Time to stop debating it. It is now beyond any reasonable doubt that the Yes camp has decisively won the economic argument for independence.

Don’t believe me? Well, you don’t have to. The bare statistical facts and the mounting evidence given by independent parties speak for themselves.

On February 2nd, the Financial Times published an article which stated that Scotland’s independence era could “expect to start with healthier state finances than the rest of the UK,” while Standard & Poor’s report on the finances of an independent Scotland has it set for a potential AAA credit rating, claiming that even without North Sea oil and gas, “Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment.” Meanwhile, the economist Dominic Frisby has written in the Independent that an independent Scotland “could become the richest country on Earth.”

Despite the long-standing myth, Scotland isn’t subsidized by the rest of the UK. Scotland actually puts more into the UK than it takes out. According to the latest GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenues Scotland) report, over the last five years, Scotland has paid 9.5% of UK tax, but only receives 9.3% of public spending. In recent years, Scotland’s contribution to UK tax has even been as high as 9.9%. While last year Scotland paid only 9.1%, this is out-with the normal trend.

Unionist critics complain that in real £Sterling, the cash value of that 9.3% public spending is higher than that of the 9.5% UK tax raised. However, the higher £Sterling spend is only generated by the UK through money borrowed from international markets. This is the case for all regions of the UK (and the source of Britain’s national debt). Scotland’s budget deficit has consistently been lower than the deficit of the UK as a whole for the past several years, and Scotland has consistently paid more tax per head for each of the last thirty years than the UK average – amounting to an additional £222 billion paid in Scotland. This is before we even consider that certain services in Scotland, such as the public water supply, are privatized in the rest of the United Kingdom, or that the Scottish Government chooses to spend it’s allocated budget on making higher education and prescriptions free.

The claims that Scotland’s economy is too heavily dependent upon oil and gas is a non-starter. S&P only consider a country’s economy to be over-dependent upon oil and gas if those revenues account for over 20%. Scotland’s oil and gas revenue only accounts for between 12-16% of its GDP (by comparison, Norway’s oil dependency is much higher, at 21% of GDP in 2010). Scotland has a wealth of other strong industries, including financial services and substantial food and drink exports (perhaps most notably whisky), which contribute heavily to Scotland’s GDP every year.

No one is disputing that oil and gas is a volatile resource, but it is just as volatile within the UK as it would be in an independent Scotland. Considering David Cameron himself has called it a “jewel” in the crown of the British economy, its certainly a resource Scotland is lucky to have. And what happens when that oil eventually runs out? Well, given that Scotland has the largest estimated oil reserves in Europe, and that even without oil and gas revenues, Scotland’s GVA (Gross Value Added) per person is at 99% of the UK average, it doesn’t look like much of a problem. Additionally, Scotland has an estimated 25% of Europe’s potential offshore wind and tidal energy (and 10% of tidal energy), meaning that renewables are on track to be a more than adequate replacement in the future.

Having control over raising and spending and taxes in Scotland has clear and obvious benefits. The Scottish Government is currently spending £35 million of it’s block grant on mitigating the effects of the much-hated “bedroom tax”. Independence would give Scotland the power to abolish it outright. With Scotland currently paying for UK infrastructure it will be shedding with independence (such as the cost of Trident nuclear missiles and the House of Lords), Scotland would also have more money to spend without adjusting the existing rates of taxation.

All of this evidence goes to show that Scotland’s resources, assets and wealth make it more than economically viable and sustainable for operating as an independent country.