Tim Worstall

What if it isn’t true that the poor and the not poor are just the same except for the poverty? No, this isn’t (quite) Social Darwinism, which tries to go on to say that it is morally righteous that some have more than others as a result of genetic endowment. But what if there really [...]

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Before learning another language, it is useful to have something worthwhile to say.

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Yes, I agree, wer certainly want different regulation of the financial markets….which doesn’t necessarily mean more. Just different. But this isn’t perhaps the right regulation: The Financial Services Authority revealed plans to ban the practice last year as part of an effort to tighten up lending standards and “help protect consumers from themselves”. The regulator [...]

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There are times when Johnny Foreigner provides exactly the stereotype that a prejudiced Brit like me expects to see. A contestant on Arabic Idol:

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The government shelved the proposed carbon tax, one of Mr Sarkozy’s key reforms, a day after the president replaced a top minister in a reshuffle after his UMP party’s defeat by Left-wing rivals in regional elections. Good, because they don’t need this tax at all. The plan would have made France the first big economy [...]

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Thought this was interesting from the obituary: Meanwhile, Black had begun to investigate the possibilities of developing a similar agent to block the effects of histamine on the stomach and so reduce acid secretions which cause stomach ulcers. ICI was not interested so he resigned and took his ideas to the American pharmaceutical group Smith [...]

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So we’ve been having this huge thing about the gowns that people wear in NHS hospitals. No back to them and thus rather revelaing if you get up for a wee or anything. The Ben de Lisi-designed striped reversible garment keeps the patient’s body covered and has snap fasteners on the side to allow instant [...]

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The Trust, which looks after 200 gardens and collections of plants built up over hundreds of years, said temperature rise could result in gardens more like those found in Portugal with date palms, olive trees and even banana plants. Well, sorta: If the temperature goes up by 4C or more than the picture becomes even [...]

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The Chancellor has decided to freeze all income tax bands, which will lead people to pay more tax on their earnings. It’s an old trick and a very boring one. However, the Torygraph doesn’t quite explain it properly: All of the main income tax bands will be frozen for the next year – including the [...]

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The standard trope is that through the colonial system the mores and behaviours of the public school system were imposed upon hundreds of millions of poor benighted darkies. All those chinless wonders sent out to rule hundreds of thousands with little more than “play up and play the game” ringing in their ears and some [...]

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It’s a blinder, really. We must have fiscal stimulus so therefore we need to have tax rises. Sadly omitting the point that tax rises are, by definition, fiscally contractionary.

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What is the incidence of ‘enormous’ advisory fees? Indeed, what is the incidence of such fees? When the TUC hires R. Murphy to write a report, who actually carries that burden? I don’t know what Ritchie charges but  my own experience of the market would indicate something in the high hundreds of pounds to the [...]

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Ritchie notes that mining royalties in Ghana aren’t very high. Ritchie fails to note that the Government of Ghana is a major shareholder in the company which mines in Ghana. Thus they get their money anyway….

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Quick question….. Are there two Sam Coates’ out there? One at The Times and another a speech writer for Cameron? Or are they one and the same?

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Note that Adam Smith pointed out more than 240 years ago that “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production” and that the measure of a country’s true wealth, is the total of its production and commerce. That is, a country’s wealth is what the people of that country can consume. The great [...]

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The ONS shows that 91% of wealth belongs to the top half, most to the top tenth, while the bottom tenth owe more than they earn. It’s not just that she’s confused wealth, which is a stock, with income, which is a flow. It’s the ludicrous stupidity of saying that someone owes more than they [...]

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So, err, you can look like this and still have sex? With a fertile woman? Truly the modern world is a wondrous place.

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Am I the only one reminded of the old story here? Greek premier George Papandreou has threatened to go to the IMF unless the EU comes up with concrete help on acceptable terms by the end of the week. This brinkmanship is causing heartburn in Brussels, Paris, and Madrid, but the creditor states of North [...]

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The solution is about changing the shape of banking, not maintaining it and asking us to insure it. The Bank of England should be lender of last resort to a bank’s retail deposit base – but only that. That business needs to be stand-alone, or ring-fenced internally in banks integrated with wholesale functions, and policed [...]

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On a banking levy: The intellectual case for such a tax is pretty much unarguable, or would be if we could be certain it was going to be paid solely out of excess profits. Unfortunately we cannot. Like most forms of business taxation, the banks will find ways of passing it on in higher charges [...]

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