Tim Worstall

At the ASI. On country by country reporting.

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*Knit* *knit*. No, still knitting. *knit* Tee Hee. *knit* Is that a tumbril I spy? *knit, knit, knit* Who’s making the popcorn? *knit* My, I think that is a tumbril. *knit, knit, knit*

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if wealth is measured in any way that does not equate to totting up the amount Luke Johnson has in his bank account then more equal societies (created in part by redistribution) are wealthier on every measure anyone can think of. Seriously? Gini numbers show the level of inequality in a society. A lower Gini [...]

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Here.

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see more Lolcats and funny pictures * Err, think I got that right.

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I see an incident of Ritchie agreeing with the tax incidence argument. Microsoft has complained that Obama’s attack on tax havens will challenge its competitiveness in global markets. It is a monopolist. How could it lose competitiveness as a result of tax change?  As this analysis shows – the reality is that it is simply [...]

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As Ritchie says: What none of them could seem to get was the fact that the last three years of occuptation of a property which has at any time been your main residence are a deemed period of capital gains tax free occupation. But of course, as Ritchie also insists, making use of allowances specifically [...]

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For the net we work on, the digital connections our government seeks to spread as a universal right, the keyboards in our homes, are blights as well as boons. Guardian journalist discovers that there are trade offs.

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Even more fundamentally, we should be able to teach students that imports, not exports, are the purpose of trade. That is, what a country gains from trade is the ability to import what it wants. Exports are not an objective in and of themselves: the need to export is a burden that the country must [...]

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switch places with one of us for a day. I’ll even be generous and let you switch with a Western woman, instead of one of the many down-trodden of the Third World. Then you’ll discover just how lovely it is (what with our living longer and not topping ourselves and not providing for the family) [...]

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Breastfeeding is a very lovely thing, but if you’re a J cup at the time (no, not me; a friend. I swear) and in public, it takes on a rather “it’s showtime” aspect. Yes, I know it’s society’s fault for seeing breasts as sex things rather than food things, but that doesn’t make it any [...]

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What is needed urgently is more bank capacity. We need to create a network of public/private banks to support industrial and infrastructure investment and we need a wholesale transformation in the short-term, risk-averse way in which British banks have treated manufacturing companies for more than a century. Amazing. Immediately after he’s peddled the rumour that [...]

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At the ASI. Lordy almighty. The EU is about to insist that all banks do what just sent half the banks bust.

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Mr Hands, who is chairman of Terra Firma Capital Partners, has moved to Guernsey in recent weeks, according to people close to him. His decision to relocate makes him the most high-profile City executive to quit Britain over the new tax rules amid growing fears of an exodus of talent. A friend of Mr Hands [...]

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Just like the newspaper has been for fear of libel. But this looks like: The five MPs, who represent the political wing of the IRA, have not even taken up their Parliamentary seats and yet they have rented three London properties from the same family at rates well above the market norm. The party’s two [...]

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They did what? Under HMRC rules, expenses are taxed unless they are “wholly, exclusively and necessarily” incurred in the course of employment. MPs voted themselves a special tax break in the Income Tax Act 2003, which means they are exempt. They deliberately excluded themselves from the tax system which they impose upon everyone else? Grrr…..

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Allegra Stratton makes the point on GU today. The trouble is, so far as I can tell, the Telegraph isn’t telling us about the good guys. Its list of errant cabinet ministers – 14 in all – includes three current non-cabinet members (Prescott, Beckett and Caroline Flint). Does that mean that half the Brown cabinet [...]

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see more pwn and owned pictures

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Country by country reporting is being held up as the solution to so many international tax woes. But could someone please tell me quite how it does so? Tax should be paid where the economic substance of the activity takes place. That’s the mantra isn’t it? It’s just that I’m not really sure what that [...]

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"Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are dumber than that." –George Carlin

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