Tim Worstall

This character Yoko Oyes that appears on several comment threads about the place. People tell me it’s the Dirty European Socialist under another name.
I dunno really, I just dunno.

There is a new comment on the post "The energy windfall tax arguments don’t stack up".
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/08/27/the-energy-windfall-tax-arguments-dont-stack-up/

Author: Yoko Oyes.
Comment:
Sunny hundal is a bully and a thug. I hate […]

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As with Hatters, now that our own favourite retired accountant has come out in favour of the windfall tax we can confidently reject it of course.

The arguments for a windfall tax on energy companies are complex. I am in favour of such a tax at this time.

However, there’s something vastly more interesting in his post […]

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Speccie.
Three shorties today.

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Roy Hattersley is in favour of a windfall tax.
Clearly it’s an absurd idea that we can safely reject then.

Two facts should dominate ministers’ consideration. The first is the size of energy company profits. For Shell, they amounted to £13.9bn in 2007-08 and £4bn in the second quarter of this year, a 4.6% improvement on 2007.

Eh? […]

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Right Now for
Faro, Portugal
Save Location

if (getUserPreferences(”5″) && getUserPreferences(”5″)

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Bryony love?

while the average age to lose your virginity in the 1980s was 17, today a quarter of young people are sexually active before they turn 16.

Averages are just that, averages. It’s entirely possible that when the average age of virginity loss was 17 that 25% of people lost their cherry before they turned 16. […]

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Or something.

The latest Ryanair incident happened as a Boeing 737-800 jet was passing over German airspace on its way from the Hungarian capital to Dublin on Monday night.
A man was said to have complained of a swollen neck after the liquid dripped onto him from luggage […]

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The average mother works five-and-a-half hours a day at a paid job but also spends 45 minutes preparing meals and 31 minutes shopping for groceries.
Daily household chores account for 42 minutes and running errands for the family takes another 23 minutes.
The school run takes 36 minutes and ferrying children […]

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Two of the most important paintings in Britain could be lost to the nation unless £100 million is found to keep them.

Let ‘im flog ‘em.

At least one of the greatest of the moderns, Lucian Freud - recently crowned the world’s most expensive living artist - has testified to the impact upon his own life and […]

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So say the TPA.
I saw this in draft . The estimates of the social costs of emissions are spot on. They use Tol, IPCC, Nordhaus and Stern (that last being what DEFRA actually uses) and show that the costs of our emissions are, tops, around the £16 billion a year level.
They then show that we’re […]

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OK, I’m going to need to use a nifty little piece of software in this new job as a press officer.
But first of course I need to find that nifty piece of software.
I used to use Telemagic two decades ago (yes, really!) and that would certainly do what I want to do. However, it’s really […]

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Could you please have a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland?
My preference would be that you have it sometime next autumn. After rural Ireland has been around the circuit of country and county shows.
After they’ve seen yet another of the benefits of EU membership.
Thank you.
yours etc. Tim Worstall

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So the results are in in the UKIP London MEP selection stakes.
Your genial host came in sixth out of 11.  Depending upon whether Marta Andreasen stands in London or the SE, whether Ralph Atkinson does better in E Midlands than London, your self same genial host will therefore be anything from sixth to fourth on […]

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Quite.

But I’m having a particularly hard time taking seriously the criticism of Obama’s “celebrity” from the same people who sent a B-movie star to the White House.  Just sayin’.

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A use for ID cards!

Voters may have to take some form of photographic ID into the polling station under controversial proposals to reform the electoral system announced today.

So, erm, how would this work with postal votes then?

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Would the tax be simply passed on to the consumer?
Businesses say it could lead to higher prices in the long term and even advocates of the tax concede it is a risk. But they also say it would be scandalous if energy companies passed the tax on.

Well, isn’t that nice?
There’s only one problem here. Is […]

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Stuck together

As living costs rise, jobs are axed and debts escalate, there is a price being paid behind the bedroom door
 

What, people can no longer afford post coital showers?

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Analysis of 96 women executive directors over a six-year period found that they earned a total of £257,000 a year on average.
Their male equivalents, however, took home £316,000 - 19 per cent more.
The research by Exeter University also showed that male directors had the potential to earn bigger bonuses. Those working in the best performing […]

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Umm, are childminders really getting worse?

Of those inspected last year, 1,110 childminders were declared unacceptable, compared to 495 the year before. The number of bad minders has trebled since 2006, when just 340 gave inspectors cause for concern.

Or are the standards the inspectors are inspecting them to getting higher?
Would […]

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Almost Proustian, no?

Fish and chips is not only one of Britain’s favourite dishes - it is also the nation’s favourite smell, according to a study.
Britons’ judged the mouth-watering aroma of fish and chips to be even better than the scent of freshly baked bread and clean sheets.
The survey, of […]

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