Tim Worstall

At the ASI. Maybe it’s not the level of wealth that produces the happiness but the direction of wealth….rising wealth producing more happiness?

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Lonely as a cloud in fact: A cultural shift will be needed so that parents’ will start to plan ahead. What were they thinking about that one?

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Gordon Brown urged by Tessa Jowell to drop ‘hideous’ class war on David Cameron Gordon Brown has been warned by cabinet colleague Tessa Jowell to abandon his “hideous” class war against David Cameron. Bit difficult to support all this class war nonsense when you’re the niece of a Countess after all.

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At the ASI. Yes, we should tax emissions: but we already are.

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Hmm, Spain’s in the middle of the worst property crash ever. They’ve got something like a million empty houses across the country and commercial property is even worse. The solution? The ambitious building project will see the skyline to the north of the Spanish capital transformed with the addition of 20 skyscrapers including four towers [...]

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Boy, do they live it up over there. On Google Trends, the rankings of what people are searching for, you’ve got: Is Dunkin’ Donuts open on Christmas. I’ve done some pretty strange things on the day down the years but never thought of a donut shop as quite capturing the spirit.

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Prostitution is, as we all know, legal (at least at present). So what is the effect of this? This is the escort girl at the centre of the assault allegations at the home of tycoon and Tory donor David Ross. Sniezana Kobeniak is a 30-year-old Lithuanian whose English is so poor police had to use [...]

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Republicans have been accused of setting a new low for etiquette in the US Senate by forcing a 92-year-old wheelchair-bound Democrat to appear three times in four days to ensure the passage of a contentious health care reform bill. Vile don’t you think? Insisting that someone turn up to work a whole three times in [...]

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No, it’s not just the personalities: The Prime Minister’s plan to make postcode information freely available, when it currently makes more than £20 million a year for Royal Mail, is said to have left the Business Secretary feeling increasingly sidelined. No, it’s not just Gordo and Mandy having a spat. It’s what they’re having a [...]

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Here.

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So I’m skimming through this piece about Lionel Blair and he mentions his children. And then his partner. Who is called Susan. Oh, there’s one belief gone then. I was sure he was gay. Another lesson learned then, howlingly camp is not the same as gay (of course, I’m already well aware that gay is [...]

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There’s an idea floating around out there that for all the pretty stuff in Keynesian macroeconomics it doesn’t actually work. This isn’t the clear and obvious point that while it says you should boost spending in a slump it also says you should cut it in a boom and we all know that politics just [...]

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The Register. Why we should be thankful that Copenhagen failed.

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But look at inflation: A WOMAN will be celebrating Christmas with a £3 set of fairy lights that she bought… 40 years ago. She says that they were the cheapest in town (at Woollies natch). But calculating by changes in average earnings £3 in 1969 is £74.00 now. I have a feeling that you’d be [...]

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If the public sector asked you to stay in all day to wait for repairmen and parcels, there would be outrage. As I recall when the telephones were indeed in the public sector it was necessary to stay in all month awaiting connection….. But instead, public managers are told – against the evidence – that [...]

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From a US blogger. Given the changes that are about to happen in US health care, what do we think about the NHS? 1. What do you like about the government ran health care system? 2. What don’t you like about the government ran health care system? 3. What would you change about the government [...]

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see more Epic Fails

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The fact that low-carbon lifestyles are both healthier and cheaper gives politicians plenty to work with. If low carbon lifestyles were in fact cheaper then we’d all be doing it, wouldn’t we? There wouldn’t be any fuss about taxes, subsidies, forcing people to do things, legally binding treaties and all the rest. The incentive to [...]

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A ground-breaking legal action has been started by the Law Society over a change that has forced people found “not guilty” in criminal trials to pay their own legal costs in full. The society has instructed the law firm Kingsley Napley to start proceedings, accusing the Government of “misusing its powers for an improper purpose”. [...]

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Gradually a few things about the people in this movement are becoming clear. First, they are anxious to emphasise their economic conservatism. Their mantra is small government, their obsession the national debt. In more than an hour neither Paul nor any of the 35 audience members mentioned abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, creationism or [...]

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