Tim Worstall

Here.

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Probably worth someone’s time finding out what is the system of bank deposit guarantee in Antigua and Barbuda. Stanford International Bank has, by its own admission, somewhere between $7.5 and $8.5 billion US of liabilities. It’s an Antiguan bank too. Total population of Antigua and Barbuda is 85,000 people or so. If SIB does go [...]

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There’s something that needs to be added to this story: A TYCOON who made his fortune with BSM driving schools and Spudulike baked potato shops has emerged as the biggest British victim of the multi-billion-pound Madoff swindle. Lord Jacobs, 77, a former Liberal party treasurer, lost millions in the scam allegedly perpetrated by the Wall [...]

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More on Sir Allen Stanford. But SEC filings show that the Antigua bank also holds majority stakes in a handful of thinly traded American firms. The Florida firm losing $16 million in financing from Stanford International is called Elandia International Inc. of Coral Gables, which trades over-the-counter on the so-called pink sheets. Elandia says it [...]

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Oh dear. Methinks that Wull Hutton should try reading some american history before he starts pontificating on it. Instead he is resolutely following his hero Abraham Lincoln, trying vainly to build a cabinet of all the talents. Apparently he gives every new cabinet member Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of Lincoln, Team of Rivals. But Lincoln [...]

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At the ASI. We probably don’t want to throw the baby of eradicating poverty out with the bathwater of market froth.

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You know how all sorts of people (not just idiot lefties , there’s a surprising number of rightist economic nationalists who make the same gross error) say that it’s only manufacturing that counts in some manner. That it’s only the production of material goods that producecs real wealth? Poppycock, of course, as this finding shows. [...]

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Looks like it could be quite fun. Pestle.

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These people manage $8.5 billion dollars ($8,500,000,000) and are able to pay depositors (yes, depositors, not investors) nearly double normal interest rates. They do this by "investing" in stocks, bonds and precious metals. The Bank’s Board of Directors embodies the greatest level of stability through dedication and experience. The Board’s extensive background in business and [...]

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You really do want to start reading up on Bernie Cornfeld and Investors Overseas Services. It is my suspicion, a purely personal opinion only, that it will help you a great deal in writing about Sir Allen Stanford in coming weeks and months.  

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You know, I think he’s entirely and completely fucked. Entirely personal opinion of course, but something stinks very badly here. Update. Yup, he’s toast. Burnt toast.

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I’m an extremist believer in free speech. I believe that Abu Hookhand should have the freedom to call down a plague on our houses as much as I should have the freedom of speech to call him a cunt,

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That this House believes that all banks which have received public funds and in which the British taxpayer now owns more than 50 per cent. of their value should be governed by the same Freedom of Information rules as Parliament; That would be not covered by the Act then, as MP’s expenses are not?

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Hutton: Over the years I have had many heated arguments with "tax planners". Always it gets to the same core point: the state has no right to have my cash. Big Government is a moral bad and, worse, will necessarily squander my money on ill-conceived projects creating welfare dependency – for that is what governments [...]

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This is good news…..if they actually do it of course. An entirely unrelated piece of gossip from Brussels. Apparently part of the MEP’s pension fund was invested with a certain Bernie Madoff. That’s the story anyway.

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At the ASI. So why are people junketing the bureaucrats?

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As we all know there’s been a rumpus going on about independent schools and their charitable status. Do they in fact provide a public benefit that is commensurate with their getting the tax breaks of being a charity? Capacity at primary schools must be expanded as parents hit by the recession desert independent schools in [...]

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One of the victims of the Buffalo plane crash was the widow of a man who died in the September 11 attacks, according to reports.

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Scientists found that non-smokers who were exposed to high levels of cigarette smoke were more likely to suffer the early memory problems that could be a sign of the neurological condition. Previous studies have suggested that there is a link between smoking and the development of dementia. I thought the link was that smokers seem [...]

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Cocaine cheaper than lager and wine Does that mean you now buy it by the pint or the bottle? The serious part of this news is of course that we’re clearly losing the "war on drugs". Time methinks to declare victory and go home, no? Just legalise the damn things.

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