SKINFLINT'S CITY DIARY The Budget is a good beginning and
ob- viously the brainchild of someone who is not frightened by the administrative grades of the Civil Service—quite clearly our re- doubtable leader Mr Heath.
Free depreciation and allowing personal bank interest as a charge against income for tax purposes has been missed—I should think deliberately.
If Mr Heath and Mr Barber get around to the second of these, I hope it is coupled with an assault on so much in the City which does not believe in investment for organic growth, and those whose idea of `firm hands' means a share to be held all of three weeks. Many of these young lions are offering a useful service like that of the knacker : A depressed company, with shares standing at a discount on assets, taken over with their overvalued paper, followed by a lightening sale and lease-back of premises and then the sly dismissal of staff, and the sale of the rump to some associate or com- pany over whom they have some influence. Cheap money and something similar to a Securities and Exchange Commission, lead- ing to a City in which money is made through organic activity, will have to be a forerunner of the capital equipment boom that sensible men feel is desirable.
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