Tim Worstall

Quite interesting piece on the morals and philosophy of taxation. There’s “everyday libertarianism” in which what is ours is ours and tax is a necessary evil to pay for the necessary State. Then there’s social democracy in which: On this second view, assessing tax fairness in terms of differential “tax burdens” no longer makes sense, [...]

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Squeal like a stuck piggy for Timmy here! Global Geo-Politics Net is carrying an important article by David Cronin highlighting the desperate need for a civil society campaign to counter the might of financial lobbying by banks and hedge funds. Besieged by legions of well-funded financial lobbyists (reinforced by columns of financial journalists acting as [...]

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Somone who actually went out and did something in the aftermath. Well done that man. I haven’t changed my opinion in these 5 years: Fuck you, sunshine. We’ll not be having that. So, how are the 72 raisins coming along then?

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Marriage does not make relationships stable, says IFS think tank Yes, we have seen the divorce statistics.

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Well, maybe. Not sure how they might do that though. For of course there were two jokes. The good one, the bass player, and then the other one, the joke. Just not sure how they can do the bass player joke in a convertible. As a taste: We watched the original movie for the first [...]

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As commenter hsvkitty points out, BP only got the permits to start drilling at the Deepwater Horizon site in the first place because the Minerals Management Service believed their statement that they “could recover 197 percent of the daily discharge from an uncontrolled blowout of 250,000 barrels per day”: a March report from BP said [...]

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Turkey is closer to fulfilling the criteria for adopting the euro than most of the troubled economies already in the euro zone. Or, join the European Union in order to fail the tests for joining the European Union.

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The neoliberal revolution combines the free markets of classical liberalism with the income transfers of modern liberalism. Although this somewhat oversimplifies a complex reality, it broadly describes the policy changes that have transformed the world economy since 1975. Markets in almost every country are much freer than in 1980; the government owns a smaller share [...]

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I have long held that there are two fundamental views of children: That they are pets who can talk, or that they are small people who do not yet know very much. The wrong one is winning. David Friedman.

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So, Jagdish Bhagwati, an eminent economist, writes a piece on the myths and costs of protectionism. In the comments we get: Professor Bhagwati is an economist, of course, and his views should therefore be taken with a very large pinch of salt. That is, we shouldn’t listen to an economist talking about economics because….he’s an [...]

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Yes, I have left a comment there and no, I don’t know whether it will get through. What I said was: Richard: because we don’t know about the future, because we don’t know which technologies will be possible, which products of which new technologies people will want, we need to have some sector of the [...]

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Most of you don’t agree with me. But this is a good laying out of the climate change thing from the frontline I think. Note my comment there: I’m perfectly happy to take the climate science, at this very basic level, as being valid. What pisses me off is the following: 1) Those who would [...]

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…..catalogue of the blights and woes of modern civilization. These included the ‘disease of industrialism’ with its accompaniments of excessive mechanisation and urbanisation, the presence among ‘the people of Britain in the dark days of their eclipse’ of ‘cosmopolitan geniuses willing to make a burlesque of their noble cultural inheritance’, the ‘sorry mess of egotism [...]

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So it’s all cheeky and hilarious when the ladies are going on about their “Rampant Rabbits” with their seven speeds and authentic thrusting action, and what have you. It’s all glasses of wine and giggles then, but if you so much as mention your inflatable woman, they’ll call you a pervert and a creepy little [...]

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It’s not an unusual trope, for people to say that boxing is a working class thing. It’s certainly been used as an argument to explain the preponderance of black boxers (especially in the US) since the 50s. Only those suffering at the bottom of the economic pile are willing to risk having their brains bashed [...]

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Three ideas being put forward: Three models for a national scheme are being studied. One is operated by Lancashire police, in which those wanting to join the force first have to attend a university offering a two-year course. This teaches recruits law and policing in diverse communities. During the course, students work as special constables. [...]

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Under existing Whitehall rules, some civil servants are entitled to severance payouts worth as much as six years’ salary. Ministers want to shrink those packages to bring them in line with the private sector, where workers who are made redundant typically receive the equivalent of a few months’ or even weeks’ pay. Given that public [...]

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Happy birthday folks. The slide show, well, but the music? Or an earlier piece? Yes, the United States is the result of Round Two of the English Civil War. It ain’t perfect but the Boy Done Good. Happy Birthday.

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Here.

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At the ASI. Yes, the greenies are trying to poison us all.

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