Tim Worstall

Sarko will lose the presidency to a socialist no one has ever heard of, who will beat Marine le Pen by less than 5% of the (low turn out) popular vote in the run off; No. The result I would want is for Marine Le Pen to win the presidency. No, not because I’m some [...]

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Gerald Ronson, the veteran tycoon jailed for his part in one of Britain’s best-known stock market scandals as one of the “Guinness Four”, is among those recognised in the New Year honours list. Ronson, who claims to have pioneered self-service petrol stations, served six months after his conviction in 1990 for involvement in a share-trading [...]

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At the ASI. Why we should abolish driving licences

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Lie detector tests are being used to help officers decide whether to charge suspects in a groundbreaking scheme by a British police force. The thing is, you see, that lie detectors just don’t work.

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Forbes: Lying with numbers again, this time it’s DECC.

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You do have to slightly wonder about things in Russia, even now. Fire brigades are still struggling to put out the fire which quickly engulfed the submarine’s rubber-coated outer hull. OK, nuclear sub, missiles, rubber coating on hull, all terribly advanced technology. Russia’s Defence Ministry said there has been no radiation leak from the fire, [...]

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At the ASI. I look forward to the UK being the 22 nd largest economy in the world.

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Whale sperm is not the cause of the sea’s saltiness, despite what you may have heard.

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She added: “This ‘sexualisation’ process objectifies women and girls, and grooms boys and men into thinking it is acceptable to view and treat women and girls as sex objects. This portrayal of women is incompatible with a socially responsible press.” We do not want a socially responsible press. We want a free press. As free [...]

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Travelling in London is nearly three and a half times more expensive than Paris and 10 times dearer than in Rome, according to research by the Campaign for Better Transport. With successive Governments in Britain allowing fares to rise faster than inflation, the gap has also been widening in recent years. OK. Simple, factual, information, [...]

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You know, million peeps turning up at A&E each year with booze related injuries? Well, yes, it’s not booze related injuries, not A&E and it’s most certainly not patients. It’s admissions. The number of NHS patients who have to undergo emergency readmission to hospital within a month of being discharged has increased by more than [...]

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I’m sure that this is something that will surprise many. The UK actually has the most progressive income tax system among the G-8 economies. You can also get some interesting information about progressivity from the two charts. A rough measure of that is the difference in the (average) tax rate shown on the two charts. [...]

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This was and is Ms. Solent’s point about the whole thing. Mr Sumner’s blog not only revealed his market monetarism to the world at large (“I cannot go anywhere in the world of economics…without hearing his name,” says Mr Cowen). It also drew together like-minded economists, many of them at small schools some distance from [...]

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The Department for Education is lifting restrictions that force schools in England to charge the same price for the same item for every pupil, in order to allow them to offer price promotions. I’m sorry? What? We’ve had the central government in a country of 65 million people determining the school lunch pricing policies of [...]

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That’s not quite how Martin Feldstein puts it but it is what he means: The French government just doesn’t seem to understand the real implications of the euro, the single currency that France shares with 16 other European Union countries. French officials have now reacted to the prospect of a credit rating downgrade by lashing [...]

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This is probably one of those questions so stupid that those who know what they’re talking about will laugh. However. CH4. Methane. I know that it’s possible to strip the C out using a catalyst. However, I have a feeling that it comes out as CO or CO2. Which, if you were trying to generate [...]

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At the ASI. Which is the most generous country in the world? No, not which is the most generous government, which is the most generous country (or populace, citizenry)?

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The London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act makes it a criminal offence, punishable by fines of up to £20,000, to sell London 2012 tickets on the black market. Dear Lord, are they really that damn stupid? Ticket touts appear because the official price of the ticket is different from the market clearing price of [...]

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At the ASI. An interesting twist in the tale of the efficient markets hypothesis.

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Given the (apparent) largesse of the German taxpayer to the Irish in terms of the financial bailout, perhaps it’s the least Ireland can do, to send two of its most famous sons to the Federal Republic to say thank you to the kind citizens of Stuttgart, Munich and Berlin for all those euros being repatriated [...]

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