Tim Worstall

And – most important – although household growth is modest at best whilst trade growth is negligible and businesses biggest customer is slashing spending – especially on investment which it always buys from the private sector – business is going to be investing enormously. It’s just not going to happen. What it it going to [...]

[Read more →]

Umm: This is all the sadder because it is so short sighted about longer term social and ecological needs. The vocational turn in higher education is driven by a growth model of the economy that puts profits before human welfare and is ultimately unsustainable. If affluent societies are successfully to meet the environmental and social [...]

[Read more →]

Oh dearie me. My comment left there: Oh dear me, a total logical and economic fail here. Corporations do not pay tax: they might hand over the cheque but the economic burden must be carried by some group of people. As both Larry Elliott and Vince Cable have pointed out in the pages of this [...]

[Read more →]

Blimey. Much as I don’t like Paul Krugman’s political views (most especially on the viability of the votestealers doing anything useful with our money) I certainly respect him as an economist (and as an intellect and much, much, more so as a writer). But this is sad: Jargon has its uses, in economics as in [...]

[Read more →]

Iris people, crippled by mortgage burdens they will never be personally be able to repay because even bankruptcy does not wise such debt in Ireland Please Ritchie, wipe the drool off your chin. Mortgage debt in Eire is recourse, just like it is here in the UK. So even if you give the house back [...]

[Read more →]

Fascinating little post. No, you really shouldn’t ignore opportunity costs.

[Read more →]

Well, mostly. In doing so, he demonstrates both the strengths and weaknesses we see in his blog. One of these is a clarity of exposition. By economists’ standards – a low bar, admittedly – Tim writes very well, although some readers might find his snarkiness a little wearing. And there are some brilliant flourishes. His [...]

[Read more →]

At close to £21 an hour, which translates to an annual salary of just over £40,000, you are bang in the middle of the best rewarded fifth of all employees. You earn getting on to twice the national average. In short, you are, in relative terms, rich. No, you’re not. You have a relatively high [...]

[Read more →]

At the ASI. Always be very careful when people start talking about poverty numbers in the US.

[Read more →]

Here.

[Read more →]

Worldwide burden of disease from exposure to second-hand smoke: a retrospective analysis of data from 192 countries OK…. The calculations were based on disease-specific relative risk estimates and area-specific estimates of the proportion of people exposed to second-hand smoke, by comparative risk assessment methods, with data from 192 countries during 2004. Oh, right. So, they’ve [...]

[Read more →]

The parentals are fixing up the house: and I’ve just been looking (a few days back) at the results of the Baedekker Raids on Bath. One stick of bombs went across the avenue where the ancestral spires are: haveing looked at where the bombs fell, you can now see it, if you see what I [...]

[Read more →]

At the ASI. Who is being heterodox and orthodox between Iceland and Ireland?

[Read more →]

Most interesting today. This for example. Not collecting tax which isn’t due is treason now. Or: And why did he say this: B[ecasue] higher business taxes will ultimately be paid by a combination of employees (with lower wages and salaries), consumers (through higher prices), or shareholders (with lower dividends). And in an open economy, such [...]

[Read more →]

In a disturbing trend, schoolchildren, many of them female, made up a significant number of the protesters, with many turning out in their school uniform. A riot or a casting call for “Naughty Schoolgirls do London”?

[Read more →]

Find out more on ebuzzing.co.uk You will have seen these little advertorials that turn up here from time to time: if you have a blog, why not at least consider signing up to it yourself? The advantages are that they do in fact pay reasonable sums for these pieces: and as you can see, their [...]

[Read more →]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted on Tuesday that the eurozone was “facing an exceptionally serious situation”. She brushed aside criticism that German insistence on bondholder “haircuts” from 2013 was fuelling the crisis. “I will not let up on this because the primacy of politics over markets must be enforced,” she said. Interesting thought really. That [...]

[Read more →]

As the markets are very nervous, he Irish bailout looks fragile…. Tomorrow there’s a general strike in Portugal. That’s going to cheer everyone up, isn’t it?

[Read more →]

Play nicely among yourselves: I’m on planes and trains today.

[Read more →]

Second, there’s much debate on Ireland’s 12.5% tax rate, and rightly so, but the bigger issue concerning this rate was highlighted by me based in my report on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and for the TUC entitled “Pot of Gold or Fool’s Gold?” . The reality is that due to lax rules on [...]

[Read more →]