Tim Worstall

This is a useful list to use for future reference. They’re calling for a windfall tax on the banks. Now, just at the moment, we’d like banks to shore up their capital ratios. Both to pay for the losses they’ve already made and also to pay for the losses to come (and yes, we know [...]

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Via, this. As the world approaches the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism, it is worth investigating the costs borne by countries like India that did not become communist but drew heavily on the Soviet model. For three decades after its independence in 1947, India strove for self-sufficiency instead of the gains of international [...]

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You need to understand the implications of your arguments: Over the past 150 years, taxes on labour have helped increase its productivity 20 fold; Now this is indeed true (to an extent, it’s the increasing technology that has really raised productivity but taxation of labour will have helped) but let’s recast it the other way [...]

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America’s return to growth is largely down to its fiscal stimulus, and particularly its “cash for clunkers” programme. Look, you can say many things about cash for clunkers. That it was a destruction of wealth for example (see M. Bastiat). Or that it was incredibly expensive ($24,000 an extra sale according to Edmunds). Or that [...]

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Professor Nutt was told to resign as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse Drugs (ACMD) after a series of controversial outbursts including accusing ministers of ignoring scientific evidence to distort the drugs debate. You hire the scientists to tell you the scientific truth. Sure, what you do with it is politics after that, [...]

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Financial experts have given warning that the era of “free banking” is coming to an end as banks seek to make money for providing even basic services. A combination of an expected limit on overdraft charges, falling profits and the recession is forcing banks to turn away from traditional free accounts. Way back when Gordon [...]

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The trailer for Tim Burton’s 9

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Funnily enough, the most fiercely anti-drugs people I came across there were the Dutch. They didn’t think dope was evil, they just thought that it was pathetic. For them, it was the dull, conversation-killing, boring thing that their parents did, or their parents’ loser friends, sneaking off to their coffee shops of an evening, like [...]

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This is so transparent! Thousands of polling stations would be closed and voting hours reduced under a plan to cut the cost of elections. Other proposals include cutting staff, replacing polling cards with e-mail requests, increasing candidates’ deposits, fixed-term parliaments and reducing security at election counts. “Increase candidate’s deposits”. Otherwise known as the Incumbency Protection [...]

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If you tax something you get less of it. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has worked out that 0.5p increase planned for April 2011 will lead to smaller companies shedding so many staff that the increased tax take would only make a small additional contribution to the public finances. The job losses [...]

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In her book, she recalls the day that Harrison admitted he had been sleeping with Starr’s wife, Maureen. “You know, Ringo, I’m in love with your wife,” Harrison said as they sat at Starr’s kitchen table. “Better you than someone we don’t know,” Starr shrugged.

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Well, I suppose that there’s glory in being copied. The Adam Smith Insitute has for years been calculating Tax Freedom Day. The day when we start working for ourselves having paid off the exactions of the State. So the Fawcett Society is copying that idea over the gender pay gap. Today is the day when [...]

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Mr. Murphy: There is, however, one very perverse dimension to the report. Deloitte say: We have reviewed attempts to quantify the UK “tax gap” relating to CT. There have been a number of studies in this area, but few deal with the loss of tax to the UK specifically, and none of those we have [...]

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Sigh. This is a chart of Britain’s public debt as a share of GDP – from 1858 until 2002. For American readers I will paste a chart of US public debt for a similar period on my Huff Post blog in a day or two. The same economic lessons apply, even though much of the [...]

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The EU has approved the plan to split Northern Rock into good and bad banks. The latter includes the notorious Granite that helped bring down the bank, and which took me a lot of effort to expose two years ago. It’s just that Granite didn’t bring down Northern Rock. It was the unsecuritised loans that [...]

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Mutuals are not a panacea. The collapse of Dunfermline Building Society shows that. But they do, when well run, tend to perform the core retail task of offering savings accounts and making mortgages well Well, yes….most things run well when they’re well run. And most things don’t run well when they’re not well run. I’m [...]

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The Devil’s been looking at CO2 and climate change. This is a comment left there: “Now supposedly, according to rather more complicated calculations, doubling CO2 levels in Earth’s atmosphere will raise the average altitude of emission about 150 m, which will therefore raise the pressure difference and hence the surface temperature about 1.1 C. If [...]

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There’s a bit of a disconnect here. Yes, we know that (especially from the sub-Continent but also in other parts of Asia) the lighter the skin the better looking the woman is considered. Thus the proliferation of lightening creams. We also know why: Perhaps it was once a sign of social class: only poor people [...]

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Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are all UK crown dependencies. Britain’s 14 overseas territories include Bermuda, the Caymans, Gibraltar and the British Virgin islands. It is thought Foot believes the crown dependencies have taken significant steps to abide by international regulations. But there is concern that moves to reduce all three islands’ corporation [...]

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Despite the lengthened timetable, Mr Hoffman said that state aid clearance was “good news” as Northern Rock would now be able to press on with plans to increase mortgage lending in the UK. Under the agreement with Europe, it will be allowed lend an extra £21bn on mortgages between now and 2011 – much of [...]

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