Tim Worstall

Nee Naw is coming out in Pengiun. From what I remember (sorry, couple of years since I read the blog) that Sun piece doesn’t do it justice. She’s a much better writer than that precis shows (and purely by the by, when I was reading it I had no idea that it was written by [...]

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SIMON COWELL BUYS MUM A NEW DOG. Trees died for this.

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At the ASI. No, the Olympics do not have spill over benefits. Yes, we should still give Paris or Athens a call.

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It’s year 10′s English class in a ­London comprehensive. Forty kids are debating the purpose of a school. “Teaching social skills,” they suggest. Why do you need them? I ask, playing devil’s advocate. “To get a job.” Is that the only point of having social skills? “Yes, what else is there?” One demurs, hesitant and [...]

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Army special forces units are operating in a republican dissident stronghold of Northern Ireland, it was alleged tonight. Republican Sinn Féin, political allies of the Continuity IRA, have claimed masked undercover soldiers have been carrying out surveillance on two housing estates in Lurgan, County Armagh in recent weeks. They claimed the men were scouting the [...]

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Here.

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So, thunderstorm…..lightning….UPS seemingly not working as computer blows up. Nip round the computer shop, 450 euros later, Compaq box and new UPS. Use IE to get Firefox, then AVG, Open Office, Skype, OK, back to work. Missing a few bookmarks for things I’d intended to do but just about everything important is online in GMail. [...]

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At the ASI. Is crime really caused by inequality?

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He’s OK today, as far as he goes, is Mr. Hutton: But as the forecasters say, fortunately our plans to service the debt is within the margins of safety, never rising above 10% of tax revenues even at the peak moment for public debt in 2014/15. It started from a low base and interest rates [...]

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No, really: The Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, has told senior colleagues that he backs plans for a state-run investment bank that would use public funds and private capital to back small business and large-scale UK infrastructure projects. Gosh! The new bank would be modelled on the KfW Bank in Germany, which provides funding for banks [...]

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No, don’t argue. Just hang them all.

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Modern classical music is so widely disliked by audiences because the human brain struggles to find patterns it needs to understand the compositions as music. So, let us start at the beginning. Music is what the human brain recognises as music: if it ain’t so recognised then it’s noise. Humans do not recognise “modern music” [...]

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This is amusing. Over at the old website I used to get long rambling comments from Darius Guppy (under a variety of pseudonyms) concerning this bloke: He set out to restore the family fortune by faking a robbery in which he claimed he had lost a stash of gems. Lloyd’s paid up within weeks and [...]

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The major cost of trading in this market, which is largely undertaken between a very limited range of banks – often, as noted on a pure inter-bank basis – or with a limited range of large commercial counterparties operating what are, in effect, their own in house banks usually called treasury departments, is labour. Those [...]

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As the report notes, the short term alternative of an insurance charge that some promote as an alternative to financial transaction taxes does not have any of the benefits flowing from adoption of these taxes as noted above, nor can it raise equivalent revenues. In addition, whilst financial transaction taxes should only eliminate marginal trades [...]

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According to a draft regulation drawn up by the European Commission and seen by Reuters, suppliers may be allowed to require that distributors have a “brick-and-mortar” shop before they can sell online. It’s retail price maintenance for luxury brands by the back door. No, fuck off.

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About some things at least: What I mean is that Marx argued that technical change was a powerful force behind social change, so technology influenced power relations between people: “Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of [...]

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I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn’t apply. Well normal rules didn’t apply, did they? Doesn’t matter how hard most men try they’re not going to end up shagging 10 12 16 18 porn stars, hot babes and waitresses, are they?

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NHS patients are being put at risk because profiteering pharmacists are selling prescription drugs to Europe. The fall in the pound re the euro has made things worse but: Richard Ascroft, director of corporate affairs at drug maker Lilly UK, said: ‘We are definitely concerned about this. Drug prices in the UK are among the [...]

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The Abbey Road recording studios could be listed within a week as part of a move by English Heritage to ensure that they are not turned into flats. Currently the building has a value of x. By listing the building so as to remove possible uses the value is now x minus something. It must [...]

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