By Dr Tim Evans, on 10 February 10
Eamonn Butler publishes another great book: The Alternative Manifesto: A 12-Step Programme to Remake Britain.
I really admire Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute – www.adamsmith.org. One of the nicest gents in the world of ideas, I also respect his boundless energy when it comes to the production of fascinating and thought providing books.
His latest offering is no exception. With good chapters on the economy, bureaucracy, regulation and what he terms the bully state, I urge you to buy a copy.
By Dr Tim Evans, on 10 February 10
One of my favorite think tanks in the world is the Independent Institute www.independent.org.
Their web site, scholarly journal and work is of the highest quality and well worth keeping an eye on. Very much in line with a lot of TCC’s ideas, I saw this this yesterday:
Lost Trust: The Real Cause of the Financial Meltdown
By Bruce Yandle
Accounting standards, credit ratings, and credit-default swaps were created to help facilitate financial transactions by fostering trust. In the run-up to the credit-market freeze of 2008 those assurance mechanisms collapsed under the weight of political and regulatory pressures to aggressively expand homeownership and other policies.
Enjoy.
By Dr Tim Evans, on 1 February 10
I have just accepted an invitation from that great London free market networker, Shane Frith, to address an excellent group he is involved with called Progressive Conservatives.
Not being a Conservative myself (I consider their general disassociation from much that I regard to be progressive and liberal off-putting), the chance to speak to a group professing Progressive Conservatism in the liberal sense greatly excites me.
My talk is scheduled for 22 February 2010 and the current title is ‘Free Market Thoughts on the Political Atmospherics of Money, Banking and Finance’.
By Steven Baker MP, on 26 January 10
By Steven Baker MP, on 1 January 10
From Lord Welby’s preface to The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, 1903 (PDF):
The State is a severe mother. She demands from her noblest sons their intellects, their energies, and, if need be, their lives; but she is not ungrateful. The men who have guided her destinies live in grateful memory and in memory the more honoured, if to great service and lofty aims they have added disregard of self, directness of purpose, and simplicity of character. Such men become household words of the nation. They create the standard by which the nation measures itself and by which it is measured. They strike the keynote of national character. Such a man was Richard Cobden, a type of a great Englishman to Englishmen of all times, a type in his truthfulness, in his simplicity, and in his devotion to the welfare of his countrymen.
Cobden sacrificed his fortune and even, for a time, his health to further the interests of the ordinary person. His fortune was restored to him by public subscription.
Let us hope that in 2010 we see a little more of Cobden’s spirit in British politics.
