Tim Worstall

Nice little joke: The other driver, who turns out to be H.M. The Queen, looks a little sheepish at this. I am also a little foxed. It is my right of way in the big scheme of things, but then it is her highway.

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That’s the only possible meaning of this: As part of this, we condemn any politically motivated policing which provokes, intimidates or criminalises protestors. Isn’t it? And/or they support the right of the BNP to march? Or is “any” restricted to those marching for what they approve of?

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Connections are there none: Laurie Penny in “You Say You Want a Revolution”: “There can be no question that the conditions are right for a youth movement. The young people of Britain are suffering brutal, insulting socio-economic oppression. There are over a million young people of working age not in education, employment or training, which [...]

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Quite remarkable, he entirely fails to note the most important point that GE itself makes about its taxes. We just said you spend a lot of money make sure sound public policy accords with GE’s view of what sound public policy should be. And we questioned the ethics of that. And the fact it meant [...]

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Slightly odd: Japanese officials have conceded that the battle to salvage four crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has been lost. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], said the reactors would be scrapped, Hasn’t everyone known that since they started using sea water in the reactors?

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I know, I know, we’re not really supposed to mention these things, are we? It’s just about acceptable to point out that those of West African descent have a higher liklihood of sickle cell anaemia but carry on and point out that almost all modern sprinters share such ancestry and almost no modern competitive swimmers [...]

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This is going to be amusing folks: The Serious Fraud Office will pursue UK-listed, foreign companies if they engage in bribery despite their apparent exemption from the Bribery Act. I can think, immediately, of one FTSE 100 company that is entirely screwed then. Entirely notorious in the industry they are….. This is even more fun: [...]

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Rally Against Debt A well mannered, polite rally for civilised people who don’t wish to see their hard earned money being spent on pointless government initiatives and instead would like government spending to actually fall and our national debt to be cut. We don’t think that it’s fair for us to continue borrowing money to [...]

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I think it could be, yes. It comes after smaller companies such as Valiant Petroleum warned that they are re-evaluating new projects, since the Chancellor increased tax by 12 percentage points to more than 62pc. Statoil, the Norwegian state-controlled company, said on Tuesday it will “pause and reflect” on the future of its Mariner and [...]

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They suggested that a £9.99 air ticket could end up costing £100, once credit card fees and baggage costs are included – a practice known as ‘price dripping’. The study by Which? suggested price dripping shows no signs of stopping and warned that no-frills airlines have “plenty of tricks up their sleeves” to make sure [...]

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Pull the other one! The Government has given provisional approval to the building of at least 10 new nuclear reactors, costing around £50 billion each, That’s £50 billion in total dear. Blimey, don’t journalists have editors? People with at least a rough idea of relative sizes and costs? As to this: The Lib Dems had [...]

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And fails, badly. Here’s what we learned during the Great Depression, when our view of economics was revolutionized by John Maynard Keynes. In a recession, private individuals like you and me, perfectly sensibly, cut back our spending. We go out less, we buy less, we save more. This causes a huge fall in private demand, [...]

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Annabelle Fuller Laurie Penny. Or is it only me that can see the resemblance?

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They’ve just appointed Will Hutton as Principal. As of 2006, the college had a financial endowment of £52m. Won’t take him long to burn through that, he managed to get the Work Foundation to eat its capital efficiently enough.

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Saturday to protest against the coalition’s spending cuts and “march for the alternative” – the Robin Hood Tax, green investment in education and jobs, reform of the banks and a crackdown on tax justice. Absolutely. We really must crack down on this tax justice nonsense. There are a number who will be up against the [...]

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But not a single banker has been arrested for trashing the economy. They could be. There is a criminal offence of “fraudulent trading” contrary to s993 Companies Act 2006.  This occurs where a person (usually a director) is “knowingly party” to the business of a company being carried on “with intent to defraud creditors” or “for any [...]

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Ritchie is whining about the evils and perils of tax competition today. What amuses is that all of this is the other side of the tax incidence coin. You know, that tax incidence coin that Ritchie vehemently denies the existence of? To accept, even if to complain about, the way in which peeps can move [...]

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Here. Snigger.

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The arts are very profitable so we should subsidise them. Eh? This is far worse: Instead of investment, the government looks to philanthropy. Last week Vivien Duffield gave an admirable £8.2m to her chosen arts venues. As she did so, she commanded another 20%, or £2m, in tax relief. Charity is a fine thing, but [...]

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Not do as I do: Hugo Chávez has urged Venezuelans to cut their calories to avoid obesity

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