Tim Worstall

Pop over to Tom Paine’s.

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At the ASI. Yet more proof that it’s not speculation driving commodity prices.

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A little schadenfreude on the part of eurosceptics would seem to be in order. It is a measure of the depth of the trouble we are in that there is virtually no gloating at all. Ahem: I told you so you fucking fools

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No, put aside all of the wibble about root causes and listen to me. Any society, every society of 58 million, contains within it a few tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands who will happily riot given half a chance. You can call them feral rats if you like, chavs, the lumpenproletariat, whatever, but [...]

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in the way it treated its children did not only single out child poverty as a cause of the problem – other factors included the factory-like education and training system, …. For anybody young and unlucky to be trapped in one of our sprawling sink estates through the bad luck of birth, what chance is [...]

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Experience shows that developing countries who strike oil invariably stay poor. I agree that many countries who have struck oil have remained poor. But invariably is much too strong. By the standards of today the US in 1859, when the Pennsylvania oil fields were found, was a developing country. Heck, we could make the argument [...]

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It looks like Laurie Penny has been moonlighting as Toby Helm: Ed Miliband cannot move more than a few paces along Tottenham High Road without residents grabbing his arm and pouring out their hearts. Anguish is written on faces, and voices tremble as they pull the Labour leader aside for a word. And the Great [...]

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Hey, I’m as ready as the next guy to consider heterodox solutions but this guff from Simon Hughes really won’t do. We need to demonstrate ambition to have a responsible society where all people understand and are aware of their obligations to each other. This means we must not cut taxes for the rich or [...]

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The former City minister said that high-frequency trading also known as black box trading had been a “contributing factor” in the harsh swings which have led to more than £300bn being wiped off the value of British shares since the beginning of July. He wants both the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the [...]

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Research by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has revealed local authorities which are attempting to redraw the boundaries of Green Belts in their areas to make way for new housing. Analysis of local development plans drawn up by councils have revealed that swathes of land will be “redesignated” to allow the development of [...]

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India’s first innings: Opener Virender Sehwag is out first ball. England’s first innings: Opener Alastair Cook bats for 13 hours, features in partnerships of 186, 66, 122, 222, 9, 8 and 97, hits 33 boundaries and is eventually dismissed for a ground-record 294 after facing 545 deliveries. India’s second innings: Opener Virender Sehwag is out [...]

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Whilst I usually breeze through these landmark birthdays, this time it hurt. Truth to tell I’m pissed at turning 60. They say 60 is the new 50, but almost overnight I appear to have morphed into a grumpy, white-haired doppelganger of Spencer Tracy, circa Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. I’m not a happy bunny. The [...]

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I got this far, para 2, into Polly Toynbee’s latest piece and gave up. But just a week since rioting kicked off, the political significance has yet to dawn. So far, the small-staters are losing. A small state means – and Cameron has not budged – a smaller police force and shrunken social programmes, with [...]

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“I thee with my dosh endow” seems to be slightly going by the wayside doesn’t it? A wife is not entitled to a £7 million share of her husband’s £24 million fortune after 25 years of marriage because he inherited it from his father, a divorce judge has ruled. I seem to remember that Scottish [...]

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At the ASI. In which we find that the Green Party’s solution to the financial crisis is to starve us all and entirely crash the global economy.

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I have to say that I didn’t think that this would be where the two, abortion and the Equality Act, would first meet: After receiving a letter from the centre, the hospital initially told the nurses that they would be excused from administering the abortion-inducing drugs but would have to remain working at the clinic. [...]

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Which side will win in the end I’ve no idea but I don’t think much of the arguments being pout forward by one side: The 11th Circuit decision, penned by Chief Judge Joel Dubina and Circuit Judge Frank Hull, found that “the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce power.” “What Congress [...]

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Hazel Blears on Sky News – “People needs to ask, why weren’t these kids at school?” er…middle of the summer holidays Sigh.

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More globalisation! The Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) forecasts that the value of seaborne UK imports, adjusted for inflation, will grow by 287pc over the next two decades, with exports delivered by sea up 119pc. Britain’s £345bn imports by sea in 2010 will rocket to £1.95tn by 2030, the Cebr estimates, with exports [...]

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Government sources said options for change include increasing magistrates’ powers to jail offenders. Under current rules, magistrates can jail offenders for a maximum of six months. That could double to a year, sources said. What scum they are. If you want to take away someone’s liberty for more than 6 months then have the cojones [...]

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