Tim Worstall

The former Labour Party donor…. However, he decided to plead guilty to possession of a firearm with intent to commit criminal damage after he was caught on a security camera firing at the alarm. He also admitted causing criminal damage to a door and lamp, as well as a window and burglar alarm in the [...]

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A study of pensioners who suffered appalling treatment at the hands of doctors and nurses says that half were not given enough to eat or drink. One family member said the maltreatment amounted to “euthanasia”. The damning report warns that extra money will not help the NHS meet required standards of care and that more [...]

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While overall performance payments in 2010 fell 7pc to £3.4bn, salary costs increased 13pc to £8.8bn. Barclays Capital, the investment bank where profits almost doubled to £4.78bn on revenues of £13.6bn, paid out bonuses of £2.6bn, down 12pc on last year. Excellent news, don’t you think? Bankers’ bonuses are falling and thus reducing the risks [...]

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So, can I now say that it’s hit the best seller lists? Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #8,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #10 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Natural Resources #20 in Books > Nonfiction > Government > Public Policy

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Great blog Richard. You really put Toby Young down. Why won’t selfish people like him realise that the more tax everyone pays the better the country will be? Everyone knows that the government never really wastes money, and is actually better at looking after us than we are. ?

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At the Register. I knew collecting all those typos from the Telegraph would pay off one day.

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The economic logic of this proposal is very simple.  Maximum pay should either be 10 times median pay in the UK or 20 times the  anticipated minimum wage.  The number happens to come out at about £250,000 in either case. it is very obvious to anyone that no one need earn more than this figure [...]

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Anyway, it was all over in about 90 minutes, and I can honestly say that it was not the worst 90 minutes of my life, because I have had a colonoscopy.

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* Yes, it might be safe but exciting not so much…..

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For those in London this weekend  there is a conference that looks worth attending. Hosted by Ken Livingstone on Saturday at Congress house, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS, the conference will include a broad range of progressive politicians, leading economists, anti-cuts campaigns and activists….. Those leading economists being: Victoria Chick, Emeritus Professor at the [...]

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So let’s get back to the one tax the banks do pay as a charge on the income they make – which is corporation tax. As the Mail on Sunday notes today, based on research I did for them, the likelihood that any of our big banks will be paying any serious sums in corporation [...]

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Why do I get the feeling that the gay lobby may not be best pleased to find that you have to pass an IQ test to engage in anal sex?

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The answer to the second question leads to the answer to the first question. And the answer is easy to provide. You provide the banks with their profit. They effectively tax you, your assets and your future to hoover up the cash they then use to pay bonuses, and to declare as profits sums disproportionate [...]

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This is going to be fun, eh? For they’re starting off on exactly the right foot. What actually are the subsidies that the banking system gets? Number 1 is the too big to fail subsidy. And yes, this is exactly correct, there is indeed such a subsidy, the eventual backstop that the government is not [...]

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Thought this was amusing, the launch of Fair Trade gold. The ambition is to: So what’s in it for these jewellers? Is it more expensive? It costs 10% more, but many jewellers stocking it will absorb the costs in the hope that consumer demand will slowly make it cheaper. The aim is for it to [...]

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Barack Obama is poised to announce $1.1tn (£687bn) in budget cuts tomorrow in a 10-year deficit reduction plan to avert a budget crisis and silence the conservative opposition. So, $110 billion a year, on average. Current deficit (yes, deficit, not debt or spending) is $1.4 trillion. So he’s cutting the deficit by 7.9 % a [...]

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It looks like the world’s largest farm didn’t do enough speculating: Ivolga now controls 800,000 hectares of land in Kazakhstan, and 700,000 in Russia, most of it wheat-growing land developed as part of the Soviet Union’s 1950s Virgin Lands campaign, when vast areas of previously barren steppe were brought into production. “They are the largest [...]

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A woman with learning difficulties could be forcibly sterilised after she gives birth this week to stop her becoming pregnant again. Not come all that far since 1927, have we? Can’t have the feeble minded going around having children now, can we? Oh, they can have sex alright: Critics argue that forcible sterilisation is too [...]

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I wonder: is Take VAT simply an astroturf operation? Wander through the points with me. OK, so there’s been a successful real grass roots (however misguided I think they are) group called UKuncut. Then up pops this Take VAT lot, using the same tactics. OK, so far, so what? But their first target is that [...]

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Another bunch of numpties appears: “It is simply unfair that aviation pays no VAT. Why should one of the dirtiest and noisiest industries in the world get away scot-free when ordinary people are charged VAT on basic necessities like toilet rolls?” Oooh, I can answer that question. “VAT Air travel, like all UK public transport [...]

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