Plenty of opinion about on the Scottish referendum …. some if quite eyebrow raising!

Here’s Niall Ferguson in they UK Telegraph:

Scottish referendum: Alone, Scotland will go back to being a failed state
Yes supporters are hoping Scotland will become a Scandinavian paradise. But with its history of bitter internal divisions, it is likely to go the opposite way

Ferguson is quite blunt in his assessment …

  • For most of the early modern period, the Scots kingdom was Europe’s Afghanistan. In the Highlands and the Hebrides, feudal warlords ruled over an utterly impoverished populace in conditions of lawlessness and internecine clan conflict. In the Lowlands, religious zealots who fantasised about a Calvinist theocracy – government by the godly Elect – prohibited dancing, drinking and drama. John Knox and his ilk were the Taliban of the Reformation. Witches were burnt in large numbers in Scotland, not in England.

Wow … and he is just getting started … more at the link above.

The Wall Street Journal takes a slightly more restrained view

:-D

Vote for Scotland Independence Could Usher in Economic Uncertainty
Though Country Could Stand On Its Own, Supporters Would Face Challenges to Their Vision

  • A report published Tuesday from Angus Armstrong and Monique Ebell of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a private think tank, estimates Scotland would face twin deficits in its first year: a budget deficit of over 6% of gross domestic product and a current-account shortfall—the balance of trade in goods and services with net interest payments—of a similar magnitude
  • The Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent London-based think tank, has concluded that a likely fall in oil revenues and an aging population would mean “an independent Scotland’s public finances would be in a substantially weaker position than those of the U.K.” without more spending cuts or tax increases than now envisioned.

More at the link, including this look at currency options:

Scotland referendum currency options 18 September 2014