Tim Worstall

Reduce the number of things which you define as crimes for which you might people in prison of course. Dumbass. You know, like legalising drugsn’stuff.

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So, well, no, we’ll subcontract this one out shall we? Yes, Ritchie forgot double taxation relief. No, Ritchie won’t admit to having done so. Quite why he cannot simply admit to an “Ooopsie Moment” I don’t know. We all have them sometimes and most of us realise at some point that the best response is [...]

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Middle aged economist reads article on how to nap. When, of course, middle aged economist should in fact read middle aged monarch on how to nap. As Charles V pointed out. In order to have a successful siesta, one will require one throne, one castle and one castle key. Place oneself upon the throne inside [...]

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Another, Dr. Reefer — it’s the name of the dispensary and the trade name of the owner — is proudly ramshackle, in part because it hasn’t been thoroughly renovated since a restaurant moved off the premises. “This used to be a hot dog place called What’s Up Dog and my place was in the basement,” [...]

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Abstract: Beginning in their late twenties, women face the unique adaptive problem of declining fertility eventually terminating at menopause. We hypothesize women have evolved a reproduction expediting psychological adaptation designed to capitalize on their remaining fertility. The present study tested predictions based on this hypothesis—these women will experience increased sexual motivations and sexual behaviors compared [...]

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The cuts are happening for a simple reason. When the G20 met in London in 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, the leaders failed to band together to regulate the financial sector so that this type of crisis would never happen again. All we got was empty rhetoric, and an agreement to put trillions of [...]

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We get the usual “scientists should get tax money” argument rolled out at The Guardian. My comment left there: Scientist in doesn’t understand economics shocker! The argument in favour of tax funding for science is that science is a public good. This means that it is non rivalrous and non excludable. If Mr (sorry, Professor? [...]

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The job losses in the public sector will result from the 25% inflation-adjusted reduction in Whitehall spending over the next five years, I”m not sure they have. The 25% cuts are nominal cuts. Cuts from the planned future spending as upgraded for inflation, expansion of government, population growth and so on. An “inflation-adjusted” reduction would [...]

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Rather than simply criticizing this situation, I have taken steps to help rectify it. Coming out soon is my new book “Understanding Economics.” Its subtitle is “Economics for non-economists,” and its aim is to introduce those who have not studied economics professionally to an understanding of its essentials. I have tried to do this without [...]

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Brendan Barber, the TUC’s general secretary, said: “It is absurd to think that the private sector will create 2.5m new jobs over the next five years.” Umm, you do know that the private sector creates at least that many each and every year, don’t you? On one estimate, one in seven private sector jobs was [...]

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The far right have always liked to argue that my work on the tax gap is wrong because I categorise tax avoidance as part of the tax gap. Can you guess who yet? But this argument is entirely wrong. Indeed it is. the argument from this little Fuhrerlite right wing bastardo is exactly the opposite. [...]

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Grenada went into the match with a superior goal difference, meaning that Barbados needed to win by two goals to progress to the finals. The trouble was caused by two things. First, unlike most group stages in football competitions, the organizers had deemed that all games must have a winner. All games drawn over 90 [...]

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I’ve ended up, sadly, on several of these PR lists. Hip Hop this and that in NYC, for example. I am, of course, being based in Portugal, and, umm, how to put this gently, deeply uninterested in Hip Hop, NYC or, indeed PR, not a regular responder to certain invitations. There are, just occasionally, invitations [...]

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Here.

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One of the inevitabilities of living in a poor rural area is that those around you have the poor rural attitude to animals. Either they work or they don’t exist. One of the inevitabilities of living in a poor rural area where some of the urban areas are getting richer is that even that curt [...]

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Slightly technical but I can indeed help R. Murphy here. He’s made “calculations” of what the tax gap is. HMRC, the naughty little boys, disagree with Richard as to the size of that tax gap. He’s got a nice little chart here. Now, look at that chart. The boxes and so on. OK, so HMRC [...]

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On the list of the world’s top self made women: 3. Elena Baturina, Russian, Construction, 2.9 billion The description of “self made” for the fortune made in construction by the wife of the Mayor of Moscow slightly cheapens the value of the phrase ” self made” don’t you think? You know, that Mayor of Moscow [...]

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We all know he wants us to invest our pension in Green Bonds. Green bonds that pay 3%. OK. Then there’s this: Planned inflation has to be part of the solution too. It is the only historically proven way to wash bad debt out of an economy. Which is why we need it at 4 [...]

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Markets misprice: fact. Just look at the fact that some enormously overpaid footballers have been humiliated over the last couple of weeks by a succession of teams staffed by people who are paid less. Quite: English top flight clubs spent in excess of £1.32billion on employee salaries – more than Italy’s Serie A (£0.93bn), Spain’s [...]

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Moreover, to craft a moratorium that passes legal muster, the administration (Interior Department) would almost certainly have to argue that deepwater drilling is so inherently risky that it cannot be countenanced.  At most, the BP spill demonstrated the risks of drilling, risks that must exist independently of BP if all drilling is to be stopped: [...]

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