Tim Worstall

It is all obvious or trivial except…

 

 

Entries from January 2010

Paternity leave

January 28th, 2010 · 6 Comments

No, not in favour of it but what does that matter? What I will be very interested to see is whether this is true: The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality between men and women, welcomed the move. Ceri Goddard, the chief executive, said: “There is a huge appetite among fathers to spend more time [...]

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Tags: Feminism

Well done Guardian subs!

January 27th, 2010 · No Comments

No, no, buy that man a drink! Gay scene needn’t be macho The piece itself is so hopelessly confused as to be greatly less interesting than the headline.

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Tags: Newspaper Watch

Academic papers I’d like to see

January 27th, 2010 · 6 Comments

I often have little thoughts (yes, thank you at the back there, very little indeed) and then realise that I’ve not got the technical skills to even being researching whether they’re true or not. I might know roughly where the basic information can be found for example, but not know how to put it together. [...]

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Tags: Academic papers I'd like to see

The Apple Tablet

January 27th, 2010 · 5 Comments

I believe it is mandatory for a blog to post about this. So, interesting question. Books for it. What’s the possibility of taking Project Gutenburg texts , encoding them correctly, then selling them on the Tablet? Doing what Wordsworth Publishing did with paperbacks a decade or more ago? Is this already being done? Or is [...]

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Tags: Books

That inequality report

January 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment

Ooooh, there’s lot’s of fun stuff in here. Figure 2.6 (a) for example. After we’ve adjusted for inflation (ie, set everything in 2008 pounds) we find that from 1968 to 2008, for men working full time wages for the have (arrived at by eyeballing the graph): a) Tenth percentile risen by some 50%, from £200 [...]

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Tags: Economics

Capping bank size won’t work

January 27th, 2010 · 8 Comments

A very good argument and one I cannot see a refutation of. To Anglicise it. We set maximum bank size at £100 billion. HBOS is at £99 billion. HBOS goes bust. How do we rescue bust banks? We get someone else to take them over (no, we really do not like going through proper bankruptcy [...]

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Tags: Finance

More on the inequality report

January 27th, 2010 · 7 Comments

One technical point and a surmise. The technical point: Researchers analysed the total wealth accrued by households over a lifetime. The top 10%, led by higher professionals, had amassed wealth of £2.2m, including property and pension assets, by the time they drew close to retirement (aged 55-64), while the bottom 10% of households, led by [...]

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Tags: Economics

James McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff are expecting their first child

January 27th, 2010 · No Comments

Please assume that the obvious joke has been made.

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Tags: Current Affairs

Oh dear….

January 27th, 2010 · 6 Comments

Maybe inequality and poverty in modern Britain are important and maybe they’re not. It’s entirely possible to argue it either way and to a large extent depends upon your Bayesian priors. However, what is essential is that when arguing you understand what it is that youre actually talking about. Which some seem not to. The [...]

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Tags: Economics

Nah nah nee nah naah

January 26th, 2010 · 19 Comments

HowManyOfMe.com There are or fewer people with the name Timothy Worstall in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

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Tags: The Blogger Himself

Explaining technological advance

January 26th, 2010 · No Comments

But 10,000 years of crooks who innovate so that they could continue to steal more efficiently eventually gave rise to what we call modern capitalism… Hey, works for me.

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Tags: History

Jesu bleedin’ Christe on a crutch

January 26th, 2010 · 5 Comments

Raedwald has an interesting little catch. Save the Children says that the minimum income necessary to not be in poverty for a couple with two children is £626.43 a week. No, really, £626.43 a week post tax. £32,574.36 a friggin’ year. Now this isn’t entirely accurate but it is indicative*. Average household income is below [...]

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Tags: Economics

Who says Britain doesn’t manufacture anything any more?

January 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments

I present to you perhaps the most fun available on four wheels: The 2010 Lotus Evora. No, not fun. Joy. Inexpressible, diamond-showering, running-naked-through-a-field-of-virgins ecstasy. Handling perfection. This is transit gloria, and it is sick. In my career as an automotive journalist, I’ve never written these words: I am going to buy one. ….A ruptured fire [...]

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Tags: The English

Spot the connection

January 26th, 2010 · 6 Comments

I think we’ve done this before but why not again? The greatest piece of children’s television ever ever. And from quite possibly the greatest movie ever ever. And the connection is?

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Tags: Music

Nuttin’ like it

January 26th, 2010 · No Comments

Absolutely nothing like a decent blues chug. Do note both Dave Edmunds and Steve Cropper…..and then on the other side, note the trumpeter. Who knew you could have both a perm and a mullet?

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Tags: Music

Makes sense

January 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment

Tories seen increasingly as upper class, but lead over Labour widens to 11 points The English, after all, do love a toff ruling them rather than some ghastly little arriviste…..

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Tags: The English

Britblog Roundup 257

January 26th, 2010 · No Comments

Here.

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Tags: Britblog Roundup

Anyone know where?

January 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments

England, at training camp in the Algarve, Would be fun to pop down if I knew where to pop to……

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Tags: Sport

There are worse ways of being remembered

January 26th, 2010 · No Comments

The ruddy-faced Maxwell-Hyslop’s fascination with procedure both infuriated and delighted his colleagues. He was described as “the finest procedure bore of his generation” and “one of those heroic figures in whom tirelessness and tiresomeness are combined in equal measure”. Even those who admired his knowledge sometimes wished it came in smaller doses. The rule of [...]

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Tags: Law

Doesn’t matter really

January 26th, 2010 · 14 Comments

Dr Frank Drake said the phasing out of analogue transmissions from television, radio and radar was making our planet electronically invisible from outer space. While old style signals used to spread out millions of miles into outer space, even reaching some distant stars, digital transmissions are much weaker and therefore are less easy to detect [...]

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Tags: Science