Monthly Archives: September 2014

The “No” campaign for the Scottish Referendum came out on top with a 55.3% of the total votes (Taub. “Scotland votes “no on independence will remain in the UK). Even though the idea of Scotland becoming its own country is a wonderful idea, in reality it would have spelled disaster. If Scotland were to ever separate it would put a lot of strain on Scotland’s economy because of their limited flexibility on their dependence on oil and the currency union crisis.

Since Scotland depends a lot on the oil industry through drilling in the North Sea its economy will depend greatly on the ever-changing price of oil. This variable pricing   would cause a lot of uncertainty in Scotland’s economy. In turn, this would scare off investors and business due to the uncertainty in the economy.

Scotland would also have a crisis over what currency to use. If Scotland chose to stay with the pound it would have no control over that currency. This would lead to a lot of uncertainty for investors looking to buy Scottish bonds. Adopting the Euro would not be good either because over the past couple of years many countries in the Euro zone have fallen on hard times or the countries that are struggling could drag down Scotland.

Although Scotland being an independent country sounds nice in theory, but when you look at in reality it is not practical as of right now due to there dependency on oil and not having their own currency.

Taub, Amanda. “Scotland votes “no” on independence, will remain in the UK.” Vox. N.p., 19

Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://www.vox.com/2014/9/19/6425379/

scotland-scottish-independence-vote-referendum-result-no>.

Buttonwood. “48 Hours.” The Economis., 16 Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2014.      <http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2014/09/scottish-referendum>.

Companies are always trying to cut costs. That way they can have higher profits, but sometimes companies do this by unethical means. Starbucks recently has been accused of tax avoidance in the UK. According to BBC Business, Starbucks has only paid 8.6 million pounds of tax in 14 years. Last year alone Starbucks generated 398 million pounds, but paid no corporate tax.  Although Starbucks has not done anything illegal they are not paying their fair share of tax. Starbucks is getting away with paying less tax by using some of their earned revenue in the UK to pay a royalty fee. A royalty fee has to be paid by all overseas Starbucks for use of its property and brand. What Starbucks is essentially doing is just transferring money between itself, which allows them to have a lot lower tax rate in the UK. It is hard for smaller coffee shops to stay competitive with Starbucks because the smaller coffee shops are paying the full rate of the corporate tax and Starbucks is paying a fraction of what they should. As said in the “What is Stakeholder Theory,” video, Starbucks is only focusing on the financial side of the business and forgetting about how their actions have made their customers very unhappy. R. Edward Freeman would define Starbucks as a company soon to be regulated into decline.

Work Cited

Gompertz, Simon. “Starbucks ‘paid just £8.6m UK tax in 14 years.'” BBC. Web. 9 Sept.

2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-19967397>.

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