Tim Worstall

Pavements are being left covered in ice because of “ludicrous” laws that put home owners and businesses at risk of being sued if they try to clear them. Later in the piece they refer to legislation. And it ain’t legislation. But the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, the professional body representing 36,000 health and [...]

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East Germany – I’ve always found it astonishing that so few East Germans chose to move to the West. Where do they get them from?

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Entirely predictable and tedious piece at CiF saying that we really shouldn’t do that. Gotcha line: The very definition of “genocide” was broadened by local legislation in this part of the world to include wrongful deportation, imprisonment or attempts to rid society of a certain class, thereby “legally” placing communist oppression in the same category [...]

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I know the answer, I know the answer! A senior analyst at the FSS, the largest provider of forensic services in the UK on behalf of police forces, says traces of the drug can be found on any bank note regardless of its geographical location. It takes just two weeks for a new note to [...]

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In asserting that Iceland must repay in full, Britain is making two contestable assertions. The first is that if Iceland’s private fund can’t pay, the responsibility passes to the Government and taxpayers. EU rules do not say this, if only because they fail to provide for such dramatic circumstances. The second is that Iceland must [...]

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It should be easy – Labour has winning arguments on how to run the economy, public services, green investment and social justice. Snigger

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The usual phantasm about self sufficiency in food. Agriculture uses vast amounts of water – 20,000 litres goes to produce just one kilogram of beef, including growing feed, watering the cattle and processing the meat – which will get much scarcer as populations and demands grow. So, less meat and dairy then. That will have [...]

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Portuguese MPs approve gay marriage Portugal’s parliament on Friday approved plans to legalise gay marriage, less than three decades after revoking the country’s ban on homosexuality. It went through with litte controversy. And this in a country which 35 years ago was still a Catholic Fascist (yes, both) dictatorship. I don’t consider myself a deep [...]

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It would seem that car manufacturers now advertise their cars by showing us what fun skateboarding is. You can find out more about it all here. This is brought to you as part of the Great Tim Worstall sell out.

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Ritchie’s got a book out. Impeccably researched and packed with new insights, this groundbreaking book exposes financial capitalism’s best kept secret.” John Christiansen, Director, Tax Justice Netork International Secretariat, London. Nice to see someone entirely unconnected with Ritchie, someone with no political, economic or even working link, providing such a glowing review.

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By definition the market requires failure Eh? Voluntary exchange requires failure? Jeepers. A market is simply people exchanging goods that they value less for goods (and or services of course in both) that they value more. That’s it, tout court. Thus, as long as such exchanges are voluntary, there are no losers and no failures in markets. Everybody is [...]

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The purpose of my (newspaper- financed) visit was an investigation of the genetic research centre where, a blood sample having been tested, the secrets of my DNA would be revealed. “You have,” the director told me, “the cancer gene, the thrombosis gene and the Alzheimer gene.” Looking for a silver lining, I added: “And the [...]

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Thousands of schools face having hundreds of millions of pounds cut from their budgets as a punishment for being prudent. A third of schools, including nurseries and special schools, have amassed almost £500 million in surplus cash in case of future cutbacks, official figures revealed. First rule of public sector budgeting. Always outspend your budget. [...]

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Interesting piece here which manages to miss an important point. Here’s the Nerdonomics answer: if your hourly wages are raised from £5 to £6, say neoclassical economists, you face two effects: the substitution effect and the income effect. In the first case, a good angel on your shoulder, steeped in Phillips’s work ethic, says: “You’re [...]

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Nice piece at CiF trying to point out that there’s value to the consumption of booze as well as costs. However, we can sharpen up this a little: There are personal and social benefits too, although it is by definition difficult to put a numerical value on them: how much is a glass of champagne [...]

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Need to escape the winter freeze? Airlines, hotels and holiday companies are offering amazing deals Not much use when the airports are closed….

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The cost-cutting zeal of the big chains is threatening our farmers’ livelihoods And the zeal of consumers for cheap furniture is threatening cabinet makers’ livelihoods and the zeal of the consumer for cheap cars is threatening motor industry workers’ livelihoods and the zeal of the consumer for cheap clothing has entirely wiped out the livelihoods [...]

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Super-fast broadband for the whole country is vital to future prosperity Broadband will soon be seen as indispensable as electricity, gas or water, argues Gordon Brown. Quite. And yet there are still parts of the country that are not on mains water, not on mains gas and not on mains electricity. for the costs of [...]

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Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart have bad new for everyone. First, the relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below a threshold of 90 percent of GDP. Above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by one percent, and average growth falls considerably more. We find that the threshold for [...]

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In the crisis, the UK Government moved swiftly to guarantee the full value of British bank deposits. The Dutch Government adopted a similar policy. These assurances went far beyond the strict requirements of the deposit protection schemes then in force. In the UK, only 90 per cent of any bank deposit up to the value [...]

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