Tim Worstall

I am a writer manque. Others are a writer complete. Yes, this does annoy me. For Memorial Day. Forgive my annoyance. For I am jealous.

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In fact, it turns out that in real terms the bottom 25% are now considerably richer than were the top 25% in 1961. What’s that, 50 years….generation and a half perhaps? The poor are now rich. This capitalism thing’s a bit of alright, innit?

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At the ASI. Why some places suck……some places have too much politics and not enough law.

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Not a bad thing to strive for either: “You will die for this and it will all have been for nothing,” said Willy Pueschel, the Gestapo inspector who interrogated him three times. “Not for nothing,” replied Otto, “I didn’t become one of you.”

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Tough measures to tackle drink-related crime, antisocial behaviour and illness – including a politically controversial minimum price for alcohol – will be recommended by government advisers this week. The message to ministers from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will reopen the debate on alcohol policy. Sigh. Minimum pricing is illegal under [...]

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Mr Alexander, who was appointed on Saturday after the resignation of fellow Liberal Democrat David Laws, designated the property as his second home for the purpose of claiming parliamentary expenses but described it to HM Revenue and Customs as his main home. Last night Mr Alexander admitted that he took advantage of a loophole to [...]

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Here.

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It must have done: a septic has learned how to do understatement. At least occasionally, people can be extraordinarily kind….. I suppose “kind” is one way of describing this. A fairly weak way, you know, understated……

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Not quite I think: I went through most of my 20s not acknowledging my own sexuality to anyone but myself, let alone my own family. I have this small strange feeling that perhaps the occasional lover might have been let in on that secret you know.

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Corruption in Russia is rampant. Film at 11.

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For no matter how traditional this country might appear in some respects, with the Queen and her coachmen still accessorising progressive agendas for change – there can be no question, nowadays, of a lord or a duke being put in charge of something as important as BP simply because he is a lord or a [...]

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At the ASI. If government now is larger than it was in 1975, can we really say that there was a slashing of the State?

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Nick Cohen has done one of the rather predictable little rants about working conditions in China. The suicides at the vast Foxconn plant in Shenzhen ought to shake outsiders. They ought to make them wonder about the human cost to the 420,000 workers who make those nifty iPhones and iPads which so delight savvy westerners. [...]

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Human remains discovered in Bradford. Tsk, I know, very sick reaction but it was the first one to this particular headline.

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Guess who? Now I wonder why they looked at the USA when the proposal being made here is that CGT be changed so that it is paid at the taxpayers highest marginal income tax rate. Nigel Lawson did that in 1988. As a result we have a case study on whether it worked or not reasdilty available. The stats are [...]

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From our favourite retired accountant. The government has announced the first round of cuts in government spending. At just over £6bn they represent just 0.8% of total forecast state spending this year, and by themselves are insignificant to the economy as a whole. Any government could make savings of this amount as part of regular [...]

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The inescapable political conclusion is quite dramatic. Bringing international financial markets under control is no longer a simple question of regulation, admirable though current EU thinking may be. Nor is it even about a special levy, a Tobin tax or whatever grit is needed both to slow the machine and to make it pay (principles [...]

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At the ASI. Assortative mating and rising inequality.

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Britain is on the brink of losing its best scientific talent to foreign competition, the head of Britain’s best regarded science establishment has warned. In an interview with The Times, Lord Rees of Ludlow, President of the Royal Society, said that the prospect of swingeing cuts to the science budget meant that universities would struggle [...]

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