Tim Worstall

And then ask yourself if there is one single, teensy-weensy residual reason not to sign up to the “Million for a Billion” petition. Well, yes, actually there is. 90% of the changes in actual fertility come from changes in desired fertility, only the residual 10% comes from access to contraception. Ramping up the spending on [...]

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Damn science.

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And why I am not the only one who has been gripped by the heart-stopping playing of principal viola Amihai Grosz, who performs Mahler symphonies as if they were string quartets – and quartets as if symphonies. Mebbe it’s just me, but shouldn’t symphonies be played as symphonies, quartets as quartets? You know, like waltzs [...]

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Ritchie asks us a question today. An important question too. Why do we allow the free movement of capital? We do not allow the free movement of people. So why do we choose to let capital roam as it wishes? Why is it acceptable to let capital minimise its tax? Why can capital use artifice, [...]

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I’ve no idea at all about how this is going to turn out but it has at least the possibility of being very interesting indeed. And yes, this is the sort of thing that science really should be trying to do. Go back to the original data and try to replicate the findings of others. [...]

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Chuka Umunna: ‘We’ve had enough of people going into politics for self-aggrandisement’

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That’s the question Ritchie asks so let’s try and provide an answer, shall we? Britain said it was revoking the diplomatic immunity of the Libyan leader and his family, including his high-profile son Saif al-Islam, who has had close links with the UK. David Cameron echoed Barack Obama in calling on him to go. The [...]

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The city of Zawiyah, controlled by rebels but surrounded by Gaddafi loyalists, is a metaphor for the current stalemate Err, no. Zawiyah is not a metaphor for the current stalemate, it is an example of the current stalemate.

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Basing insurance rates on statistics about the differing life expectancies or road accident records of men and women is standard practise across Europe. It is specifically permitted in EU anti-discrimination rules which allows member states to discriminate on insurance rates and benefits “if sex is a determining risk factor, and that can be substantiated by [...]

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The Adam Smith Institute has described the Social Market Foundation’s suggestion that the Government should raise the minimum wage as “ludicrous”. Steve Coulter, an associate fellow of the SMF and economics analyst for BBC News, said the Government should raise significantly the minimum wage. “The Government should set out a strategy to significantly increase the [...]

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Pinellas Marine Salvage has filed suit in Florida against the Gulf Coast Claims Facility and its federal administrator, Kenneth Feinberg, claiming it is not acting sufficiently in the interests of victims. Pinellas Marine Salvage is seeking economic, compensatory, and punitive damages. The local company claims that Mr Feinberg and the fund “circumvent many of the [...]

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Blimey, this is pretty weak beer: Yet sewage treatment plant operators say they are far less capable of removing radioactive contaminants than most other toxic substances. Indeed, most of these facilities cannot remove enough of the radioactive material to meet federal drinking-water standards before discharging the wastewater into rivers, sometimes just miles upstream from drinking-water [...]

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At the ASI. Economists may know what to do but the people don’t seem to believe them.

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Concering women on the boards of companies. We should have tokenism, we should have quotas, we should have women appointed to boards willy nilly right now! So says woman with only another decade or so of her career in which to get onto boards. Update: Oh, how glorious, as in comments. The piece is by [...]

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And yes this does seem to matter more than the usual wonk tank playing around with things. For Ed Miliband is, apparently, going to base some part of his strategy upon this. People on low to middle incomes are facing a “perfect economic storm”, which is cutting their living standards and dramatically reducing their ability [...]

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Pregnant women on benefits have used NHS fruit and vegetable vouchers to obtain cigarettes and alcohol, a Government report has found. Well of course this will happen. Near cash alternatives will be used in much the same way as cash. No one’s all that surprised when housing benefit cheques, designed to be spent on rent, [...]

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For who?

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This is a real-life economic experiment, one last chance to prove that Herbert Hoover was right after all and Franklin Roosevelt and Keynes wrong. So, what was it that Herbet Hoover actually did in those years? Oh my, you mean Herbert Hoover did exactly what Keynes would have recommended? As the recession/depression hit you mean [...]

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Will’s got a new little book out telling us all how “smart government” will save us all. My response at CiF: An alternative approach is needed that understands the role of smart government in promoting growth. Well, yes Will. The question is, how do we get the smart people to go into government? Further, how [...]

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As a share of GDP, wages have fallen from a high of 64% in 1974 to approximately 54% in 2010. …. Amid a certain fashionable revival of Marx in some corners, it shouldn’t be controversial to call this for what it is: a stark increase in the rate of exploitation. What has happened is the [...]

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