Tim Worstall

The simple truth is that you cannot run an economy without creating real wealth. Real wealth has not and never will be created from financial speculation. Aristotle made that point some time ago. He was right at the time and he is right now. Labour generates wealth by the application of its skills to the [...]

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* While I’ve lived there, worked there, worked with there and still do, there’s absolutely no way I can see them getting out of their current problems without simply returning to a minarchist state. Yup, really, a no public safety measures, no building codes, no bureaucrats at all, system. I just don’t see how they [...]

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Really, it can’t be allowed to stand that Kentucky, Kentucky!, be a better place than France. So expect the Human Development Index to have some tweaking…..

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They want government action to limit families to just two children and propose a crackdown on immigration to slash Scotland’s population by a quarter. But radical green group the Optimum Population Trust – branded “eco-fascist” by opponents – has now won the backing of some MSPs and will today stage a major conference at the [...]

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The president of the European Union has warned that the EU could collapse unless the debt crisis that is gripping the region is resolved. Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, raised the stakes ahead of this evening’s showdown talks between finance ministers in Brussels. With Ireland and Portugal both on the brink of [...]

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QUENTIN LETTS: Need such a plonking trollop as Sally Bercow be on the wedding guest list? Yes. For Mr. Speaker is the premier commoner in the Kingdom, ranking before all other such. In fact, other than the royals themselves, a couple of prelates, the PM and the Lord Chancellor, he’s primo, numero uno. So he [...]

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Scientists tracing the genetic origins of an Icelandic family believe the first American arrived in Europe around the 10th century, a full five hundred years before Columbus set off on his first voyage of discovery in 1492. Research indicates that a woman from the North American continent probably arrived in Iceland some time around 1000AD [...]

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Theresa May axes Harman’s Law A legal duty forcing public bodies to help reduce inequality caused by class disadvantage is to be scrapped. There’s a whole series of these little land mines inserted into legislation: like the requirement to look at the effects of policy changes on gender equality (that’s what Fawcett is challenging part [...]

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Landslide cuts off Britain as storms hit south west. The main train line out of Britain has been blocked by a landslide, cutting off the country from Cornwall, as storms bring flooding and disruption to large parts of the south west. Emergency supplies of pasties are being prepared to feed those cut off and will [...]

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This is perhaps slight cheeky, to hang some advertising for payday loans upon the debate about such a method of getting a cash advance. But it is still true that, despite what’s being said in The Guardian about the expense of such loans, that the method of calculation of them is what makes them appear [...]

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At El Reg. About the cuts, the economy etc. OK, so I’m biased, but I rather like the piece. So, these Tories and Lib Dems, eh? Baby-eating bastards or careful correctors of a drunken sailor’s spending spree? The most painful cuts since Abraham’s circumcision or a mild trimming of the fiscal sails?…. …The NHS will [...]

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I do find this very puzzling indeed. Everything about their statement suggests that this is the case. I know Private Eye is used to being sued, and I know it would be difficult for HMRC to litigate this case, but that does not change my opinion. I am now quite confident that Private Eye is [...]

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Bugger. Just had to put the heating on (erm, fire up the pot bellied stove in the office) for the first time this year. Lovely, clear, sunny day. But cold. (Err, yes, cold is a relative thing….it’s 17C outside but the office is cooler than that).

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European rules forcing the publication of details of the people who received farming subsidies and how much they received breached those people’s rights to privacy, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. The Court found that when it came to ‘natural persons’, meaning named individuals, the publication of all of those details breached those [...]

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Via, this fascinating list of who has been giving money in US Federal politics. Koch Industries is number 86 on the list.

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We are very happy to have Matt Ridley here, to talk about what I think is the foundational issue in economics. The very first paragraph of the second chapter of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations says that economic prosperity rests on the: division of labour… not originally the effect of any human wisdom… [but] the [...]

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Hasn’t got a hope in hell of being implemented of course. For it is a sensible, reasonable and logical plan. But I repeat myself.

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The sabotaging of public health by the food industry is universally recognised. Blimey. And there I was thinking it was just the crank fringe who thought that corporations made money by poisoning their customers. That this man was hired to set up the Food Standards Agency rather shows what’s gone wrong with our system of [...]

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When even Larry Elliott says this: For Britain, the crisis shows what life might have been like in the single currency. As in Ireland, interest rates would have been far too low, the housing bubble more colossal, the bust more horrific. UK membership of monetary union is a dead issue…. Could all the federasts please [...]

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