Tim Worstall

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. John Maynard Keynes.

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Never the twain shall meet, eh? Comparisons with the 1930s can be overdone. Britain’s public finances were then in a much healthier state than they are today, while the country’s industrial base was much larger. What? while the country’s industrial base was much larger You serious? That’s from something called the Index of Production and [...]

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But then he gets really desperate: he says: Ask yourself what would happen if we raised corporation tax to 50% or 100%. Would that create jobs? So my verdict is “nice try, brothers”. The answer would be “that’s so stupid a suggestion no one would do it – and no one is saying they should”. [...]

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“My son…er…owns them.” On being asked on a Canadian tour whether he knew the Scilly Isles.

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(One leading geneticist noted in 1989 that clinical and forensic labs have to meet higher standards to diagnose strep throat than to put a defendant on death row.)

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Looking for something else, I found this address: Deep Arse Quarry, Oxenhope, Keighley Borough. Did we really call something that? It’s in the London Gazette, so I think we actually did……

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The US space agency Nasa has announced the ultimate smash-and-grab raid: the first attempt to collect a handful of asteroid rock and bring it back to Earth. There are three reasons why astronomers and space buffs should cheer the seven-year, $800m robot mission and one reason why they should sob. And in the comments: I’m [...]

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For people are dying. Rather, it’s enraging: An E coli outbreak that has killed 14 people and made more than 300 seriously ill in Germany has spread to other north European countries and is expected to worsen in the coming week. “We hope that the number of cases will go down but we fear that [...]

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Coalition’s £56m a day bill to private companies Woowee, eh? The coalition has contracted private companies at the rate of nearly £56.6m a day since January, according to a Guardian analysis of government documents that casts new light on the extent of Whitehall’s reliance on firms to do its work. Ooooh, my! The Treasury spent [...]

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Or at least, don’t listen to those lobbiers over there, only listen to these lobbiers over here: Britain is being accused of undermining a European-wide drive to ban forecourt sales of petrol and diesel derived from the carbon-heavy tar sands of Canada. The Co-op and green groups claim coalition ministers are refusing to back other [...]

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This does sound pretty weird: World-class research into future sources of green energy is under threat in Britain from an environmental tax designed to boost energy efficiency and drive down carbon emissions, scientists claim. Some facilities must find hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle green tax bills, putting jobs and research at risk. However, [...]

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According to the Australian subs at the Telegraph: The ukulele is hard to take seriously, thanks to its associations with George Forman, but the musical instrument is enjoying a very substantial return to fashion. Must be hard to do with those boxing gloves on. Or is he more famous for prancing around with a grill [...]

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No, leave aside what the regulations should be for a moment and think about who should be designing them and how. The men are concerned about “maximum harmonisation”, an idea gaining traction in Brussels, which will see national rule books applying the same standards in areas such as capital and liquidity requirements. Mr Sants said: [...]

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But Ferguson, a long-time critic of the academy system, insists that the changes cannot come quickly enough for English teams. “We are only allowed to coach [schoolboys] for an hour and a half [each week]. An hour and a half each week? Academy regulations state that young players can receive no more than 3,760 ‘contact [...]

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She tells us that we’re just swept aside, told it’s all too complicated for us to understand: This public deference is also evident in how effectively the banks have used complexity and expertise to dodge accountability. “You wouldn’t understand” was the mantra provided to regulators, politicians and the public, just as priests in a cult [...]

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They seem to think that this is an argument in favour of their plans: So, will the Energy [R]evolution mix in the year 2050 guarantee a safe and secure 24/7 power supply? The answer is yes! The analysis showed that there is only a 0.4% chance – or 12 hours a year – that high [...]

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At the ASI. Turns out that (Surprise!) it’s economic then civil liberty that matters the most for economic development. Entitlements and government spending aren’t really in the running: even counterproductive.

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So, when a country decides that it’s going to go gung ho for renewable energy, going to tap its hydro-electric potential, what happens? Turkey’s Great Leap Forward risks cultural and environmental bankruptcy Turkish government’s rush to build dams, hydro and nuclear power plants angers villagers and environmental campaigners Yup, the Greenies complain again. You’ve got [...]

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In an obituary for one of Pan’s People, we find this: And they came to be as synonymous with the much-loved chart show as cigar-chomping Jimmy Savile and the pounding Led Zeppelin theme tune. Ah, no, the theme tune wasn’t Led Zep. It was a reworking of a reworking. CCS had reworked it, then it [...]

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My word, the cornucopia of choices that the man gives us! Bridging that global gap between rich and poor requires a major transfer of wealth. That money, spent on low-carbon development, would fund the clean emergence of the developing world from deprivation. Put starkly, it is nothing less than using the engine of the world [...]

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