Tim Worstall

One of the things we want in an economy is flexibilty. For things are always changing and the faster we can adapt to these changed circumstances the less unemployment we will have. Thus the richer we shall be. For example, the Austrian view of recessions is that they are a period of recalculation: we’ve worked [...]

[Read more →]

Has moved his blog. Clive Davis is now here.

[Read more →]

Man who wants to be selected as a Tory MP candidate is against lists of potential Tory MP candidates with no men on them. Absolutely amazing the political stances some people will take, isn’t it?

[Read more →]

Today is the day that we celebrate the joy of being French. Hurrah!

[Read more →]

This’ll be fun. As many as 1,000 priests could quit the Church of England and thousands more may leave churches in America and Australia under bold proposals to welcome Anglicans to Rome. Entire parishes and even dioceses could be tempted to defect after Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to offer a legal structure to Anglicans joining [...]

[Read more →]

And the tragedy is it won’t make much difference anyway – even if the reactors do eventually get built after inevitable delay. If every OECD country follows this route, instead of pursuing the alternative mapped out above, then emissions of greenhouse gases will keep rising at a dangerously fast level, average temperatures will soar, the [...]

[Read more →]

This is what they all wanted: What concerns European policymakers most is the lockstep rise against China’s yuan. Beijing has clamped the yuan firmly to the weak dollar for over a year, quietly benefiting from the export advantages. It accumulated $68bn (£41bn) in reserves in September alone as a side-effect of holding down the currency. [...]

[Read more →]

About GM crops: Nor have they so far shown much sign of feeding the world. Contrary to widespread belief, they do not generally increase crop yields, and may actually cut them. And because the world’s poorest farmers – who make up most of the world’s underfed – cannot afford to buy them, they tend to [...]

[Read more →]

British backpackers holidaying in Australia are returning home with much more than a suntan, as a result of having unprotected sexual intercourse with multiple partners and helping to spread sexually transmitted diseases around the country, a study has found. That’s, err, the point of going on holiday, isn’t it?

[Read more →]

Spending cuts are unlikely to be enough to restore the public finances and households ought instead to pay significantly more tax, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. This could include a 7 percentage point increase in the basic rate of income tax to 27 per cent, pushing up the average household [...]

[Read more →]

So, finally getting around to reading Atlas Shrugged. It’s a novel, right, and novels are about human relationships? So, this Dagny bird, who does she end up with? Francisco? Eddie? Hank? I realise there won’t be any shagging as such, it being from the 50s, but I am right in assuming it proceeds like Jane [...]

[Read more →]

MPs are to be offered a pay rise to make up for a loss of income from expenses claims under plans drawn up by Gordon Brown to quell a growing back-bench rebellion. It doesn’t actually matter whether they should have a pay rise or not, whether they’re paid properly already or not. The voters simply [...]

[Read more →]

This argument doesn’t work: America is not a free trade nation and never has been, it is the home and bastion of protectionism. It built up its industries not in competition with Britain, but with intense protection from her output. The internal US market was by far the largest free trade area on the planet. [...]

[Read more →]

An 18-year-old ran off with his (34 year old) stepmother after being reunited with his father for the first time since he was a baby, a court has heard. Not sure what this tells us about modern Britain but it is interesting, no? I’m not even sure why I find it amusing but I will [...]

[Read more →]

After all, we know he cheated on his taxes, don’t we? Once a crook always a…… Good day to you, I am Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the United States National Treasury. President Barack Obama nominated me to be the 75th secretary of the treasury on January 20th, 2009.I am the president’s leading policy adviser on [...]

[Read more →]

While opponents may argue that this is anti-libertarian, they are in a minority.

[Read more →]

Well, yes, like the idea but….. This new social economy will challenge liberal market capitalism and its ideology of neoliberalism. It will introduce a citizen’s income (CI), an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to each individual as a right of citizenship. To meet minimum income standards, it will be worth £10,000 per annum. A partial citizen’s [...]

[Read more →]

Ahahahahahah: The UK’s biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country. The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation [...]

[Read more →]

Hmm: Second, they should stop the use of cheap, unregulated foreign labour for public projects. But, you see Mary, that’s illegal under EU law. You’re not allowed to discriminate between UK and EU workers.

[Read more →]

I thought we were all adamant that risk had to be properly priced? Mortgage lenders must not profit from arrears charges, the Financial Services Authority has decided, But if someone is in arrears then their loan is more risky (by definition) thus the price charged should rise: precisely because someone is in arrears you should [...]

[Read more →]