Tim Worstall

Profits are down this year, but bonuses have suffered little. In fact, Goldman Sachs is paying 39% of its $39bn net revenues to employees, leaving 21% for investors. Rilly? To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry So leftiness now insists that the capitalists are being screwed [...]

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Big bold headlines, top of the piece, we should all suck our teeth, shake our heads and worry: Financiers in the City of London provided more than 50% of the funding for the Tories last year, new research revealed last night, prompting claims that the party is in thrall to the banks. A study by [...]

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Marleen Temmerman, a Socialist senator, has urged the bed partners of MPs, senators and party political leaders to keep their “legs closed” until the deadlock, which is closing in on a world record of 249 days, is ended. “I call on the spouses of all negotiators to withhold sex until a deal is reached,” she [...]

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Somewhere between Ms. Penny’s notebook and the New Statesman subs it looks like some quotes have been made up. Plus not an entirely clear and open distinction between what is on and off the record, permission to quote etc. Both are firing offences in the US media: perhaps standards are different over here? Although I [...]

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You call it governance, you are not using the word tax. But tax is revenue. While aid makes governments accountable to donors, debt makes government accountable to lenders, and oil makes government accountable to nobody – tax makes governments accountable to their citizens. How does taxing multi-national companies make governments more responsive to their citizens?

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This’ll hurt: Mr. MacShane, a member of the U.K. Parliament, was Minister for the Balkans between 2001 and 2005 and U.K. delegate to the Council of Europe between 2005 and 2010.

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and I’m quoting at length using a public interest defence, because it is of significance that a paper such as the FT states these views through an editor Anyone else think there’s a public interest defence against breach of copyright?

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Jonathan Porritt has named and shamed green groups keeping their heads down over selling off forests. It’s a timely warning: those who stay quiet now will lose support in the long run. He was joined by Deborah Doane, head of the World Development Movement. “The same is happening with development NGOs – there is a [...]

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At the moment tax law ensures that companies based here, with branches in other countries, don’t get taxed twice on the same money. They have to pay only the difference between our rate and that of the other country. If, for example, Dirty Oil plc pays 10% corporation tax on its profits in Oblivia, then [...]

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In the Grauniad, from Mr. Chakrabortty: “There are plenty of reasons to boost industry. Not only would it make the economy less lopsided, but it would mean better, higher-paying manufacturing jobs.” Rilly? Manufacturing jobs pay better do they? Looking at the ONS figures secretaries get 9.28 an hour, process and plant machinery peeps 9.30. Skilled [...]

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Hurrah! More than 20 years after Barlow Clowes went bust, taxpayers appear to have been repaid the £153m which was distributed as ex-gratia compensation to more than 14,000 investors. No, not that bit, this bit: But taxpayers should not break out the champagne just yet. According to the Office for National Statistics, £1 in 1988 [...]

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Gary Moore: A minority taste perhaps, he himself didn’t think he was a technically great guitar player. But damn, he and his band were having fun there, the most important part of the live music experience. Vale.

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Michael Winner is to be fêted by the American film industry. So why do we still see him as a nuisance? Because the Americans only see the films while we, though the newspapers, the restaurant reviews, see the man.* * This is certainly unkind and quite possibly untrue but I just couldn’t resist.

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The lack of pensions savings of most women will cause particular problems in the next few years, as women have to wait longer before they receive the state pension, according to critics of Government policy. Eh? Ms Reeves said that there were now 500,000 women, born between September 1953 and March 1955, who will have [...]

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Medical watchdogs must be able to ensure that GPs can speak good English, MPs have warned Yes, how lovely. From the same article: He was banned from practising in this country by the GMC last year but European Union legislation, enshrined in British law, means that foreign doctors cannot be tested on their clinical skills [...]

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My name is Frank Bauer and I’ve just stumbled over your web site at http://timworstall.com/. Are you aware that having your email address publicly on your web page will increase the amount of spam you will get over time a lot? In case you didn’t know… there are email address collecting SpamBot software tools out [...]

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At El Reg. I wouldn’t start packing to open up that exciting little business in Tunisia or Egypt just yet….

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So the government’s proposing some changes to the investor visa rules. Essentially, rich foreigners who want to come and invest their money in the UK, creating jobs, raising local wages, will find it easier to get he piece of paper they need to do so. Guess who? And how long, I wonder, before people begin [...]

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No, I’ve not met Mr. Lea either but this is commendable: Adrian Lea, manager of planning and regeneration at Cornwall council, insisted solar farms were a positive development. “It begs the question of what the purpose of a feed-in tariff is for,” he said. “To me, the purpose [of the tariff] is to develop a [...]

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As we all know, there are those who insist that a tax break, to not have to pay a particular tax, is a subsidy. And even busy routes will be hit next year when the tax rebate on fuel for buses is cut by 20%. This simplification makes economic logic, but bus operators point out [...]

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