Tim Worstall

And we have proof of that: There are now fewer than 9,000 petrol forecourts in the UK, down from 21,000 in 1991, creating misery for motorists in large parts of the country. The fall comes despite the number of cars on the road doubling to 31 million over the same period, according to new research. [...]

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These people aren’t going to get anywhere, are they?

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@OccupySesameSt OccupySesameStreet We can’t decide which makes us angrier: that 1% of puppets eat 99% of the cookies, or the fact that none of those cookies are vegan.

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Step forward Mr. Stephen Slominski and take a bow.

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(there’s a trope about Gordon Brown’s raids on pension funds, but the total cost of Brown’s dividend tax is about £5bn per year. The cost of the bankers’ crash of 2008 to pension funds is likely to be around £500bn, Comparing the annual cost of a policy you support with the total cost of something [...]

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At the ASI. “Taxing airlines”: no, we’re taxing airline passengers….

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I see from Twitter that this is apparently something for me to read. Further, that Sunny actually refused to publish it: actual evidence of editorial standards no less. The essential trope is that Johann’s a lefty and should therefore be forgiven. Heart’s in the right place therefore transgressions can only possibly be minor. This amused [...]

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So, Tower Hamlets authorises, hires out, a war memorial for Christmas parties. Lest we forget, the City still thrives on greed When it comes to honouring our war dead, forget it. Making money is much more important No, this is Tower Hamlets, not The City. Greed is something of a universal you see….

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We have just had 30 years in which the ideology of the free market has been dominant. And yet, during that time, what has happened to the percentage of the British economy controlled by the Government? It has remained static, at around 45 per cent – or, by some calculations, increased slightly. The state, that [...]

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“For years, Chilean youth have been consumed by a neo-liberal model that highlights personal achievement and consumerism; it is all about mine, mine, mine. There is not a lot of empathy for the other,” said Vallejo in her office, decorated with a large photograph of Karl Marx. Says a hagiography of the personal achievement of [...]

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At the ASI. Things are worth what they’re worth and we should probably record them as being so.

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There are currently 2.5 million people unemployed. The government will, by logic, need to create 2.5m jobs to eradicate this by 2015. I’d not actually realised that only governments can create jobs.

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Inman’s the economics correspndent of both The Guardian and The Observer. And he spouts nonsense like this: Sadly, crude interpretations of Smith have won important friends, especially since the 1960s, when widespread property ownership became a big issue for politicians. The Nobel prize for economics was first awarded in 1969, and since then has rewarded [...]

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As it levers the NHS open to EU competition law, who is democratically accountable for its £120bn budget? Who is to answer for its quality or failures? We’ve had 60 odd years of politicians commanding this and that. And we’ve ended up with what we’ve got now. We want to get politicians out of the [...]

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So, err, decent enough second half then I suppose? But I think that Wales today would have walked through France today. So, Wales in the final and I sorta assume NZ will be there too (although, come on you Pumas!). Actually, I wouldn’t want to bet against Wales today beating NZ sans Dan Carter.

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They’re getting this the wrong way around again. Admittedly, these potential saviours are not unruly British adolescents but the 283 million girls aged between 10 and 20 who live in poverty in the countryside of the developing world. Study after study has shown that when they are given a better chance – above all, a [...]

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Compare and contrast.

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“For the first half of my life I was always known as my father’s son, and now I am known as my daughter’s father.” There are worse things to achieve in life.

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The professoriate here I come then. ecaf_2111 It’s an adaptation of the piece I did for the IEA showing why UKUncut are almost entirely wrong in their wibbling about Boots, Arcadia, Vodafone and Barclays. And just for Arnald: in there, at the end, are some positive suggestions for how to tax. How to raise the [...]

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I’ve got a paper in Economic Affairs this month. It’s a journal, a Journal even, so does this mean I’ve published a “paper” in the accepted sense? How does this work? Or is something in a Journal a journal article? I’m pretty sure there wasn’t “peer review”, at least I didn’t get anything back from [...]

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