Tim Worstall

Yes, Ritchie.

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Now here’s a blog competition that’s really worth winning. I thought it might be a larf to run a poll of my own: the Top 100 Worst UK Political Blogs. The rules are pretty much the same as the TP poll. To get practice in in case next year’s referendum supports the move to the [...]

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A windfall tax on Tim Worstall Info by hardtimes on July 14, 2010 at 09:00PM Charge Mr Worstall £10 every time he leaves a comment on a left-wing blog. Plus a £50 surcharge if said comment refers to “Polly” or “Ritchie”. How the idea could be implemented Sit back and let the money flow. Heck. [...]

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We discussed if that gap could all be capital allowances as accounts and some of my critics imply – and he laughed at the implausibility of that. He knows – and said he knows  – that this is is also an issue of transfer pricing, of non-remittance of profits captured outside the UK, of genuine [...]

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Yes, we know, it’s anarchy. The libertarian state writ large (or small). No, not all that wonderful either. Yet: Somalia functions better as a non-state than it did as a state, and it functions better than many of its peers that are states. As ever, the solution to the absence of government, the solution to [...]

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If the plans are taken to their logical conclusion, by 2015 the NHS will be little more than a brand. From a major public service with a million employees, it will have become a central fund with a minimal workforce, commissioning services from a string of private companies in a fully-fledged healthcare market. How wonderful! [...]

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The coalition did not consult the people of Britain on whether or not we wanted 40% cuts in some departments, but with the big decisions already taken, Naughty, naughty politicians for not asking the people! Real political fortitude often involves going against popular opinion, Clever, wonderful, politicians don’t ask or listen to the people! No, [...]

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Interesting piece but one glaring problem with it: A lack of regulation, entrenched purchasing cartels and chronically low social capital means… Anyone who looks at the Indian economy and sees a lack of regulation needs their head examined.

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Larry Elliott brings us an interesting story: the answer to the puzzle lies in the way the ONS measures the value of financial services. Although this has a name that only a number-cruncher could come up with – Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured (FISIM) – it is actually quite a simple concept. Banks charge interest [...]

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I’m not entirely sure that there’s a complete and obvious smoking gun here but what’s come out so far doesn’t look good at all. Other disclosed documents show how: • The Foreign Office decided in January 2002 that the transfer of British citizens from Afghanistan to Guantánamo was its “preferred option”. • Jack Straw asked [...]

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Not all that much really: Annual results for the Crown Estate, published today, show the Queen’s property has bounced back from the recession by increasing in value by £600m to £6.6bn in the year to March 31. This compares to an 18pc decline in the previous year as property values in the UK collapsed. The [...]

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It’s not just us you know: The 77-year-old man, who was angry at being portrayed as a Turk, the traditional national enemy of Greeks, originally demanded £4.5 million in damages for the use, without permission, of his image. His photograph, with distinctive long moustache, red hat and traditional Greek dress, has been used on millions [...]

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George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced plans on 24 May for a “significant reduction” in the UK’s 900 quangos or ‘arms length bodies’, which he promiesd would save £500million. However in a report published on Thursday, the Institute for Government urged ministers to “avoid repeating history” and engage in this “traditional post-election cull” [...]

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BP is forecast to pay about $10bn (£6.7bn) less tax over the next four years as it meets the costs of its huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, hitting the revenues of Britain and the US that receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the company each year. The shortfall, representing a drop [...]

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Ministers are preparing for a major showdown with public sector unions over moves to dismantle national pay bargaining. The Government says it will allow all Health Service employers – whether hospitals or GP surgeries – to pay staff whatever they like. Don’t screw this up guys. No, it’s not about breaking the power of the [...]

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World in chaos, we’re all getting poorer, just like the 30s, while communism and fascism were horrible, where’s the modern equivalent? Where’s the new economic and political ideology to react to the woes of our times? So some new thinking would not go amiss. Nevertheless, for all its inadequacies, I favour a more fox-like, piecemeal, [...]

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Yes, we like this, we do. We can add that the best argument against crowd-sourcing is a five-minute browse of the Treasury’s Spending Challenge website, which has degenerated into a SpEak You’re bRanes moron-fest of calls to cut benefits and overseas aid. The tragedy is, though, that there is a good reason why the public [...]

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No, strangely, they’re not talking about Polly. Just the moving rightwards as one ages plus a bit of groupthink (you don’t notice because all of your fellow youthful firebrands that you socialise with are moving rightwards at the same time).

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Selina Scott: Why I believe the BBC is guilty of blatant ageism and sexism Well, yes. OK. It exists. However, such complaints would work rather better if they weren’t coming from women who were clearly and obviously swiftly promoted in the first place because they were appealing eye candy. Yes, the totty gets on camera [...]

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Guido’s got a little campaign going. Booze is vastly cheaper in Parliament and we should stop there being the subsidy which makes it so. Well, yes, quite. Last number I saw (a few years back) was that the subsidy was £5 million. So, if the subsidy disappears, if prices rise so that there is no [...]

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