Tim Worstall

Campaigner Richard Murphy, who wrote a report for the TUC showing how companies and wealthy individuals avoid billions of pounds of tax, said: “It’s clear the Taxpayers’ Alliance receives a huge amount of support from the US, where there is serious money behind the lobbying for low taxes. Says the man at the Tax Justice [...]

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Bloggsville incarnate — the very essence of that vast network of talentless and embittered individuals tapping away at their keyboards in the intellectual vacuum of cyberspace, only occasionally leaving their computer screens to heat up a Tesco microwave-ready mini filled garlic and coriander nan bread with Indian dip selection (mango chutney, pickle, cucumber raita ©) [...]

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Sir, Tristram Hunt’s lament for the Britain that will be lost through the scrapping of the 50 smallest constituencies would, to my highly biased and cynical mind, carry rather more weight if it hadn’t been penned by Tristram Hunt: the newly elected member for the 49 th smallest constituency* in Britain. yours etc. Tim Worstall [...]

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“I’m completely self-taught,” Mr. Lewis said. “I took a single lesson. My teacher, Mr. Griffin, had me play one note at a time, very slow. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I played more like this,’ launching into boogie-woogie. Mr. Griffin hit me, and that’s the last lesson I took.”

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Early in the last century, the federal government tried to create competition in the meatpacking industry by breaking up the five corporations that controlled it. The result is that four big corporations control it now: JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill and National Beef Packing. Might we conclude then that there are economies of scale in meatpacking [...]

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see more Epic Fails

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You know, we’re in a political and economic union with these people. And yes, they do help to determine what the law is in our own country. We really do need to leave the European Union, we really do. In just the past decade the wage bill of the Greek public sector has doubled, in [...]

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Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into [...]

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With fish stocks around the world depleted by overfishing and disrupted by climate change, farm-raised salmon stands as a viable if not entirely appetising alternative. Last Friday, though, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took a potentially dangerous step. The agency ruled that salmon whose genes have been altered so that they grow more [...]

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Interesting to compare this donation by George Soros with the donations made over the years by the Koch brothers: The billionaire financier George Soros is giving $100 million (£65 million) to America’s leading human rights organisation in a move that will enable the group to massively expand its operations around the world. Worth applauding, certainly, [...]

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Or rather, humans not as selfish as some think: It found that a fifth of the world’s population had volunteered, almost a third had given money to charity, and 45% had been “good samaritans” and helped a stranger. The UK came eighth on the index overall and finished joint third, alongside Thailand, in terms of [...]

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Perhaps not you know: Construction union UCATT said councils should stop outsourcing essential services. Alan Ritchie, general secretary, said: “Outsourcing is expensive and leads to poorer services. With private contractors, unlike council services, there is always a danger they could go out of business.” That “expensive” bit might not be true: Despite a debt-for-equity swap [...]

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Hmm, I think there are a few people who might be in need of a quick refresher course on nuclear reactor technology. ‘Floating Chernobyls’ to hit the high seas “Floating Chernobyls-in-waiting” are coming to a sea near you after a major international agreement was signed last week, according to critics of nuclear power. These ship [...]

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On the wildly unbalanced extradition treaty between the UK and the US: But a spokesman for the US embassy in London said: “We think the treaty is fair and balanced. “We consider it fair and balanced and reflects a mature law enforcement based on trust and respect.” A diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie [...]

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Well, they’re saying something about the Coca Cola happiness machine anyway.

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Yup, we’re lookin’ at you, Chad and Pete. OK, so, alternatives to GDP: yup, great idea. Concentrate on consumption as being what really matters to people? Yup, great idea. Reference the Stiglitz/Sen report on market, home production and leisure hours? Yup, right on! Ignore the point the Stiglitz/Sen report makes about market, home production and [...]

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What turned this middle-class public schoolgirl into Wayne Rooney’s £1,200-a-night escort? £1,200?

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Here. Wonder if my comment will make it through moderation?

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For a politician to be only disbelieved by 12% of the population is extraordinary

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Jevons Paradox is that when we increase the efficiency of the use of a resource we might not actually see a reduction in the use of that resource. The greater efficiency might make the use of the resource cheaper per whatever it is we’re getting from it and thus actually increase the use of the [...]

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