Tim Worstall

Manufacturers ended 2011 with their worst quarter since Britain was in the grip of recession, although the pace of contraction slowed in December. The closely watched Markit Purchasing Managers Index survey, which asks manufacturers about their output and order books, showed a reading of 49.6 last month — an improvement on the 47.7 recorded in [...]

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So, CEO pay has rebounded after a year of decline followed by a year of stagnation. But with median increases in remuneration of the order of 35 to 40%, the real question is: were the increases justified by performance? In order to determine this – and take the long view – I looked at pay [...]

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What did he do to deserve all that money? Becht became chief executive as a result of 1999′s merger of Britain’s Reckitt & Colman with Benckiser of the Netherlands. Since then, he turned a £3bn company into a £23.5bn juggernaut, helped by the £1.9bn acquisition of Boots’s over-the-counter medicines wing in 2006 and last year’s [...]

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However, evidence suggests that family-owned companies run by sons or daughters on average under-perform their professionally managed peers. The Business Department is expected to encourage wider use of external expertise and non-executive directors on boards as part of a package of measures. All mid sized companies that recognise they have reached the limits of their [...]

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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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Erm, no. Trust the EU to get the wrong end of the stick here: Brussels has declared it wants to encourage more “second chance” entrepreneurs like Mike Smith of engineer Derrick Services Ltd (DSL) to reverse the European trend of punishing honest business failures. It wants to echo the US approach of giving entrepreneurs credit [...]

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A little note to make the point: Earlier this week, Moody’s, the ratings agency, downgraded several Kodak debt securities, sending it further towards “junk” status. Fitch downgraded the company a day later. Its shares are at their lowest since June 1935. There’s no particular reason why a company should last forever: in the larger scheme [...]

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What? Betfair initially deducted 20pc of gross profits from successful punters gambling in more than 250 betting markets. In July, such charges were raised to 40pc to 60pc for customers who have won more than £250,000. Mr Sayaniya alleges he has bet in less than 250 markets and made a £24,000 profit. However, he claims [...]

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Does our Mr. Gillies know more about this? Full Tilt is alleged to have credited players’ accounts with $390m (£248m) it did not have, according to a lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday by the US government. Full Tilt’s founder, Raymond Bitar, and other board members are also accused of paying themselves $440m from [...]

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SIR – As past presidents of the Royal Town Planning Institute, this is the first time in more than 50 years that so many of us have come together to sign a public letter. The current debate in the media about planning reform, with claim and counter claim, highlights the importance of planning for economic [...]

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Lots of people calling for state owned banks these days. Picking winners, directing industry: Nationalisation of coal, gas, electricity, steel and the railways by Labour heralded deeper political intervention. Harold Wilson went further after moving to Downing Street in 1964, talking ambitiously about a technological revolution and the creation of groups with a global reach [...]

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We’ve got the CoOp telling us that even food sales are falling: Peter Marks said that for the first time people have been cutting food budgets – normally an area that is relied upon as “recession-proof”. “People are spending less on food – that’s a first,” said the Co-op’s chief executive. He added that he [...]

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Thought this was interesting: WWF, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, makes about $500m a year from donations and corporate endorsements So the World Wildlife Fund gets $500 million a year in income. Difficult to really place an “enterprise value” on something which doesn’t avowedly make profits but that sort of turnover would [...]

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Snigger.

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Rupert Murdoch desperately battled to prop up the tumbling value of News Corporation on Tuesday, announcing plans for a $5bn (£3bn) share buyback. Maybe he just thinks the shares are cheap? And I would assume that none of the family’s shares would be tendered, so it would increase the family control as well, no?

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Mr. Chakrabortty doesn’t manage it. To him it’s all about the way in which the Derby train works are just a subsidiary of some Johnny Foreigner company. Toss. The contract was for a build and lease set of trains. Siemens has a higher credit rating than Bombardier. Thus the lease part of the contract is [...]

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Fred Done, whose Betfred bookie won the race for the Tote with a £265m bid, is continuing to resist paying five punters who placed bets showing profits of £823,000 with its Gibraltar-based online wing, Betfred.com. It has declared the bets void – even though it has paid out on wagers placed by UK punters in [...]

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Asked whether all companies listed in the UK potentially fall under the remit of the Bribery Act, he said: “Exactly. You bet we will go after foreign companies. This has been misunderstood. If there is an economic engagement with the UK then in my view they are carrying on business in the UK.” The Bribery [...]

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What decline? The bestselling shop-bought pizza in Italy, and indeed in 33 other countries around the world including Britain, is made by a German-owned food company on an industrial estate just off the M6 in Leyland, Lancashire. Sure, it’s not a Morris Minor we’re manufacturing, but manufacturing it is.

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A highlight: she’d have to install a pasteurizer even though she made her yogurt from milk that was already pasteurized. What’s more, California law makes it illegal to pasteurize milk twice, Hang them, hang them all.

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