Tim Worstall

We get lots of stuff from various woo merchants about electrosensitivity. You know the stuff, peoples’ WiFi networks are making them ill. Those wind farms….those great big magnets will create electro-magnetic turbulence (hey, don’t ask me to be accurate about this, we are talking woo after all). So, do we have anyone complaining about that? [...]

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Johanna Sigurðardottir is Iceland’s first female and the world’s first openly lesbian head of state. Err, no. She’s the Prime Minister, not the head of state. The head of state is the President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. As to the larger point: There is also public support: the ban on commercial sexual activity is not only [...]

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An overhaul of tax credits in 2003 created a £13bn system of benefits that rewarded families for taking a job and remaining in work. While the system has suffered administrative problems, it is widely applauded for boosting the incomes of low paid families. In the recession it has provided a safety net for many families [...]

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Odd things do cross what masquerades as my mind. I was just thinking that, if tax and duty on fags keeps going up then, well, how is it charged? Per fag? So, why not just make larger fags? Same duty on them and the baccy costs are minimal so the smoker will see them possibly [...]

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So, what do you do if someone says that you, ‘Ugo Chavez, are limiting freedom of expression in Venezuela? Attorney General Luisa Ortega said a warrant was issued for the arrest of Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of the TV channel Globovision, for remarks that were deemed “offensive” to the president. Zuloaga said that military intelligence agents [...]

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No, really, they have kept one. They promised to bash the rich and give to the poor. The richest households are up to 15 per cent worse off than they would have been without the successive tax changes Labour has introduced since 1997, while the poorest are more than 12 per cent better off……Any household [...]

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Not that I’m a lesbian. To me, a lesbian is a person with a dour world view who meets a similar woman, bonds with her, and they proceed to have a sex life so banal and tedious that it rivals that of middle-class heterosexual couples.

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Ritchie reads a paper on the outcome of the Romanian flat tax. It’s not a surprising finding – but it’s good to have it confirmed that flat taxes are unambiguously regressive. What a glorious statement. One flat tax in one country is regressive compared to the previous tax system in that country. Therefore all flat [...]

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ICI’s decision was prescient, but slow to pay off: the pharmaceutical division lost money for 20 years. Markets today would not tolerate unrewarding and risky investment on this scale. Rilly? Gosh. This is secretive fuel cell company Bloom Energy’s big week. Tonight 60 Minutes aired an exclusive look inside the Bloom Box, and on Wednesday [...]

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Budget 2010: Are our six Mirror readers better off or not? I was sure their circulation was higher than that.

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Prices started at the equivalent of the cost of half a litre of wine or two loaves of bread. Judging prices, even relative prices, over two millenia is going to be a mug’s game however you do it. But I have a feeling that the divergence in those relative prices has a great deal more [...]

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This phrase does not mean what you think it means. since, for all its clauses, the budget was fiscally neutral. “Fiscally neutral” would mean that there was no net government borrowing. That spending in the year would be the same as taxes raised in that year. Fiscally contractionary that taxes were higher than spending. Fiscally [...]

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Aren’t we lucky little people? The Government’s going to spend some of our money on a structural investment fund or summat. And a Green investment fund. And decide whether banks should be forced to lend to SMEs. Wondrous! So, how well have they done with previous such funds and ideas? Taxpayers have lost 93 per [...]

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Larry Elliott tells us that: Germany runs a hefty trade surplus despite its high wages and expensive welfare state, while the United States has retained a big manufacturing sector despite the increasing financialisation of the economy. Well, OK….from what I can find the US manufacturing sector is around 12% of GDP. The UK manufacturing sector [...]

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More than £15 billion could be raised by the imposition of a carbon tax priced at the level of the EU emissions trading scheme, But why would you do that? Cap and trade and carbon taxes are alternatives not complements. You only want to have one or the other. Why impose both?

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“The government will also establish a “fast track” credit adjudication service so that those denied credit by banks can appeal against the decision, Darling said. The new service would have legal powers to overturn bank decisions, he said.” Hunh? How in buggery would this work? A bunch of bureaucrats will be given the power to [...]

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Interesting place Oz: Either way, it was a touchingly non-parochial of Rann to advertise another state’s brew. When an Australian politician rinks a beer brewed out of state it makes the newspapers.

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The Right Hon Chancellor of the Exchequer says: “I have decided to take more of your money to spend as I see fit and leave you with less to spend as you see fit. This is an advance in freedom and liberty.” In a few weeks time Gideon will be saying exactly the same thing. [...]

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What you get when you’ve a radical vegetarian moonlighting as a fashion designer. Stella McCartney’s Birkenstock stilletos. No, no, this is simply wrong. Although I guess it will show off those unshaven calves to their best advantage….

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But the issue is even more important than that. Without health and safety we would not have effective functioning markets in the UK. You would not buy a coffee when out – it may not be safe. Or any food from supermarkets, for the same reason. Or drive a car – which would be a [...]

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