Tim Worstall

It is uncomfortable that the people most alarmed by the night of chicken shop raids are the employees: young teenage brothers from Pakistan who are obliged to show inspectors their living quarters above the shop, students from Bangladesh, who watch with growing unease as border officials check their papers. The people with these less than [...]

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David Cameron has ruled out any referendum that could see Britain leave the European Union, insisting that the UK should remain a member of the union. The same sort of wibble we’ve had for a coupe of generations now. It’s not quite right for us, problems,  our partners don’t see it quite the way that [...]

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At the ASI. Inequality hasn’t risen quite as much in the US as many think.

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Cancer networks are the template, as they caused survival rates to soar by joint working: one hospital does the best diagnostics, another the best surgery and a third the best chemo and radiology, collaborating not competing. That is the heart of a market economy. The division and specialisation of labour. And the only way of [...]

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Yesterday was the day I officially moved from Germany to the Czech Republic. All of 50km but it is over the border. And yesterday Germany lost and a Czech player threw Nadal out of Wimbledon. Spooky, eh? Perhaps I should team up with David Icke?

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When the transfer takes place to the European Stability Mechanism the new loans will not be given seniority, giving extra security to Spain’s creditors. That seems to be the crux of the matter. The new bonds do not subordinate the old, they rank pari passu. That means the ESM is on the hook for them. [...]

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On the manipulation by the bank itself: It is hard to identify who exactly lost out as a result of these fictions. Since there was no interbank funding to speak of at the height of the crisis, it may not in any case have mattered very much. Well, sorta. While there was indeed very little [...]

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Seems like a fair enough law. Shawn Sullivan faced spending the rest of his life behind bars under a controversial sex offenders’ programme in the US, but two senior judges said this would amount to a “flagrant denial” of his rights. If convicted, he’d serve his sentence, then be put into a sex offenders institution. [...]

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On the subject of Barclays and Libor. Third, the means the assumptions of the efficient market hypothesis that underpinned City regulation have to be swept aside for good: they’re a fantasy, as some of us have said for a rather long time. WTF has the EMH got to do with this case? All the EMH [...]

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Seriously, in The City? Listeners to the Today programme on Radio 4 on Wednesday were treated to a knockabout interview with the architect of the Laffer curve: a graph which purports to show that lower tax rates for the rich will lead to higher tax revenues. It’s also a theory which has been widely discredited, [...]

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We know that they submitted false rates. But do we actually know that Libor itself was set wrongly as a result? I’m not sure we do: anyone actually know?

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Such fun: RENO, Nev., Jun 27, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — EMC Metals Corp. (the “Company” or “EMC”) CA:EMC -15.38% announced today that it received notice of a lawsuit filed against the Company on Friday June 22, 2012 in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia, by our Nyngan Scandium Project partner, Jervois Mining Limited (“Jervois”). The [...]

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Competition only helps the customer. In none of these cases are we the customer, we’re just the people who pay for stuff. There’s a big difference between the two.

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This is both nasty and full of coincidence. A father of one has been charged with the murder of his PhD student girlfriend at their Georgian home while their baby cried nearby. Investment administrator Paul Keene, 31, is accused of killing 28-year-old Carmen Miron-Buchacra, known as Gaby, at their Georgian home in Bath, Somerset. That [...]

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So, I need to make a little video. I;’ve a Samsung netbook with a web cam that I assume is capable of recording me talking at it. So, where’s the button that does that then? OK, worked this out. Hey, computers have help files on them these days! When did that happen?

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Equality, because societies that aim for equality provide best opportunity for all and are happier as a result: Entire, gargantuan, mind gargling nonsense. The Soviet Union aimed for equality and this did not lead to best opportunity for all nor make people happier. No, this is not to say that Ritchie is aiming for the [...]

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If you think taxes are the answer, download it here, and think again. Well, yes, I don’t think that taxes are the answer to every question. But normally Ritchie does so it’s nice to see him agreeing with me for a change.

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Most of the poor drawing benefits are cleaners, carers, caterers – the 62% living below the poverty line, working hard yet needing benefits to survive. 62% of the country are below the poverty line? I don’t think so, no, really, I don’t.

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Richard J Murphy’s accounts have fallen into my hands. Or those of Tax Research LLP rather. Here.Tax Research LLP As far as I can see he’s saying that he earns £55k a year or so for writing his blog. Nice work if you can get it I suppose. Wouldn’t we all like to be so [...]

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Here. Pygmy mammoths and all that. The important point to take away though is that island evolution is very different indeed from not island evolution. Which rather makes EO Wilson’s estimations of extinction rates, derived as they are from island evolution, something of a nonsense, eh?

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