Tim Worstall

At the ASI. The solution is supply side reform: for example, what do CRB checks cost us in lost output?

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Some stuff and nonsense here: Dominic Dromgoole, the artistic director of the theatre on the South Bank of the Thames, was astonished when he was told that he would have to pay the monarch royalties for his planned Easter performances of extracts from the King James Bible. “I couldn’t believe it,” he tells Mandrake. “It [...]

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“Critics of Social Security and Medicare frequently invoke the words and ideals of author and philosopher Ayn Rand, one of the fiercest critics of federal insurance programs. But a little-known fact is that Ayn Rand herself collected Social Security. She may also have received Medicare benefits. An interview recently surfaced that was conducted in 1998 [...]

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Since the end of the 1970s, earnings for the bulk of the workforce have been falling behind increases in wider prosperity. As a result, the share of national output taken by wages has been in freefall, shrinking from around 60% in 1980 to 53% in 2007. In contrast, the share taken by profits in that [...]

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But in a forthcoming paper for the Institute for Public Policy Research, innovation expert Charles Leadbeater argues that alternative models of capitalism are increasingly paying dividends. He points to the “mission driven” approach where businesses such as Facebook and Google pursue a specific goal (enabling people to share; organising information) and make money as a [...]

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The government is determined that the state ceases to run forests directly – an approach shaped by ideology The idea that the state should run forests directly is also an ideological position. And said ideological position, that the state should run things directly, proved something of a failure in the 20th century. We’re only 11 [...]

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Jeremy Bamber, one of Britain’s most notorious multiple killers, may be on the verge of being set free 25 years after he was given a life sentence for murdering five members of his family. Whether he will be set free or not is a complicated matter. But the story is that the Court of Appeal [...]

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Razwan Javed, 30, and Kabir Ahmed, 27, are to appear before magistrates in Derby accused of handing out leaflets calling for homosexuals to be executed. The pair, who were arrested after a tip-off from the public, have been charged with distributing threatening written material intending to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation. [...]

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It’s a draft. I will improve it. But it’s already on the table. Now would anyone (serious) like to debate it? It’s this plan he wants to debate. I would happily do so. Neutral territory, neither my blog nor his. Comments to be controlled by neither of us. I don’t think he’ll take me up [...]

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This is the speech which Richard has written about here: Last evening I spoke at a meeting in St Helier, talking, seemingly to the audience’s pleasure for 30  minutes and taking questions for more than 75 minutes after that, the while thing only slightly delayed by local television interviews. The text is here. Now I’ve [...]

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Via, we find out that Press TV’s bank account has been frozen. What amuses is that one of my appearances on the channel was precisely to talk about the freezing of Interpal’s account. Two years ago, the Palestinian charity Interpal suffered almost precisely just such a business attack. Interpal still has major banking problems because [...]

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Over the past few months I have become, and remain, deeply embedded in the student movement in the UK and Europe. Many of the young people who feature in the piece – on whose activities I’ve been keeping meticulous notes, and who are of a similar age and political attitude to myself – have since [...]

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The threat of the Greenland ice sheet slipping ever faster into the sea because of warmer summers has been ruled out by a scientific study. Until now, it was thought that increased melting could lubricate the ice sheet, causing it to sink ever faster into the sea. The issue was a key unknown in the [...]

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Peter Sands, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, warned that much of the new regulation could “stifle growth” and was contradicting governments’ fiscal and monetary policies that are attempting to support countries coming out of the recession. “What I most worry about is that in the next cycle, as the regulatory pendulum swings, we are [...]

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Himalayan glaciers are actually advancing rather than retreating, claims the first major study since a controversial UN report said they would be melted within quarter of a century. Note that it’s actually some are advancing rather than shrinking, not as the headline makes out, all. And the amusment comes, not from whatever change this might [...]

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In her first counterblast Laurie says: In recent years, both men and women have found that their working hours have increased In the next paragraph she says: Men do work longer hours in many industries – but only if you subscribe to the view that paid work is the only work that counts. Women’s unpaid [...]

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The City lads are worrying a bit about this report of uranium in the soil at Hinkley. I’m not competent to judge the method that this would be Green MEP has used to do his calculations. But I’d just point to two things: 1) However, this value of 330Bq/kg is for high-uranium granite areas like [...]

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A leading tax specialist has warned Jersey’s finance system needs to be more open and transparent. Richard Murphy, from Tax Research UK, says the system needs to be clearer to achieve a successful long-term future. He says the current secrecy in the system is fuelling rumours of tax avoidance. I wonder who it is spreading [...]

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Interesting piece from Standard Chartered: The third super-cycle started – in our view – in 2000. The period between the second and third super-cycles, from the early 1970s to 2000, was characterised by ongoing economic challenges in the West, a slowdown in Japan, the collapse of the Soviet Union, debt and currency crises in Latin [...]

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My my: However, it is probably good news that the pound fell on the GDP news. The recent rise in sterling, on the expectation of rate rises, has made life harder for exporters. And they are the only firms growing at the moment. Amusing that it’s Larry Elliott who spots it…….

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