Tim Worstall

This is the sort of thing that cannot go on forever: The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) last week announced it had successfully sold a €3bn 10-year bond in support of Ireland. However, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that target was only met after the EFSF resorted to buying up several hundred million euros worth [...]

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Gillian Tett and Paul Mason sem to suggest there are three solutions to our economic crisis in their discussion in the Guardian today. They are inflation. to write off the debt; default which writes off the debt, or forgiveness that is in effect consensual default. Serious economics types discussing matters seriously. Excellent. Then the Murphmeister: [...]

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At the ASI. How to check whether insurance is a competitive market

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And I’m beginning to realise why that first instinctive prejudice was correct. The big mistake made by libertarians is to assume that economic and social liberalism go together. Liberal capitalism requires social conservatism. Apparently the buying and selling of apples and pears in a market requires that adult men must not stick their cocks up [...]

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Twattery in The Guardian again! We’re told that it’s a simple mathematical law, a power distribution, which shows why wealth is so unequally distributed. Tosser of a physics graduate hasn’t bothered to work out why though. My comment there: Oh Dear Lord. Can we have Ben back please? “The economist Edward N Wolff, of New [...]

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Nothing says to me that it makes any sense that the market now has a value of about 5,500. We’re facing the biggest recession for 80 years, melt down in Europe and global warning becoming reality. And the markets still presume nothing is happening. If you want evidence of irrationality that’s it. If the FTSE 100 [...]

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That’s the answer to this: Others, for example the entrant who asked: “What happens if you mix together all of the substances from the periodic table”, appeared more keen to satisfy a burning curiosity. You get dirt. Depending upon how you mix them, in what quantities, what the original state was (for example, if you [...]

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Taxpayers are spending more than necessary on training new teachers because “out-of-date” heads avoid hiring mothers who want to return to work while still having time to care for their families, it was claimed. Stephen Hillier, chief executive of the Training and Development Agency, said some school leaders had told him that part-time and job-share [...]

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The Chancellor’s claim that planning costs are among the highest in the world is groundless; when asked for its evidence, the Treasury had to admit it had “no recorded information”. Damn, this isn’t even economics, it’s straight arithmetic! What is the price of a house in England? £200k or there abouts for a dwelling (ie, [...]

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Deep-fried peasant with chips anyone? A chippy in Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, is offering this novel dish, making use of those shot on local estates. I am inspired. Peasant is a difficult meat; with almost no integral fat, the flesh can be dry when roasted, needing a bucket of bread sauce and gravy to swallow. Destination deep-fat [...]

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However, Mr Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, said: “Let us be clear: we will not prune the eurozone to a more selective club. “That would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the European political pact, as embodied in the treaties. “If the eurozone’s integrity would not be preserved, one [...]

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If France has socialized medicine then Britain has communist medicine.

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So, I’ve some reading to do this weekend. On forestry subsidies. Need some pointers to it all if anyone has any. I’ve got Chapter 9 of Galloway and the Borders, so I’ve got he effect on nature nailed down. Now it’s tax breaks etc that I’ve got to mug up on. Are there various audit [...]

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@clarercgp Clare Gerada @HarryDumpRich @RichardJMurphy @Gabby_L_M Health care does not behave as other commodities . There is no true health market in health care Health care isn’t a commodity you dingbat. It’s a service. Jeebus…..

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@RichardJMurphy Richard Murphy @ssap9rulesok The evidence is fund mangers make money from shorting. It is not at all clear pension funds do. Conflicts of interest abound Sigh. Pension funds are long only almost all of the time. So, yes, it’s probably true that pension funds don’t make money out of something they don’t do.

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Via.

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The home secretary, Theresa May, has ordered Muslims Against Crusades, an Islamist group which is planning to disrupt Friday’s Armistice Day ceremonies, be banned from midnight. Sigh. Freedom of speech means that people are indeed allowed to burn poppies if they want to be idiot enough to do so. Freedom of association also means that [...]

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Many young people find it almost impossible to find stable work, thanks to a massive increase in the flexible nature of the labour market, something that has been pushed by governments of both the left and right in the 1990s and 2000s. Dear Lord……the increase in flexibility was to overcome the previous inflexible structure which [...]

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It would be easier if the piece had actually been written in English but there we go. His essential point is that in order for Europe to work as a political unit there has to be a European Demos. Thus, umm, well, it’s Underpants Gnomes time. Yes, he’s quite right that a Demos is necessary [...]

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Still, every now and then one comes across a mercifully practical piece of parenting wisdom. The Australian psychologist Steve Biddulph recommends that, as soon as both parents arrive home from work, they should sit down together with a stiff drink. The alcohol, he says, will make them more relaxed – and thus better parents. You [...]

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