IN THIS BULLETIN:
* OUR FORGOTTEN BUSINESSES — making medium-sized firms flourish
* 2023 AYN RAND LECTURE — our flagship event on entrepreneurship and values
* COVID RECOVERY — former White House economist contrasts UK & US policy

BUT FIRST...

God listens, they say, but money talks. Parliamentary accounts show that 85% of all MPs’ outside earnings were earned by one person — yes, Boris. (When he comes to write his memoirs he’ll probably charge £99 a volume. Expensive, but how would he know?—Ed.) Tories of course have a way with money: in fact they've had away with large quantities of other people's. (Wait till the other guys get in!—Ed.) And despite the Chancellor’s brave face, everyone knows that business is terrible. Even the people who don’t intend to pay have stopped ordering.

Talking about money, isn’t it odd when the first time you hear about a bank is when it goes bust and causes an international meltdown? Meanwhile, UK statisticians say that the vegetable shortage has fuelled household inflation. (It certainly hasn’t had any effect on my household inflation. More Kentucky Fried Chicken, anyone?—Ed.)

In other news, Donald Trump might be running for President from jail, if you can do that. (He could at least run for Governor, of the state of denial—Ed.) Mind you, if he says he’s going to be arrested, he probably isn’t. No doubt the sainted Gary Lineker will be expanding his aspirations now that he has defeated the BBC in the highest court in the land, the Islington Gazette. France is in crisis over plans to raise the pension age to 28 or something, and Baroness Casey says that the Metropolitan Police are ‘rotten’ (she should set the cops on ‘em—Ed.) Harry and Meghan have a new project to ‘make boys less toxic’, which makes one think ‘doctor, heal thyself’. And the SNP leadership debate took place in a TV show that reminded some viewers of the bar scene in Star Wars.

I digress…
THE 2023 AYN RAND LECTURE
REGISTER ([link removed])

The Adam Smith Institute invites you to the 2023 Ayn Rand Lecture, to be delivered by the Danish author, investor and serial entrepreneur Lars Tvede. This year’s subject is Ayn Rand and the Creative Society.

The Lecture is on Tuesday 25 April in the Drapers’ Hall, Throgmorton Street, London EC2N 2DQ. Doors will open at 6pm for a 6:45pm start, with a reception to follow from 8pm. (Dress code: Business wear)

Lars Tvede ([link removed]) thinks deeply about subjects including the future, creativity, economics, marketing and technology. His 16 books, including Supertrends, The Creative Society, From Malthus to Mars, The Psychology of Finance, and Bubbles, Bears and Bullshit have gone through 60 editions in 11 languages.

Qualified in both engineering and commerce, Lars Tvede spent a decade in portfolio management and investment banking before co-founding several award-winning technology companies. He also founded a successful financial trading company and an award-winning Nordic-American venture capital fund.

His latest enterprise, Supertrends, uses AI, text mining, statistics and crowdsourcing to map innovation — past, present and future.

If you want to know about creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, efficiency, and the future of progress, you need to be there. Places will be available on a first come first served basis, so do make sure to sign up fast.
DO-TANKING

Events and reports

This week we heard from Dr Tyler Goodspeed, former Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, on A Tale of Two Recoveries: The Tax Cut and Jobs Act Five Years On. A co-author of that US legislation, he explained why the US economy bounced back far quicker than the UK’s. Politicians need to focus more on the supply side, he concluded — and that is not just about the number of firms or people employed or the amount of capital being invested, but about how all those things integrate to create a thriving economic fabric.

Enterprise minister Kevin Hollinrake and pro-enterprise MP Saqib Bhatti joined Homeserve entrepreneur Richard Harpin and ASI Executive Director Duncan Simpson at the launch of our new report, The Forgotten Medium: Realising the Potential of Mid-sized firms. MSBs (Not more jargon, surely?—Ed.), it says, hit size-specific challenges that are often overlooked in the public policy debate. They could be the huge employers of the future, but right now they are the ‘forgotten medium’.

Our Forgotten Medium ([link removed]) report recommends allowing individuals to re-skill with post-18 education, reforming government investment and venture capital schemes so that medium-size companies don’t fall off a cliff edge, introducing High Potential Individual visas to attract talent and boosting investment allowances.
As you would expect, we were much in demand for our response to Jeremy Hunt’s Budget. We thought it was good on pensions and ending the factory tax with full expensing (Can I now write off my taxes as a failed investment?—Ed.) but bad on corporation tax, and much else besides. As well as online pieces in ConHome ([link removed]) , Guido ([link removed]) and the Telegraph ([link removed]) , we were in the Daily Express (twice from Maxwell on medium sized businesses ([link removed]) and childcare ([link removed]) and once from Madsen on lockdown laws
([link removed]) ), and also on Sunday Morning Live ([link removed]) and Talk TV, ([link removed]) in Politico ([link removed]) , CapX ([link removed]) , and the Daily Mail ([link removed]) . (And another thing. Why does a ’small tax increase’ cost you £50 when a ’substantial tax cut’ only saves you 50p?—Ed.)

ON OUR SUPERBLOG

Tim Worstall ([link removed]) thinks that AI is going to make us — we regular joes, that is, not the filthy capitalist boss classes — a lot richer. That, he explains, is because AI is very easy to copy, so businesses can’t secure monopolies in it. And we don’t need to tax their profits because competition will whittle them down for us. So let’s just leave them to make us all richer.

Well, says our communications supremo ([link removed]) Connor Axiotes, we had a bit of Budget success. Full expensing, for example — the best policy you’ve never heard of. And life sciences reform — i.e. adopting the best medicines and medical device regulations from around the world. (What? Don’t we adopt EU policies any more??—Ed.) It means that we can streamline the medicines approval process and get proven drugs to people quicker. Yep, you never heard of that policy either, but it’s a life-saver.

The graphics that won a war. ([link removed]) This week marked the 40th anniversary of US President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative — the ’Star Wars’ satellite shield that would protect the US from any Soviet missile attacks. When Reagan met the Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev for arms-control talks three years later, double agent Oleg Gordievsky advised him not to sacrifice the plan, as the shield was the one thing that made Russian aggression pointless. But, says Madsen Pirie, the initiative was mostly great graphics rather than reality. It wasn’t a ‘missile gap’, there was a ‘graphics gap’, but it still made the Soviets fold.
LONDON FREE MARKET ROAD SHOW

The Austrian Economics Center is teaming up again with the Ayn Rand Centre UK to bring you the London Free Market Road Show. The Road Show is touring Europe, but stopping in at London, where the speakers include yours truly, UK Rand Centre boss Razi Ginzberg, Icelandic policy expert Hannes Gissuarason, Austrian economist Barbara Kolm and US tax expert and blogger Dan Mitchell.

The Road Show is on Tuesday 18 April, 6pm-9pm in the Courthouse hotel, 21 Great Marlborough Street W1F 7HL, just a four-minute walk from Oxford Circus underground station. To attend, drop Razi a note here ([link removed]) .
NEW LIBERALS RELAUNCH

Our friends at the London New Liberals (whatever happened to those dastardly neoliberals eh?—Ed) are relaunching with former ASI Head Honcho Sam Bowman on the 30th March at The Plough in Bloomsbury.

All discerning drinkers may sign up here ([link removed])
OUT AND ABOUT

I am glad to see that my primers on economic subjects — including capitalism, trade, democracy and liberalism are having a strong impact in Africa, where they have been translated into many local languages. Here on KTV Uganda, activist Mugabi John Socrates talks about my Entrepreneurship primer, and explains why entrepreneurship has a vital role in boosting growth and progress in his country.


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And I quote…

As we reflect on the Budget, I am reminded of the little pearl of wisdom put forward by Ronald Reagan (yes, he of the Strategic Defense Initiative 40 years ago) in 1981:

“The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.”

Bye,

e

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