Tim Worstall

Last year, the staff were probably very happy indeed. Every spring, they receive a bonus, dependent on how well the business has fared, Isn’t it excellent the way that The City shares the profits with the workers? Not all of the surplus extracted from the workers goes to the capitalist bastards who own the firm. [...]

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…the Guardian is the political-wing of Auto-Trader… Comment at CiF.

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When Labour came to power in 1997, people were left with 34.5% of their gross income after taxes, national insurance, mortgage or rent. Now it’s 32.6%. That’s Zoe Williams. She then goes off to talk about house prices, food and so on. The one thing she doesn’t mention is that the tax burden has changed: [...]

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This is rather fun. I’ve just been appointed as a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute. An honour and an ornament, not worthy etc. The major benefit (and one explicitly intended) is that when approaching a commissioning editor I actually have a handle to use, something to say in response to the inevitable "Well, who [...]

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“Our result show that one of the main assumptions of current models and theories is, in fact, quite wrong." It doesn’t matter what the subject is (in this case it’s how starlings flock, but it could be about meiosis, hormesis or haplotypes) that’s the one phrase that every scientist wants to be able to stand [...]

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The number of people paying the highest level of income tax has almost doubled since Labour came to power, according to recent statistics. There’s more than one way to raise taxes you know. Just raise the thresholds in line with price inflation rather than rising earnings (yes, earnings do normally rise faster than inflation, yes, [...]

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OK: After insisting for decades that she saw “no reason” ever to marry, Julie Christie has finally wed her long-term partner Duncan Campbell. But there’s two journalists called Duncan Campbell aren’t there? One on the staff at The Grauniad and the other who sometimes writes for the G on security and terrorism issues….isn’t there?   [...]

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Why is it that the people who are employed to provide information for the public seem to know so little? Err, no, she wasn’t in fact offering a critique of Guardian journalists. Why do you ask?

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At The Business. George Monbiot gets it wrong again and interesting times for the extended Worstall family.

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I’m reading some light hearted frippery at the moment, a variation on the historical detective idea: this is a Friar in 1390s (roughly) London. John of Gaunt as Regent times. There’s something that doesn’t quite ring true to me. It’s the rate of executions. London at the time was some 100,000 people or so. While [...]

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You can view it here. Annotated by No2ID it’s the current working document on ID cards. Umm, no you can’t, because I can’t work out how to get it to appear in the post. New technology baffles pissed old hack, eh? UPDATE: now you can. 

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Perhaps I should do more of this sort of thing?

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The response is a mixed one, Mr Brown proposes heavy-handed welfare reforms along with welcome expansion in public sector apprenticeships. "Public sector apprenticeships" or someone trained by McDonald’s to run a store?

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Unemployment is a Labour triumph – at its lowest in 30 years. Numbers on incapacity benefit are down. … so Pathways to Work is now being rolled out aimed at 1m people out of the 2.6m on incapacity benefit who say they want to work and are reckoned capable of it. Eh?

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As resources are finite, As that statement is untrue the rest of your analysis fails. Sorry, but there it is.

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This is interesting: BSkyB’s 17.9pc stake in ITV may have offended many people’s sense of what’s fair but it didn’t appear to offend the Government’s very own 2003 Communications Act which allows BSkyB to own up to 20pc in ITV – it became known as the Murdoch clause after all. That was introduced under the [...]

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A website promising free, legal and unlimited music online was unable to offer users any actual music to download today after admitting it did not have permission to use major companies’ songs. Bet their website got some hits though…..

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A senior Tory MP has been severely reprimanded for using taxpayer-funded expenses to pay his teenage son almost £50,000 as a "researcher" even though there is no evidence of any work having been done. … It also emerged yesterday that Mr Conway used to employ his elder son, Henry, as a researcher while he was [...]

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At The Register. Explaining the politics of CGT to geeks.

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Here.

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