Tim Worstall

It has its own currency, so it’s not Greece, because if you have your own currency you can’t default. (And Ritchie says in comments “As an economist I know how limited the accountants view of the world is” which is really rather amusing.) So let us look at the modern bible of defaults: This Time [...]

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When I was growing up, we had a ping-pong table in the basement and I spent a good deal of time playing my father. We used a sliding handicap. I started with some number of points. Every time I lost my starting score went up by one point for the next game, every time I [...]

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Bob Piper picks up on this: The Treasury has always been at its most comfortable counting the candle ends: by rescinding this loan ministers have shown that the blinkered, short-termist, anti-industry mind set of the 1980s is back with a vengeance. That 1980s anti-industry mindset is usefully illustrated by this chart of industrial output. Manufacturing [...]

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A new retail quarter for Sheffield was also put on hold and a £13m grant to buy the old Outokumpu steelworks in the city was scrapped, in a further sign that many traditionally Labour areas are now losing out under the coalition government. Others include Leeds, Birmingham and Hartlepool. Many traditionally Labour areas are losing [...]

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No, really: The Blues Brothers have received an endorsement from the unlikeliest of quarters – the Vatican. When you think about it they’re right too. Despite the faults of the Church on Earth, the Brothers, Jake and Elwood, act as if that Church is indeed their family. And they ignore the secular authorities, indeed strive [...]

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In a new study, European researchers found obese women had more trouble finding a sexual partner than their normal-weight counterparts Film at 11. This also amused: ”Maybe women are more tolerant of tubby husbands than men are of tubby wives,” said Kaye Wellings, a professor of sexual and reproductive health at the London School of [...]

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That Amazon box arrives……five Tom Holts (four of which will be rereads but that’s no problem) and two Sir Pterrys….plus all sorts of other bits and pieces of bubblegum crime novels etc. Well, come on, it is summer after all, even if I’m not on a beach.

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He may have all the looks and charisma of a back-street abortionist, but rumpled Herr Von Rumpy is a Federast to his core. Although, umm, shouldn’t that “but” be a “because”?

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The underlying problem is the impossibility of rational economic calculation in a capitalist system. Sigh. It’s the impossibility of rational economic calculation in any system. We are thus left looking for the least bad method of economic calculation that we can find. Which turns out not to be either capitalist or socialist: but market.

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It’s amazing what a couple of weeks in France will start you thinking about: Amongst all the terrible classes of person, perhaps the worst are those who urinate on toilet seats, do not flush the bowl, and leave the mess for others to find. Although anyone can be occasionally forgetful, those who habitually leave lavatories [...]

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By someone at The Times…..to tell me that they are not charging yet, you only have to register. OK. Which means that I find this from Mr. Kaletsky: BP’s much -touted $45 million investment in Solarex, the world’s biggest solar-energy company, was minuscule compared with the $70 billion the company paid at around the same [...]

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About how we really shouldn’t be having public sector cuts (you know, no job losses among those the TUC represents: make some other bastard pay, not our members) containing this lovely little line: Asking workers to do ‘more with less’ might sound like a good idea, but in practice less spending means increased workloads, more [...]

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OK, so, first we assume the can opener: There is huge potential to decrease energy demand without decreasing the services that are provided. In zerocarbonbritain2030, energy demand is decreased by over 50%. It’s the only way to make the numbers work of course. In decreasing demand from housing: Decrease area requiring heat, Quite how making [...]

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So, today’s the day that the paywall goes up. Unless I get a freebie then I guess yesterday was the last day I read The Times.

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Seth Friedman manages to trip up over his own prejuduces here: If Obama & Co really want to do the best by both their electorate and the environment, they could do worse than permanently nationalise oil companies as a way of enacting serious positive change in the industry. As has been witnessed throughout private sector [...]

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Doesn’t seem to have been released yet, this new report. However, we can say something about it. Despite setting more ambitious timetables than demanded of Britain, the pace and scale of transition is “entirely possible”, said Viki Johnson of the New Economics Foundation and one of the report’s authors. If Not Economics Frankly are involved, [...]

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Slightly odd this one. The Bank and its Governor, Mervyn King, would be able to prevent banks from lending too much, or to over-extended customers, if they judge that this would destabilise the economy. The precise details of the controls the Bank is to be given will be detailed fully at a later date. As  [...]

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In other words profits rise when state spending rises, not vice versa. Cutting state spending now is likely to reduce profits, that’s what the evidence says…….But it is outright class warfare as the rich seek to capture the state for their own benefit. Guess who says that cutting state spending so that profits fall is [...]

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I’m told that I have to provide a comprehensive critique of this report. It’s an attempt to show that Canadians are ever more stretched for time in this worst of all modern worlds. So here is my comprehensive critique. It’s bollocks. Yes, I know  very academic of me and all that. But it is bollocks, [...]

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The man’s sure up on his British political history, ain’t he? Before the election it amazed me that some from the same Manchester School of economics- like Giles Wilkes of Centre Forum were being called “progressives”. He wasn’t – he’s now a ConDem adviser. The positions are simply irreconcilable – and I bet he’s loving [...]

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