Tim Worstall

David Rose added. “I hold a doctorate in Cambridge in Climate Change and Sinking Islands Studies so I know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t believe me, ask my friend Johann Hari who taught me everything I know about the primacy of emotional truth over actual truth. I’m pleased to say that this [...]

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Does our Mr. Gillies know more about this? Full Tilt is alleged to have credited players’ accounts with $390m (£248m) it did not have, according to a lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday by the US government. Full Tilt’s founder, Raymond Bitar, and other board members are also accused of paying themselves $440m from [...]

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Are you absolutely certain you’ve got this right? Oh dear, who are you kidding Mr Ozouf? Jersey Finance say that in December 2010 there was over £366 billion held in Jersey of which more than £160 billion was in cash and at least £30 billion of that was for EU depositors. Let’s apply a rate [...]

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The Brighton UK Uncut peeps are in court at present. Something to do with superglueing themselves to hte windows of TopShop I think. Our favourite retired accountant gave evidence for the defence yesterday and Caroline Lucas is doing so today. So, onto something I don’t know. Is it possible to find out what evidence they [...]

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I think I’d ask Eoin to stop blogging you know. Here’s the latest. I have chosen to look at the profit of 8 major UK corporations. In the chart above I focus on HSBC, Vodafone and Barclays. These companies provide safe storage for your money, they loan you credit or in the case of Vodafone [...]

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Vince Cable and I talked quite a bit at one time. Then he got into government and things changed and fault lines appeared. Well, so be it, I can explain why too. Vince’s SpAd was a reader of this blog.

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An air of unreality hangs over this conference season. Inside dark and fetid halls parties will jockey for clear blue, yellow and red lines, berating one another over what may seem dangerously small differences when we look back on these times. Few may be alerted that the world stands on the verge of economic meltdown [...]

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Liberal Democrats Party Conference 2011: Pledge to drive down energy bills Householders will be able to switch energy suppliers more quickly, bulk-buy power at discount rates and claim refunds if firms are found to have exploited them for profit, Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, is to announce. When of course it is his very own [...]

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Ahem.

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Indeed, in a Guardian article written at the time, Sir Philip is quoted as saying: “I will give this efficiency review my very best effort knowing how hugely important it is to the recovery of the country. I want to help focus, motivate and energise to achieve these efficiency savings. It is these actions that [...]

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Our Eoin: The graph above shows, in the last ten years, the amount of Corporation Tax paid by the profiteer as a proportion of the amount of tax paid by the worker.  On this occasion I exclude VAT & NICs as both profiteer and worker pay them. Is it right that the worker pays more [...]

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At the ASI. Polly should be happy. We are getting more like Sweden. Swedish inequality (post tax, post benefit) is getting very close to UK levels.

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Liberal Democrat Conference 2011: Let employees decide executive salaries, says Vince Cable Employees could get a say on pay awards for executives at their companies under plans being promoted by the Liberal Democrats. And we’ll stick a few taxpayers on the committee that decides MPs pay shall we? Hmm, what was that? All very complicated, [...]

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Surely the end times are upon us? As many as 80 members of the Bavarian State Orchestra have refused to join a high-profile tour of Japan due to fears over radiation. Is there radiation in Japan? Sure, there’s radiation everywhere. Are there dangerous levels of radiation in Japan? Sure, there’s plenty of places with dangerous [...]

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He seems unaware of the law though. 4. Nationalization, expropriation or requisitioning shall be based on grounds or reasons of public utility, security or the national interest which are recognized as overriding purely individual or private interests, both domestic and foreign. In such cases the owner shall be paid appropriate compensation, in accordance with the rules [...]

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“We’re living in primate heaven. We’re warm, dry, we’re not hungry, we don’t have fleas and ticks and infections. So why are we so miserable?” Stephen Pinker

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In fact, the existence of the euro has, until now, been a bulwark against disaster. Suppose it had not been created and that the financial crisis in 2008 had broken over a Europe with multiple floating exchange rates and no European central bank – the eurosceptic utopia. The Irish, Portuguese, Greek, Spanish, Italian and French [...]

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This sort of thing does really annoy me. The Liberal Democrats’ flagship idea of raising the tax threshold to £12,500 would benefit the wealthy more than the poor, according to a respected leftwing thinktank. The government is already committed to slowly increasing the threshold to £10,000, but Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the [...]

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Today, there are only two answers to the euro crisis: cough up or break up. Norman Lamont

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A wind farm has been paid £1.2 million not to produce electricity for eight-and-a-half hours. That’s £999 per MWh when if they’d been producing they’d only have got £100. High winds (but not too high) mean that all the little windmills were spinning madly. So there’s just too much juice for the grid to absorb, [...]

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