Let's have a look at one product Scotland is famous for - Scotch Whisky, or 'Scotch' for short. Chances are that the first brands that you think of are probably owned by Diageo, which has headquarters in London. Quite clearly 'Bell's' whisky is not English or a London thing, it is most definitely a Scottish product.<p>Even when Scottish companies are not part of some giant multinational they are likely to have a head office in London. The reasons for this are obvious - London has things like a stock market.<p>You could probably make the same argument that this article proposes about most of the states in the USA. Companies might operate in loads of states, possibly all of them, and maybe have a brand image strongly associated to one of them. Yet they could be owned by some mega-corporation that probably only exists in somewhere like the Cayman Islands. Why doesn't Tennessee have any global companies? Same deal as Scotland, with the famous 'Jack Daniels' whiskey being made there but part of some company with headquarters elsewhere. Is 'Jack Daniels' from Tennessee and a global brand? Yes. But a 'global company', no.<p>Back to the article, in terms of pure GDP, Denmark is well ahead of Scotland. They have better housing stock, better provision for things like benefits for folk out of work, pensioners and those having children. There is a lot to recommend Denmark. In terms of what matters, having 'global companies' is way down the list as far as life in Scotland is concerned.