Tim Worstall

This is very amusing indeed. Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, writing in the New York Review of Books, about the Tesco libel case against The Guardian. Several thousand words and some reasonable points made. But, but: The story over which The Guardian came to grief involved a program launched by Tesco in 2006 to [...]

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You can see this at work in the decision sneaked out by the US Federal Reserve on Christmas Eve to recognise GM’s financing arm, GMAC, as a “bank”, thus making it eligible to receive the subventions hitherto given to, well, banks. GMAC’s chairman, one J Ezra Merkin, also happens to be head of a hedge [...]

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Someone close to me, much to my annoyance, has for years insisted that the same applies equally to writers who lay claim to logic, argument or worldly judgment. Writing – any writing – is like knitting, he says. It’s an unintellectual knack that some people have naturally, and which develops astonishingly with practice, but which [...]

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It’s amazing what this man seems to believe, even more amazing that he’s taken to be an expert on matters financial and economic. Essentially, the government has to instruct the Bank of England to lend the banking system cash the Royal Mint has printed. The Royal Mint makes coins (and medals….not sure that a rapid [...]

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Those who take budget airline flights. Seventy five per cent of budget airline flights are taken by social classes A, B and C, while people in classes D and E occupy just 6% of all available seats. Evidence that all this flying by relatively wealthy people broadens the mind is thin on the ground. Most [...]

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Glastobnbury always ha been and odd sort of place…. But now the residents of Glastonbury, which has long been a favoured destination for pilgrims, are at the centre of a bitter row in which many blame the town’s new wireless computer network – known as wi-fi – for a spate of health problems. Some healers [...]

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Debate over Tim, simply because you’ve failed to make your case despite having had ample opportunity to do so. I leave it up to you to decide whether I’ve made my case or not. Does Ritchie know his economics or not?

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Edward Hugh has the charts to show that in at least some countries industrial production is falling off a cliff, just as it did in the Great Depression. It certainly looks like he’s got the goods there. However, however, I think there’s one thing that’s being missed here. The structure of the economy. No, I’m [...]

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A third miserable summer in parts of the UK could spell disaster for many species of insects, birdlife and mammals, the National Trust warns today. The charity says three wet summers in a row in many regions could mean that creatures – ranging from craneflies (often called daddy-long-legs) to species of butterflies, members of the [...]

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I thought this was well known already? Williams began to test the Ulfberht blades when a private collector brought one into the Wallace, and found they varied wildly. The tests at the NPL have proved that the inferior swords were forged in northern Europe from locally worked iron. But the genuine ones were made from [...]

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It should be Brown calling for an end to the bonus culture: Cameron doesn’t mean it, he’s simply proposing token action. Labour could effectively end it by disallowing bonuses to be set against a company’s tax as a legitimate expense. Research suggests that bonuses and performance-related pay serve no good purpose, though these false incentives [...]

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No, really, censorship of the internet really isn’t a free speech issue. The Culture Secretary says so. “There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical. This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest [...]

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The 2 billion the EU spends on "information campaigns". Biased or neutral? The researchers also found a European Commission document that admitted: "Neutral factual information is needed of course, but it is not enough on its own. Genuine communication by the EU cannot be reduced to the mere provision of information." Ah, biased and proud [...]

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In a final interview conducted in at his North London home in late October, and published just a day after his death was announced, he reveals his passion for cricket. He once famously described the game the "greatest thing that God created on earth" which was better than sex. A nice present to leave your [...]

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A correspondent for this blog has been investigating the odds that Gordon Brown will fail to hold an election before June 2010. That is, that he will suspend democracy. The original thinking was that at 100 to one or something it would make an interesting little bet. Paddy Power is offering 1:3. Yes, yes, we [...]

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There are a number of us who think that Land Value Tax should be implemented (Hey, even Polly T has been known to mumble about it) as a solution to at least some of the ills in our current taxation system. The imposition of such a system would include measures like this: Tax inspectors have [...]

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Here this, hear this.   There are only 364 shopping days until Christmas.

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Actually you know, it’s not half bad. The full text is here. I think you’d be hard put to find any Church of England bishop who would disagree with what is said (rather than the man who is saying it or his attitudes or actions outside this particular statement). I think this line is actually [...]

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We now have Dennis the Peasant on Ritchie Babbie’s case. Accountant to accountant, mano a mano. This could be the present that keeps on giving.

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Seasons greetings and all that jazz.

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