Tim Worstall

This would still mean the average European could have a balanced diet of one small beef steak, one portion of fish, one portion of chicken, two pork sausages and two eggs… Well, OK, I could cut down to that. But what would I eat the other 6 days of the week? That’s just breakfast, a [...]

[Read more →]

11/9/09 Addendum: I read earlier that the average adult male body contains 6 quarts of blood. Round that down to five quarts to account for women and children and recall that there are four quarts in a gallon, and you’ve got approximately 327,500,000 gallons of blood spilled by democidal mortacracies in the twentieth century. By [...]

[Read more →]

Therefore it’s a very silly idea indeed. The financial services tax that is. The prize is so immense that most administrations must eye the possible proceeds with lip-smacking relish as they face belt-tightening to increasingly anorexic levels. A study by the Austrian government showed that a 0.05% tax imposed on UK financial trades would raise [...]

[Read more →]

The BMA is getting het up about pay differences between male and female doctors. The study examined the pay of 1,015 doctors working for the NHS, in medical research at academic institutions, and for organisations such as private healthcare providers. While part of the pay gap is due to age and experience, between 40% and [...]

[Read more →]

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to [...]

[Read more →]

At the Register. Morgan Computers closes down as we celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall.

[Read more →]

Say it Brother! Tell ‘em the Truth! The people in the crowd weren’t yelling or demanding anything. They weren’t waiting for anything to happen. They were present from sheer glee at being alive in this place at this time. They were there to experience the opposite of the existential anguish which has been the twentieth [...]

[Read more →]

I think this is about as good a demolition of the idea that all our current problems are down to the efficient markets hypothesis as I think you’re going to get. Do read it all but: Toward the end of the book, Fox concludes that passive investing is the right choice for almost all investors. [...]

[Read more →]

see more Epic Fails

[Read more →]

Is this true? Technically this is also wrong: the (Tobin) tax can be applied to sterling without any agreement from any other nation. All sterling eventually flows through the Bank of England. Taxing it is easy. You see, I’ve got this feeling that this is the way the US thought about dollars once upon a time. [...]

[Read more →]

At the ASI. Given that most new jobs come from new companies, we should be trying to support new companies not old as a way out of recession.

[Read more →]

A Co-op spokesman said the bank has to follow an EU directive not to accept cash for credit card bills. What in hell is that all about? You cannot now, by law, use legal tender to settle your bills? Seriously?

[Read more →]

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez yesterday ordered the country’s military to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia, saying soldiers should be ready if the United States attempts to provoke a war between the South American neighbours. Mr Chavez said Venezuela could end up going to war with Colombia as tensions between them rise, and [...]

[Read more →]

Treatment centres run by the private sector are profiting from NHS funding by taking on less risky patients while being paid the same rate as publicly funded hospitals, a study suggests. Do the routine, almost industrialised, stuff in one place, put the complicated ones under the care of experts. The problem with this is?

[Read more →]

Muphry’s Law is that in any piece correcting spelling or grammar there will be mistakes more heinous than the ones being complained of. A corrollary would be that any piece about the importance of spelling and or grammar should be full of howlers. Sadly, this piece (at an initial glance at least) seems to contain [...]

[Read more →]

That it is The Guardian reporting this story? The threat, from the powerful culture and Islamic guidance ministry (Ershad), came after publicity surrounding Golzar’s fee led to a leading film critic, Reza Ostadi, naming and shaming other well-remunerated actors on nationwide television. Ostadi read out a list of 27 who were paid sums of up [...]

[Read more →]

The hidden cost of Britain’s new generation of nuclear power could be the destruction of the Kalahari desert in Namibia and millions of tonnes of extra greenhouse gas emissions a year, the Observer has discovered. Yes, that’s right. We shouldn’t have nuclear power because mining uranium might “destroy a desert”. Seriously? We should welcome the [...]

[Read more →]

First they abolish double criminality: so that you can only be extradited is what is a crime you are being charged with is also a crime in Britain. Then: As the European scrutiny committee of the House of Commons noted in its report on the proposed reform: “[This] is both novel and far-reaching: it gives [...]

[Read more →]

The personal carbon allowance is back. Lord Smith of Finsbury believes that implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to [...]

[Read more →]

In the Times this morning. Regular readers will note some themes already given an airing here: Have you got permission to read this? Permits and licences are the enemy of freedom There was a time when we inhabitants of this green and pleasant land were subjects of the monarch. Subjects who had to petition the [...]

[Read more →]