalists around the face with this latest figure and try to use it as an indication that Scotland would not survive on its own.
I think the fact that it is all conjecture is why no-one wants to say that what they are stating is fact.
It obviously isn't that easy