Tim Worstall

About this nef report on the 21 hour working week. This point: The economist John Maynard Keynes imagined a 15-hour week by the beginning of the 21st century, because he thought we’d no longer have to work long hours to meet our material needs. OK, yes, I know about that and I know where the [...]

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This is what we might call “not serious”. Purely a look at the underlying logic of what everyone is telling us we must do about the economy, recessions, depression, double dips and all that. Very roughly speaking, as a piece of economic history, we’ve had a series of recessions over the last couple of centuries. [...]

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Anyway, silly names aside, I am still partly reliant on my parents despite being old enough to be one myself, a point that my mother never tires of making. “You know that you are going to be 30 this year,” she says. “When I was your age, I was already paying your school fees.” Gosh, [...]

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As you know, we cannot comment upon Ritchie’s vapourings directly. So we’re doing so over at Giles’ place. Sample comment from the blog host himself: I must admit the argument Richard used – “The LSE doesn’t warn people off using pensions. Therefore the tax incidence can’t really matter” – is one of the worst I [...]

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Now we know that Matt Ridley reads this at least sometimes. And we’ve found out that he has a new book out. In this book I have tried to build on both Adam Smith and Charles Darwin: to interpret human society as the product of a long history of what the philosopher Dan Dennett calls [...]

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Exxon, who has been accused in the past of being too conservative in terms of exploration and development, has been finding more oil than it produces for each of the last 16 years,

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So, the Japanese are finding that the cherry tree blossom ain’t like it used to be: The Japanese have for centuries celebrated the arrival of spring by sitting beneath cherry trees as their delicate blossoms open each year, but due to global warming and the impact of rising temperatures in cities caused by vehicle emissions, [...]

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The BBC has broken with a 565-year tradition by insisting that a male Blue Peter presenter take part in a pancake race previously reserved for women. Contestants in a pancake race poured scorn on health and safety advisers after they were banned from running due to fears they would slip over in the rain. That [...]

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Who are these cleanliness freaks?

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Millions of savers are losing money as they are caught between poor returns and a rising cost of living, figures show. If returns are below inflation then of course you’re losing money. Which brings us to our favourite retired accountant. He’s been advocating for years that we should all be investing in “green bonds” to [...]

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And Brazil number two. Hybrid vigour anyone?

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Richard Murphy – UK Director, Tax Research UK Eh? That’s a bloody poor list of names.

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finishing a master’s thesis on narratives of queer youth activism

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Whose sticky little fingers are all over mis-accounting in Greece? All the usual suspects, bar, it seems Barclays (what did they do to miss out?): Wall Street’s role in the unfolding Greek debt crisis will be probed by  Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, which has requested information from Athens about currency swaps. The transactions, undertaken from [...]

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That was until Joslyn James, a porn star who claims to have been one of Woods’s 14 mistresses, suddenly recalled one more shred of scandal relating to her three-year affair with the golfer. In an interview with Inside Edition, an American television programme, Ms James claimed today that she had twice been pregnant by Woods. [...]

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Interesting point being made: It would be the most socially just means of funding, as well as the most economically efficient, but it will be hard to convince the voters. You see, I always thought that “social justice” was what society thought was just and fair. To crib from Adam Smith: a labourer does not [...]

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Jurors were told Pritchard presented and starred in a show called Dirty Sanchez. There’s a TV show called “Dirty Sanchez”? I assume that means something different in the UK than it does the US?

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Here.

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That piece I did at CiF has disappeared from the front page. Yes, yes, I know, as time goes by, they do. But it’s gone before its time…..there are older pieces with many fewer comments still up. I wonder why?

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No, the real story behind the euromess lies not in the profligacy of politicians but in the arrogance of elites — specifically, the policy elites who pushed Europe into adopting a single currency well before the continent was ready for such an experiment. Paul Krugman. Do recall, the man has actually won a Nobel for [...]

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