‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that any accountant in possession of a good business must be in want of growth.’ The opening lines of Jane Austin’s long-forgotten Growing your business in a recession? I wish, although search any airport bookstore for copies now and it’s clearly out of favour. At least, if Austen had been the guru we were looking for instead of toothsome Americans coining it with statements of the obvious, the book may have had some hint of reality.

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