Tim Worstall

Who really thought it was a good idea to take someone from PC World to run Apple retail? PC World UK that is?

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For all you hipster large and small towns in the northeast who have taken great pride in banning big box stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, good luck rebuilding after the storm. I am sure you are going to be really happy that you banned retail establishments with worldwide logistics resources and that have developed [...]

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I am we’ll aware that we have a government resistant to tax change in the UK right now, but governments always react to change in society and rarely create it. The demand for corporate tax reform is growing now to the point where change will have to happen: that’s the key issue here. That, and [...]

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So Seumas has a rant about unpaid tax. It’s the usual Murphybollocks. In it he approvingly links to this UK Uncut press release: A report in the Times newspaper (20/09/12) outlined how 533 directors of UK companies have registered addresses in Monaco. Despite vetting by HMRC, the government has still seen fit to award several [...]

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No, agreed, it’s not a form of libertarian society that I would want to live in. As many Somalis also do not want to live in it. But there are still interesting and useful things that even The Guardian finds it necessary to point out: In conflict-riven Somalia, for example, fierce unregulated competition has made [...]

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The only person I know who lives there is my sister so obviously this must be her: I hope you enjoy spending time with them as much as I do every year, following the conversation as it echoes, sometimes answered, sometimes ignored, from Piddletrenthide in Dorset That’s re the new book of unpublished letters to [...]

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President Francois Hollande is pushing through legislation to increase taxes on beer by 160pc to help fund struggling social programmes as France tries to contain a budget deficit hit hard by the economic crisis. Tax consumption, not incomes. And tax the consumption with the least elasticity of demand to price. Blimey. Has a Frenchman actually [...]

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So Hitachi is going to build nukes in the UK. Hurrah! Hitachi unveils £20bn plan to build nuclear reactors in the UK Japan’s Hitachi has revived Britain’s ailing nuclear power ambitions with plans to invest £20bn in building at least four reactors in the UK. Good. And now for the bad bit. Major obstacles remain [...]

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In a subtle sign of defiance after his cortege was criticised for blocking Moscow traffic on his twice-daily ride to the Kremlin, Mr Putin will ride in the ultimate symbol of Russian power. “Limo Number One”, as the vehicle has been dubbed, was especially made for the head of state and took six years to [...]

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Some 12 million euros (£10 million) was given by Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden but the Irish government has since been told by Ugandan auditors that the sum has gone “missing.” The money had been intended for a “peace recovery and development programme” in the north of the country, which has seen decades of conflict [...]

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Pretty much the same as the old Heseltine economy actually. This is fun though: In recommendations that are likely to surprise some of his Conservative colleagues, Lord Heseltine says that regulation, particularly from Europe, is not a major problem for British business. “I reject the premise that regulation in itself hinders growth. Good, well-designed regulation [...]

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Women are key decision-makers in the home, DWP says Just look at the ads on TV. The people making those ads know very well that women dispose of 80% of the household disposable income.

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Workers with children who earn just under £50,000, the threshold at which the benefit starts being taken away, would be better off turning down extra work because much of it would simply be clawed back by the Government. This means that overtime would be a “waste of time”, according to Steve Wade, a director in [...]

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There *are* deserving poor – political refugees, the modern equivalent of Huguenots and 1930s Jews. New Labour treated them like dirt, herding them into concentration camps or placing in council flats that Glaswegians from the Gorbals would not take, and simultaneously refusing to allow them to earn a living and setting benefits at half the [...]

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Looking at the front page of his blog today. We have a description of unitary taxation: Imagine a Swedish company with 25,000 employees in Sweden, 25,000 employees in France, and five tanned accountants throwing paper aeroplanes in a sweaty booking office in the Cayman Islands. Hmmm. Now, enter Unitary Tax! Unitary tax involves taxing multinational [...]

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If you don’t become seriously anti-poverty when Jesus tells you, I’m not sure David Frum makes much of a difference.

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The Swiss banks made available an opportunity for organised crime to take place, and did so very deliberately. Tax evasion is crime: it is theft just like any other theft. Tax evasion in a Swiss bank account also never occurs by chance: it is a pre-meditated act. Tax evasion ain’t a crime in Switzerland. And [...]

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As Frank Sinatra put it (probably after a few sherberts): “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” Tsk. Martin also giving us the line “I’m not drunk if I can lie on the floor without holding on”.

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Russia offers to build Britain’s nuclear power stations Moscow has offered to help Britain build nuclear power stations in partnership with Rolls-Royce, Russia’s deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov has said. God alone knows what Rolls Royce is doing with this deal. But no, just no, for two reasons. 1) If you think the Russian oil [...]

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