It's getting close to decision time...

BEITH, Scotland — The case for tearing apart the United Kingdom was made on a recent evening at a community center in this small town near Glasgow. More than 200 people were packed into folding chairs and standing along walls lined with posters promoting an independent Scotland, like the one with the word “Aye” emblazoned on a Scottish flag. A disco ball hung overhead.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s deputy first minister, spoke from a lectern covered with a tartan drape.

“As a country, we’ve spent an awful long number of years being told we’re too wee, too poor and probably a bit too stupid to be independent,” she said. “If we were too small and too poor and too stupid, if we were the economic basket case, if we were the subsidy junkies that some of our opponents try to imply that we are, then don’t you think Westminster might have offloaded us by now?”

After the applause died down, she asked, “What’s the downside?”

Plenty, in the minds of many business leaders and economists, who are concerned that an independent Scotland will not have the financial strength to prosper alone. The economy would lean heavily on revenue from North Sea oil, which has been falling, and its per capita government spending outpaces the rest of Britain.
The official campaign period kicked off Friday for the referendum that will determine whether Scotland will remain in Britain. If successful, the vote, which will be in September, would fundamentally reshape America’s closest ally, redrawing the borders of a union that has existed for more than 300 years.

Although the pro-Britain unionists lead, momentum has swung back and forth. The spread narrowed to just three percentage points in an April poll by ICM Research for the Scotsman newspaper, but it widened to 12 points in mid-May, with 20 percent still undecided...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/busine...omic-costs.html