Skinflint's City Diary,
Walter Salomon is one of the most distinguished minds in the City, and a forthright defender over many years of the kind of libertarian economic views which I myself espouse; as well as of the philosophy which closely connects the freedom of the individual with a certain kind of economic order. Salomon has now collected together his articles and speeches into a terse, epigrammatic and profound book, One Man's View. It is, I think, pretty safe to assert that, had this been the work of an economist or banker of equal distinction, but of the Keynesian persuasion, it would have already been widely reviewed, and treated of at length in many of the papers.
The only reason I can imagine for the deafening near silence which has in fact greeted it, is that it has been published by Churchill Press, an outfit closely connected with the Institute of Economic Affairs, almost certainly the most dis tinguished body of micro-econo mic thinkers, gathered together in one place, in the world, I can understand why so many financial and economic commentators, like so many civil servants, bankers and international financiers, should be of the collectivist turn of economic mind — most professional economists are actually Marxists in fact if not in intention — because it's easier that way. But I cannot understand why they should simply ignore work of such quality as that of Walter Salomon.
Hovertrain blues
When so many millions are being spent on Concorde it annoys me inexpressibly that the Government should have been so mean as to cancel the Hovertrain, which has so far cost only £5 million, especially in the underhand way in which they did it. Goldilocks Heseltine, the minister in charge, announced his dirty deed in a written answer, and without telling the Select Committee on Science and Technology which, indeed, he had only just previously encouraged to go ahead with Hovertrain work.
The advantages of the Hovertrain are evident to everybody except ministers. It incorporates two revolutionary elements of design — the hover principle and the linear motor. The fully developed train can be expected to reach speeds of up to 300 miles an hour; and it is free from bad environmental side effects.
The whole sorry tale is a typical example of British failure to develop the products of British inventiveness; and the Hovertrain must now be added to the sadly neglected Hovercraft itself and the swing-wing plane of Barnes Wallis's creation which we gave away to the Americans after the war, as examples of our bureaucratic purblindness and bad costeffect analysis.
Nasty VAT
I keep bumping into a general feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen soon, and that the name of the thing is VAT. Some prices will go up and some should come down after VAT comes in on April 1, but all the advertisements are telling us to buy now, before VAT.
A publican I know cannot face the idea of VAT, so on the advice of his accountant he is getting out of the business on March 31. There are bound to be lots of ludicrous anomalies. I hear that fees for weddings are subject to VAT but those for funerals are not, Does marrying someone add to his value, but burying him not?
Not fair
The small men will be hit, and hurt, the most — as usual. Hundieds of thousands of individuals and small businesses with turnovers more than £5,000 per annum but not big enough to employ full-time accountants and clerks will be plagued, some no doubt to death, by new and strange bureaucratic procedures. Maybe VAT will become a popular and easily understood tax and maybe it is just and sensible. But many I meet are fearful. If it is unpopular, it will be blamed on the continentals. The European policy looks like becoming the catch-all for everything that goes wrong or is heartily disliked. It may not be fair, but that's the way the cookie will crumble.
Scotch snips
The retail price of three star brandy has been increased by 40p a bottle and now stands at £4.53, I read. I can get bottles of decent Scotch at my local supermarket for £2.49. The duty on both Scotch and brandy is about £2. The whisky manufacturers and distributors are left to manage with less than 50p a bottle; the brandy people appear to take £2.50, five times as much. I am thankful that Scotch is, to my taste, a better drink than brandy. If the duty were removed, it would be up to five times cheaper than brandy, and would surely kill off almost all the cognac trade, to the general benefit.
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