ASI Bulletin: The Next Generation
Dr. Eamonn Butler, our Director and Co-Founder, takes you through the last few (always busy) weeks at the Adam Smith Institute.
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In this bulletin:
A few useful things that our government might do (but won’t).
The Next Generation Centre: A new initiative to restore opportunity to the young.
£14,000 Enlightenment essay competition: Enlightenment values in the Arab World.
But first...
We might ask why are we wasting parliamentary time on laws to persecute smokers, stop people renting their flats out as AirB&Bs, banning mobile phones in schools, and whatever unprincipled headline-grabber they can dream up? Especially when they could be doing something useful, like scrapping our asphyxiating planning regime, abolishing a central bank that’s halved the value of our money, and delivering the deregulation and trade deals promised by Brexit.
Though I digress…
THE NEXT GENERATION CENTRE
Exciting new initiative: On 28th February, in Westminster, we will be launching our exciting new project, the Next Generation Centre, with Economic Secretary to the Treasury Bim Afolami as our keynote speaker. It stems from the growing recognition that younger people deserve greater economic and political opportunity.
But we need significant initiatives to overcome past policy blockages and give them those opportunities- and the Next Generation Centre will be coming up with just that.
This builds upon ASI's long legacy of work educating young people on Adam Smith, economics, and policy ideas.
This event is primarily invitation-only, but we have opened up a ballot for a limited number of spots to our wider network of supporters.
Sign up here to find out by Monday evening if you have received a place.
ENLIGHTENMENT ESSAY COMPETITION
We are delighted to announce the launch of our Enlightenment Essay Competition, with prizes of £8,000 (first place), £4,000 (second) and £2,000 (third). The theme is a crucial one:
How can the ideas of the Enlightenment become embedded in the Arab World?
We’ll be looking further afield in our search for excellent essays. We are asking students, from undergraduate to post-doctoral, to answer the question: “How can the ideas of the Enlightenment become embedded in the Arab World?”
The deadline is 30th August. To apply, you have to be an undergraduate, postgraduate or doctoral and post-doctoral student. We are asking for up to 5,000 words including any footnotes, Chicago citation, British English. Submissions to maxwell@adamsmith.org.
More information here. Good luck!
NEW REPORTS
Cooped Up: Quantifying the Cost of Housing Restrictions
Discover the first calculation of the cost of planning restrictions on the UK economy. Researchers Duncan McClements and Jason Hausenloy find that scrapping Britain’s planning restrictions would boost GDP in real terms by up to 6.1% (£138.5bn). Yes, that is what we’re losing because of our harshly restrictive planning regime.
It got a write-up in the Times and was covered in Guido Fawkes too- and here’s Director of Government Relations James Price talking about why densification is important on GB News.
EVENTS
The Next Generation: Saqib Bhatti MBE MP
We are looking forward to welcoming Saqib Bhatti MBE MP, Minister for Tech and Digital Economy to our next TNG on Tuesday 12th March.
If you’re under 35, sign up here. Refreshments provided.
The Next Generation: Rachel Cunliffe
This month, The New Statesman’s associate political editor Rachel Cunliffe spoke to our young Westminster group. She focused on the fall in childbirth rates in the West: what it means for the future of public finances and what might be causing it. Top answer: well, if young people can’t afford housing, they’re not so likely to start families. Quite.
MEDIA
Director of Research Maxwell Marlow was in the Telegraph on HMRC tax return fines, in the Sunday Express on the impact of the younger generation’s health drive on taxes, and on Gove’s proposed planning reforms, in Guido on the mad plans to force those renting out their properties as short-term holiday lets to apply for planning permission and on GB News to discuss whether working people of retirement age should pay taxes.
And Director of Communications Emily Fielder was in the Telegraph on the costs of fiscal drag to workers.
MAKE A (VERY) OLD MAN HAPPY
Last year was Adam Smith’s 300th birthday year. Help us continue his legacy of economic enlightenment by supporting our activities to engage with and educate the coming generation.
We have big ambitions for 2024 and beyond with a fresh team, but we need your support.
That’s why we’ve launched the 300 Pledge.
Thanks to the generosity of one supporter, for the first £300,000 we raise, they will match every pound you put in. So there has never been a better time to support our work.
Make the Pledge here:
You’ll enable a step-change in our efforts and support entire new campaigns to be fought in the battle of ideas.
You’ll help us to hire a part-time economics researcher or fund influential policy research.
You'll help us to take on 3 new interns, organise 3 school engagements, or host 3 The Next Generation events.
And I quote…
I always thought that the novelist Gore Vidal was a prosy old bore, but he did have one insight that seems to be aposite to our current situation:
“A democracy is a place where numerous elections are held, at great cost, without issues, and with interchangeable candidates.”
Bye…
e
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Re:
“A democracy is a place where numerous elections are held, at great cost, without issues, and with interchangeable candidates.” 🤣👍
PS. We will never escape the trap of the debt-based, fractional reserve, banking system to realise free market capitalism by staying in fiat. The decentralised, unconfiscateable, uninflatable alternative is burgeoning. Perhaps your young followers will make the case that Keynesian economics has incentivised corruption, waste and pollution on a scale never before seen.
C x