SCOTTISH
INDEPENDENCE: The financial and economic arguments against Scottish
independence are “overwhelming”, a leading bank warned as it compared a Yes
vote to the mistakes which led to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In
one of the starkest warnings yet issued by a financial institution, the chief
economist at Deutsch Bank David Folkerts-Landau said voters and politicians had
failed to grasp the potential severity of the negative consequences of
separation.
He
said he found it “incomprehensible” that Scots were even contemplating
withdrawal from the United Kingdom, and pointed to the “recessions, higher
taxes, lower public spending and higher interest rates” that had afflicted
nations seen as potentially heading for the eurozone exit.
But
the Scottish Government accused him of failing to take into account Scotland’s
“strong fiscal position”, and said it would start life as an independent nation
“from stronger economic foundations than any other nation in history”.
In
a highly-critical analysis of the prospects of independence, Mr Folkerts-Landau
said: “Everyone has the right to self-determination and to exercise his or her
democratic rights.
“But
there are times when fundamental political decisions have negative consequences
far beyond what voters and politicians could have imagined. We feel that we are
on the threshold of one such moment.
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