Wednesday 24 October 2007

The Thoughts of Chairman Matt

Not being a Telegraph reader, I’ve been spared several years of their sometime star columnist Matt Ridley’s pontificating on the evils of state intervention. Yes, this is Matt Ridley the recently-resigned Chairman of Northern Rock who (pardon my ignorance) turns out not only to be a stellar company chairman and versatile journalist but also a noted biologist and theorist of natural selection. With strong academic views on why government should not intervene in private enterprise.

Here are some of the thoughts of Chairman Matt, courtesy of a few minutes googling:

▪ "The more money a group receives from the taxpayer, the more it demands and the more it complains"

▪ "A Government that confiscates unprofitable firms from private owners so that it can subsidise them itself does not do its taxpayers a service"

▪ "Wherever the state has turned provider, it soon crowds out private rivals"

▪ "State control, whether in ancient Egypt or modern North Korea, has gone with tyranny, not freedom"

▪ "From British Leyland to British lay-bys, from the herring fishery to the National Health Service, public ownership always means neglect and under investment"

▪ "Governments do not run countries, they parasitise them"

Ironic, huh ? We don’t necessarily expect intellectual consistency from run-of-the mill businessmen. But maybe we could hope for better from an academic ?

ND

UPDATE: £ 20 billion and counting . . .


Feb 2008 UPDATE: did I hear £ 105 billion . . ?

20 comments:

RobW said...

Very funny. They build themselves up...

I wonder if he'll tell us that GB and AD shouldn't have bailed out Northern Rock.

hatfield girl said...

At least he resigned; the others are still there having fun with £16 billion of your money having caused the Labour regime to do all that damage to the UK financial sector and its regulatory regime's probity.

Jeremy Jacobs said...

All a bit worrying this natural selection stuff.

Jeremy Jacobs said...

""State control, whether in ancient Egypt or modern North Korea, has gone with tyranny, not freedom".

I guess that explains things in Syria ans Saudi Arabia

Nick Drew said...

Rob - after a short interval I am sure he will be back in action once more (chairing a Quango ?)

HG - you could almost say hypocrisy is the fiduciary duty of a plain-vanilla businessman: "leave us alone ... or, on second thoughts, bung us a sub". But there's a special place for those who advance theoretical arguments, at length, and then perform their gyrations.

(I was never much of a fan of David Howell...)

Nick Drew said...

Jeremy - I am sure it is a perfectly adaptable theory, with huge explanatory value - when understood properly !

hatfield girl said...

Eigth Circle, Number 6, then.

Nick Drew said...

Or 8 /4 ? or then again, perhaps 8 / 8 ?

Decisions, decisions

Newmania said...

That is briliant , well done , tsk tsk how could the National Audit Office have gone so badly wrong eh..especilaly considering they had the personal approval of Sir Snout in Trough Bourne " It has created strong annd effective structures " he said .
This endorsement was much used by Brown and Balls to tell all about the super structure they created.

and yet now ...they were never there and it was all the fault of American storms . IT WAS NOT. At even the quickest glance their structure was suicidal.


Just add that to the long list of brown cock ups ...he really is a Clown and I wish people would stop taking him seriously . He should drive a clown car and have exccedingly long shoes just so there`s no confusion

CityUnslicker said...

Newmania Broon's performance in PMQ's is a nice reminder to us all of what a clown he is.

I hear that Northern Rock borrowing is up to £18 billion....6 months worth of PSBR in 40 days..just as well we did not let it go bust eh?

Reactionary Snob said...

A great spot... well done!

Nick Drew said...

Mr M & Reactionary - thanks, but where would be without google, eh? Spoiled for choice on material when you start looking, though: Chairman Matt wrote mountains of that guff.

CU - yes, & what now is the amount of liability that the govt's hasty guarantee represents ?!

Any word of which is the next bank to 'wobble'? B&B still doesn't look very bright ...

Anonymous said...

Mind you, his writings on biology are really quite good.

Nick Drew said...

Funnily enough, dearime, I think some of his political writings are quite good too !

In the words of the song

A lovely little thinker, but ...

Back to your books, Ridley

Nick Drew said...

errr .. some black coffee, sir ?

Anonymous said...

Did he resign because he believed NR SHOULD have gone to the wall? After all, he isn't the CFO or CEO, just the chairman.

Maybe he sincrely believed that once NRs previously successful business model had failed then it was time for NR to fail too.

Nick Drew said...

Yes, but also (if I recall correctly) the Chairman of the Risk Committee, anon

maybe he sincerely believed ...

maybe

Anonymous said...

George Monbiot got there first see

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/10/23/libertarians-are-the-true-social-parasites/

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