Tim Worstall

Mr Murphy decides to come back on this climate change issue again. A number of points pop up. Worstall (a climate change denier, or so it would appear – like so many of his type) Err, no. I’ve been writing on these here internets for over a decade now and there’s one thing that you’ll [...]

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In small print accompanying its annual report, the OFT admitted that the alleged fraud had not been detected because of a “control weakness” in the accounts payable department. The problem saw the OFT lose £97,000 last year and £153,000 the year before. Anyone got the details? The OFT refuses to say because “the police are [...]

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Finally, a good reason to do so. As if we needed one…..

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…..married mothers more likely to be in work and to get divorced Gee, ya think?

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At the ASI. Thank the Lord they’re going to sell off the banks as fast as they can.

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Libby Purves: It is about British manufacturing: now 13 per cent of GDP and 10 per cent of employment. In 1970 it was half the economy. We are still the sixth biggest manufacturing nation in the world, but the actual volume of goods we make has fallen by a quarter since 1997, and our deficit [...]

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It should not be possible to make money out of holding health data. Eh? Not at all? In no manner at all? So the service has to be provided for free? No one can even set up a computer system that will hold your records for, say, £15  a year?

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So Maddy has found that women’s self-reported happiness or satisfaction with life has been declining while that of men has remained reasonably stable. She’s thrashing around trying to find a reason for this. But we know the reason. It’s called the Paradox of Choice: or, if you prefer, a manifestation of opportunity costs. The choices [...]

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“and the 48 students chasing each job vacancy.” Blimey. According to the ONS (the official source) there are currently 429,000 job vacancies in the UK. (July 2009 figures). Does that mean we’ve got 20,592,000 students in the country? That university expansion scheme went further than I thought……

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Mainstream economics subscribes to the theory that markets “clear” continuously. The theory’s big idea is that if wages and prices are completely flexible, resources will be fully employed, so that any shock to the system will result in instantaneous adjustment of wages and prices to the new situation. Where in buggery did that straw man [...]

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s doctors are expected to advise him to slow down and cut back on his exercise regime after he collapsed while jogging and was kept in hospital overnight. It’s the sort of thing that has been known to happen to middle aged men who take younger wives……

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The number of pensioners living in poverty in Britain is among the highest in Europe with the over-65s in poorer countries, including Romania and Poland faring better, official figures have shown. Oh aye? That is, of course, measured by relative poverty within the country. No account is taken of the difference in living standards between [...]

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This is really rather snigger inducing: Wanamaker, who appeared alongside Simon Russell Beale in Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre last year, said agents and bookers should be “more careful” when negotiating deals for female performers. “Women are always at the bottom as far as pay is concerned – the equal pay business [...]

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At TakiMag about Silvio Berlusconi. There was a certain fight with myself over the inclusion or not of some of Taki’s own stories about les grandes horizontales……

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Oxfam sets out to scare the beejabbers off us: “People are already leaving their homes because of climate change, with projections that 75 million people in the Asia-Pacific region will be forced to relocate by 2050 if climate change continues unabated. Not all will have the option of relocating within their own country,” Hmmm. So [...]

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At the ASI. On the work life balance and who should decide what it is.

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Sigh. Last night Liberal Democrat Olympic spokesman Don Foster MP called on the Olympic Delivery Authority to reveal scientific proof that the site would be safe for future generations. The soil was contaminated by several former industries, including plants which made luminous dials for military use. Thorium, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of more [...]

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Health Minister Ann Keen is paid £96,167 a year, but says she would have been better sticking to her former job as a nurse. There you go then: NHS Jobs. Byeeee!

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Seem to be the Muslim Council of Britain: Some Muslims have refused to use alcohol-based hand gels to combat the spread of swine flu because they claim it is against their religion. Some of those employed by St Albans Council in Hertfordshire have complained about the antibacterial lotion, which is considered a key strategy in [...]

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The government will this week launch an attempt to deny soldiers crippled in battle full compensation for their injuries. The MoD is arguing that they should only have to pay compensation for the original injury, not for any complications that might result from treatment, infection, etc. Please, can we shoot them. Please?

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