Young entrepreneurs

These girls made a 20% return. They are somewhat better at business than Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown who has cost us 500 million pounds.

From the West Wing of the Blog House

Writing about Scotland's enterprise deficit, Tom Sunter of the Institute of Directors says:

Directors of companies need to set the standards for others to follow by adopting a professional approach to obtaining recognised business qualifications.

This line of thought immediately rang a bell in the Blog House. Consulting the administration's copy of Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, I found this quote:

It is not generally realised that education can never be more than indoctrination with theories and ideas already developed. Education, whatever benefits it may confer, is transmission of traditional doctrines and valuations; it is by necessity conservative. It produces imitation and routine, not improvement and progress. Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.

In order to succeed in business a man does not need a degree from a school of business administration. These schools train the subalterns for routine jobs. They certainly do not train entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur cannot be trained. A man becomes an entrepreneur in seizing an opportunity and filling the gap. No special education is required for such a display of keen judgment, foresight, and energy. The most successful businessmen were often uneducated when measured by the scholastic standards of the teaching profession. But they were equal to their social function of adjusting production to the most urgent demand. Because of these merits the consumers chose them for business leadership.

But as Mr. Sunter says, it is Scotland's new business start-up rate which is the problem. That will not be solved by producing more MBAs. What is needed is a huge cultural change and a slashing of red tape. Let's start by abolishing that pointless waste of taxpayers' money, the so-called Scottish Enterprise..

Quote of the day

"Clever people get away with crime. Look at the government." - a policeman speaking on The Bill - ITV 8.45pm.

Travelling with Alistair Darling

Our new Transport Secretary is described here as having a "gentle wit." The only time I ever saw my local MP was about eighteen months ago on a flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh. As I passed through business class to the taxpayers' section at the back, I saw the man himself. He was reading the free newspaper and laughing loudly at an article inside. I looked back and noticed that he was reading a double page spread about the fall of Peter Mandelson.

The World Cup

I know that some of my English readers are mightily concerned about what Scots think about England playing in the World Cup. The latest polls show that 29% of Scots will support England with 18% in opposition. The other 53% couldn't care less about who wins. I can report that the Sunday morning 10.30am breakfast viewing in my local pub of England's first match is a sell out despite there being no alcohol served until 12.30!

More on religion in schools

There is an interesting letter in today's Glasgow Herald from Iftikhar Ahmad. He says:

Educating children against the wishes and demands of Muslim parents is a breach of their human rights and un-Islamic.

The state schools have been mis-educating and de-educating Muslim children for the past 40 years.

He is quite right about the "mis-educating" and "de-educating" in state schools but that's caused by the schools being run by the state in the first place. In Scotland, we have state-funded Catholic schools and state-funded "secular" schools and now others, like the Muslims, understandably want a piece of the action. The only moral solution is to get the state out of education altogether. When parents purchase education in the marketplace there can be a whole variety of schools, religious and otherwise, without any group feeling hard done by.

Unlimited oil?

What this means for the price of housing in Aberdeen or politics in the Middle East, I don't know. But it will drive the environmentalists nuts. Nice references to Simon and Lomborg.

Not quite

BRITAIN HAS ARMED JUST ABOUT EVERYONE says the headline. But not the British people of course.

Hoist by his own petard

Normally I would sympathise with a publican in this situation. But the guy's a local councillor and former head of licensing! The state has no business telling us when we are old enough to have a drink. If drinkers, of whatever age, commit crimes let them be punished for the crime, not for the drinking.

Reality reasserts itself

I remember two or three years ago when I often wondered why the FTSE index would jump up and down when none of the mainstream stocks had moved at all. It turned out that Vodafone made up something like 15% of the market value of the top 100 companies. My gut reaction - not my training in business finance - told me that something was wrong. Now, Vodafone has lost some two thirds of its former value. I'm sure it remains a good company but the "gut instinct" is often correct.

Meeting the public

Why do politicians attract strange people?

Donald Dewar

A reader has pointed out that our late first minister was an unusually large investor in the Tory privatisations which he and the rest of the Labour party did so much to oppose. But "he often wore freebie ties" - a true pioneer of socialism.

....and capitalism

There has been an outbreak of pro-capitalist letters in the Scotsman.

More on property rights

I was travelling on a bus in Edinburgh today when there was a loud cry from the driver. “Get your shoes off that seat,” he shouted to a woman sitting behind me. “You wouldn’t treat your own property like that. Put your feet down or get off the bus.” Muttering words never before heard by a blogger, she got off the bus. One up for the civilised guys.

Is what's good for GM good for Scotland?

George Kerevan thinks so. And surprisingly, so too may a "Liberal" Democrat minister.

Capitalism and Welfare

The letters in today's Scotsman from D.S.A. Murray of Dorking and John Webb of Sheffield make interesting reading.

Entrepreneurs

Andrew Wilson MSP supports Tom Hunter on entrepreneurship.

Flying high

I certainly hope that this happens. We need more private investment in Scotland's transport infrastructure.

It's Saturday evening......

....so why not blog this?

A politician vandalised

I was saddened to read in the Glasgow Herald today that the new statue of the late Donald Dewar has been vandalised for a second time in just over two weeks. Before his death, Dewar was the First Minister in the Scottish Parliament.

I can’t help thinking, though, about just how much Mr. Dewar’s Scottish Labour Party has done to undermine property rights in this country. I wonder if Labour's hierarchy will draw any useful lessons from these incidents.

I remember it well....

The Scottish graduation ceremony of the Open University is being held in Glasgow today. Unfortunately, I am unable to provide a link to the list of new graduates published in the Scotsman. As fellow OU graduates, my wife and I would like to offer our congratulations to all who have succeeded in obtaining a degree in this most difficult of ways. Studying year after year for some fifteen hours a week while holding down a full time job is not easy.

At whose expense?

The letter in The Scotsman from Edward Means of California raises a good point about Edinburgh's Lord Provost campaigning in the US on behalf of the Democrats. I would like to know if Scotland's taxpayers paid for this trip.

Who owns the borders?

Writing in the Daily Mail today, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith says that "Not one Sangatte migrant should be let in". Look here for a radical analysis of immigration which is proving controversial among libertarians.

An attack from south of the border

No, it's not that one. This shows that we are living in ever more interesting times.