Tim Worstall

Couple that with surging inflation and the Austerian economy is a harsh place for workers: Incomes Data Services predicts that pay rises may average 3% this year in the private sector, while public-sector workers might be in for a 0.75% rise. Meanwhile, retail prices are rising by around 5% a year. The result, according to [...]

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No cuts? Former Tory health secretary Stephen Dorrell, powerful head of the commons health committee, warns yet again that no country ever attempted a 4% health cut in one year, let alone four years running. So what possessed Cameron to risk such cuts and lie about it, let alone to encourage Lansley’s simultaneous “revolution”? To [...]

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This will be amusing if it turns out to be true: “I said at the very beginning when I met with the SEC and Picard that my hope is that everyone will receive their principal [which amounts to $20bn]. Back then, everyone laughed. But [Picard] has already recovered $10bn and he will cover $20bn easily. [...]

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So there’s a complaint about the “sexual environment” at Yale. But the £25,000-a-year alma mater of Bill Clinton and both George Bushes has been plunged into a sexual harassment scandal that threatens to drag its reputation through the mud. Yale’s management has allowed the cultivation of a “sexually hostile environment”, in which misogyny flourishes and [...]

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This set of facts from the Murphmeister is just too good not to have another go at. Key USTax Facts 15,753: The number of households in 1961 with $1 million in taxable income (adjusted for inflation). 361,000: The number of households in 2011 estimated to have $1 million in taxable income. 43.1: Percent of total [...]

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Key USTax Facts 15,753: The number of households in 1961 with $1 million in taxable income (adjusted for inflation). 361,000: The number of households in 2011 estimated to have $1 million in taxable income. 43.1: Percent of total reported income that Americans earning $1 million paid in taxes in 1961 (adjusted for 2011 dollars) 23.1: [...]

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At the ASI. Expanding on Matt Ridley’s Tourniquet Theory.

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Iceland has been led on by a bullshitting lawyer. And it’s all most fun. Here’s the set up as brought to us by The Guardian. The story took most everyone by surprise. Ten mega-rich investors from the US and Canada had contacted Icelandic authorities and were pledging to invest up to $15bn into our cash-strapped [...]

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Increasing numbers of women admit to being hooked on internet porn. Why is this happening,….? A quick glance around at the average British male should be enough to answer that particular question. And not much has changed since Georges Mikes pointed out that the Continentals have sex lives and the British have hot water bottles.

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A little tale from recent experience. In the setting up of Algarve Golf we needed to have two legal structures. One a not for profit association under Portuguese law. Yes, it did need to be a not for profit because that’s the only type of organisation that can affiliate to the Portuguese Golf Federation and [...]

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I have to admit that there’s a bit that I don’t understand in all of this. Why not default? OK, so, Portugal owes more than it can repay on its own. This isn’t an unusual situation, countries have done this many times before. OK, so I can see that leaving the euro would be bloody [...]

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Client to @XXX “Do I have to pay this tax?” “Yes.” “Really?” “Yes.” (Actual answer – No.) Result – malpractice. …. No, because with your CA you’re being a thug; bullying others on here to different standards than you hold yourself. …. So, you lying hypocritical thug, where’s your ‘chapter & verse’ directors have duty [...]

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Really rather glorious argument here. That means that NHS reform should concentrate as much in ensuring that there really is progress in ensuring front line services get to people at least reasonable cost. So the next reform I have to proposes has this goal in mind. IT reform in the NHS has concentrated on big [...]

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In 2004, the Hugo Chávez regime in Venezuela distributed the list of several million voters who had attempted to remove him from office throughout the government bureaucracy, allegedly to identify and punish these voters. We match the list of petition signers distributed by the government to household survey respondents to measure the economic effects of [...]

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At the ASI. The poor are getting rich and ain’t it great?

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It’s a tough life being a reality TV contestant in France. Those scantily clad figures slaving away on sun-toasted beaches and expending sweat and tears around luxury swimming pools might look as if they are having fun – mais non. In fact, it is extremely hard labour for which they deserve to be paid handsomely, [...]

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Fair Finance got turned down by a couple of British banks when it went looking for finance for expansion: Fair Finance on Tuesday secured £1m in funding from two of France’s largest banks after receiving little interest from UK banks in its business, which involves lending at rates far below those normally on offer to [...]

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Of course they do. Set targets and targets will be what people strive to reach. The most seriously ill patients in the NHS have become the victims of “neglect” as surgeons are forced to focus on hitting waiting list targets for pre-planned operations, leading emergency doctors warn. Who ever thought it would be any different? [...]

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Light breeze in small teacup: As far as humans are concerned, you may think you know all about sexual signals, but you’d be surprised by new findings. It’s been known since the 1990s that heterosexual women living together synchronize their menstrual cycles because of pheromones, but when a study of lesbians showed that they do [...]

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We had talks outside Lehman Brothers’ old headquarters, expressed our solidarity with USUncut outside the Bank of America who paid $0 in tax last year…. So, err, why did Bank of America pay $0 in tax last year? Umm, 2010 results: Bank of America posted a $2.24 billion net loss 2009 results? income applicable to [...]

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