Tim Worstall

Yes, yes, we all know, keeping up with the Joneses is terrible. It leads to excessive consumption, the hedonic treadmill, and we’d all be much happier if we didn’t do it. That is roughly what we’re told from certain quarters isn’t it? Hmm. BEING competitive and wanting to “keep up with the Joneses” is why [...]

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In his April 22 Budget Mr Darling said he will scrap generous tax breaks on pension contributions for people earnings over £150,000 a year. The Chancellor said this would cure an ‘anomaly’ under which a quarter of all pensions tax relief goes to the top to 1.5 per cent of earners. Instead, the relief will [...]

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You know, I’m not entirely sure about this: The Chinese do not think of themselves in terms of nation but civilisation; it is the latter that gives them their sense of identity. Although we tend to think of China in somewhat homogeneous terms, it is a continent that contains great diversity; and to govern a [...]

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It stood tall at 6’5, weighed over 500lbs, had the face of a koala and the body of a sturdy kangaroo. And apparently it was delicious. Scientists think they have discovered the reason behind the demise of the prehistoric Australian marsupial Procoptodon goliah – better known as the giant, short-snouted kangaroo. They say it was [...]

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So, we’ve a society with more inequality than many others. And yet, many of us think that this is OK. Britain is unusual — and closer to the United States than European countries — in the number of people who think that most people do have a fair shot. 69% of people believe that “there [...]

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Let’s be blunt: most people think of a pension as their retirement income paid for from a  pool of funds. That’s the appearance, i agree. But the substance is something quite different. Pensions are a mechanism for transferring property rights: between generations and from the owners of capital to the suppliers of labour. Umm, this [...]

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From a wonderful old documentary that David Thompson has dug up: What I could never understand – and I did resent – was [heterosexual feminists] going home to men at night. It just seemed such a contradiction. And often I would get very angry when I would challenge them about this, and they would say, [...]

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You know, there really is someone barking mad enough to use creation science to prospect for oil. Or at least, there’s someone barking mad enough to say that they’re using creation science to prospect for oil.

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From guess who? We could and should be taxing bank profits an extra 10%, according to tax campaigner Richard Murphy, to cover the cost of that unseen insurance. Simply wonderful, don’t you think? Higher taxes are indeed the solution to everything. So, what actually happened? We had a regulated banking system. We also had a [...]

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RBS, they remind us, is as big as the British economy It is? RBS is adding £1.4 trillion of value a year? So why did it go bust then?

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The UK’s liabilities make the transition to a steady state economy, let alone a managed contraction, much harder to achieve. Or at least, George Monbiot’s real green point. We need a contraction of the UK economy. It’s necessary for us and our children to become progressively poorers. No wonder no one really wants to do [...]

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Come in, sit down, have a glass of wine. Mmmmm, yum – Chateau So Light 2009. You’ll be delighted to hear that it has a much reduced alcohol content, which will be highly beneficial to your general health, your social behaviour and to society at large. No? You actually like the alcohol? Then you should [...]

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More for my own interest rather than anything else I’ve tried out another site to see what can be done with it, how it all works etc. Test post on Joseph Carnevale just to see what happens.

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In The Spirit Level, the latest (as I’ve mentioned) attempt to show that equality is what it’s all about, they actually make the argument that Japan is an equal society. That there’s no particularly strong social heirarchy. They’re loons, aren’t they?

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A European Commission spokesman last night insisted the Government agreed to every word in the directive. He added: “If someone thinks we don’t understand the British mentality then neither does the UK Government.”

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Without a shred of legitimacy, the drive towards a United States of Europe is relentless. The only way any country can regain its independence is by leaving the EU. Renegotiations, opt-outs and protocols are all useless in the face of this sinister bureaucracy bent on absolute control.

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The lavish spreads offered up by the author’s Jewish grandmother and later descriptions of “heaping plates of waffles with cream and strawberries” and “mouth watering chocolate moose”, make it abundantly clear that Sasha Abramsky loves to eat and understands that food is one of our greatest sources of pleasure. It also shows that one of [...]

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The government is investigating a possible ban on British National party members working as teachers in schools in a move that could challenge the legitimacy of the far-right party. Why is it that these people cannot understand the most simple basic points about freedom and liberty? You can think what you damn well like. It’s [...]

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Greenland, which holds 10 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves, is one of the areas most under threat from global warming, I understand the “threat” of a mile or two of ice melting to the rest of us, but a threat to Greenland?

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As you know, I’ve penned the odd piece for the Times. I’m not the first of the family to appear in that august organ though. Not sure of the date (1929 I’m told), but that’s Grandpa before he’d met Grandma. This was one of his 8 crashes….. Not sure quite why, but a crash on [...]

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