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Every country is going to have to face up to globalisation, but Scotland has got a unique capacity because of its history as part of a multinational state to help us deal with that problem.

If Scotland was independent, we'd be the 14th richest country in the developed world.

Essentially, when we run a deficit, we are borrowing money to buy things that are made overseas.

Deficit reduction is not an end in itself. It is the means to an end. Canadians must now decide what kind of country they want to build with the hard-won dividend.

Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.

Countries with deficit don't want to pay the bill, and they want to get more loans, and countries with superiority, they don't want to help the countries with problems, and they just want them to tighten their belts.

The three main political parties all agree the UK deficit is high and needs to be brought down. All agree that it is easier to get a deficit down if you have faster growth, cutting unemployment-related costs and raising revenues.

Traditionally, the way deficits have been cut is you hold expenditures more or less constant in real dollars and then let growth come in to fill it up.

An independent Scotland - like all countries - will face challenges, and we will have our ups and downs. But the decisions about how we use our wealth will be ours.

The United States as usual has a sizable deficit in the current account of its balance of payments, trade account and other current accounts, current account items.