Tim Worstall

It is all obvious or trivial except…

 

 

Entries Tagged as 'European Union'

Off you go matey. Have fun

April 23rd, 2013 · 32 Comments

History suggests that the current crisis requires the immediate creation of an Anglo-American style fiscal and military union of the eurozone – a “democratic union”. This would involve the creation of a European parliament with legislative powers; a one-off federalising of all state debt through the issue of union bonds to be backed by the [...]

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Tags: European Union

That’s all we bleedin’ need, innit?

April 17th, 2013 · 18 Comments

Scardino, who was born and raised in Texas but has lived in the UK for 20 years, also said the EU was in need of leaders of the stature of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln to help it through its current political and financial malaise. Which is it then? A bloody throwing off of the [...]

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Tags: European Union

The correct economic question about the euro

April 16th, 2013 · 28 Comments

Sadly, the architects of this plan have it backwards. Their starting point is “What is necessary to save the euro?” From there, they end up advocating policies of quite startling brutality. Yet the very differences in housing wealth between nations illustrate, once again, the folly of locking disparate economies into a shared currency. Those in [...]

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Tags: European Union

Is the European Central Bank really this stupid?

April 15th, 2013 · 19 Comments

To believe that Spanish and Cypriot househholds are richer than German ones? Apparently, yes. They really are that stupid.

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Tags: European Union

A slight problem with this southern European debt thing

April 15th, 2013 · 8 Comments

Italians, Spaniards and Greeks are forsaking their homelands and heading over the Alps to the more robust economies of Germany and Switzerland, as economies contract across the Mediterranean. If everyone buggers off then who will be left behind to pay the debts? This free movement of people but the assignation of debts to a particular [...]

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Tags: European Union

So who is really undermining freedom of the press?

April 14th, 2013 · 9 Comments

Mediadem closely follows CCMR’s interventionist agenda. In the policy brief co-authored by Dr Craufurd Smith, it said: “Liberal conceptions of media freedom focus on editorial freedom for government interference…. [however] states may also be required to take positive measures to curtail the influence of powerful economic or political groups…. this entails that neither the media, [...]

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Tags: Civil Liberty · European Union

Is Robert Cole really this stupid?

April 9th, 2013 · 23 Comments

So, Maggie’s passing means we must all be kinder to hte Europeans, join the euro, sign up to be ruled from Brussels and….well, the argument seems to be: Sterling’s exchange rate sovereignty has made for a more volatile currency than the euro. Err, yes, that’s the damn point. We’ve this optimal, non-optimal currency area thing. [...]

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Tags: European Union

Good luck with that matey

March 30th, 2013 · 26 Comments

This is an obvious truth: “The last time a French norm was scrapped was in 1789. Ever since, they have only built up,” the authors said, citing Montesquieu who stated: “Useless laws weaken essential laws.” One of the few arguments that I’ve made up myself, and which are actually reasonable, is precisely that Montesquieu point. [...]

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Tags: European Union

Complete codswallop Garton Ash, total tripe

March 28th, 2013 · 6 Comments

The EU as a whole is the most reluctant empire in European history, Nonsense. The entire thing has been planned. By technocrats, to be run by technocrats. And what we’re seeing is analagous to that socialist calculation problem. The world is simply too complex to be run by technocrats. Which is why the system is [...]

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Tags: European Union

On this Cyrpus thing

March 20th, 2013 · 9 Comments

The situation could go one of four ways, according to Mats Persson at think tank Open Europe- the levy is forced through as the best of a bad bunch, the eurozone loosens its terms, Cyprus looks elsewhere, possibly Russia, to raise extra cash, or total collapse of the Cypriot finance system. The final scenario could [...]

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Tags: European Union

Vince Cable on jam regulations

March 19th, 2013 · 10 Comments

Hurrah! Bureaucracy defeated! European Union rules which have defined jam as having nearly two thirds sugar are to be relaxed, in a boost for Britain’s jam makers. Hundreds of businesses, voluntary organisations and home cooks will benefit from the change, ministers said. Previously jam could only be labelled as such if it had more than [...]

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Tags: European Union

How to stop Germany invading France again

March 13th, 2013 · 4 Comments

Apparently it means that the UK must vote on a Sunday. A common European voting day with polling stations closing at the same time would better reflect common participation by citizens across the union and therefore is part of the representative democracy on which the EU is founded. Quite how this will stop the Wermacht [...]

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Tags: European Union

Beppe Grillo’s right of course

March 3rd, 2013 · 10 Comments

Italy plunged deeper into political chaos this weekend after Beppe Grillo, the quixotic former comedian who holds the balance of power in parliament, suggested that the country may have to abandon the euro and return to the lire. Not quite that Italy will have to abandon the euro though. Rather that it is the most [...]

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Tags: European Union

Ireland’s painful adjustment

February 28th, 2013 · 7 Comments

So here’s the success that is being claimed: “We don’t see a problem for sterling at present levels. We have cut costs right through the economy with an internal devaluation of 15pc or 16pc and we are now highly competitive. We can take it,” he said. That’s what they’ve had to do. Internal devaluation. Here’s [...]

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Tags: European Union

Italian election results: I’m Lovin’ It

February 26th, 2013 · 16 Comments

Rather than just a little giggle or a snort of laughter, I find myself wracked by guffaws at this: The eurozone’s debt crisis strategy was in chaos on Monday night after anti-austerity parties appeared on track to win a majority of seats in the Italian parliament, vastly complicating efforts to forge a government able to [...]

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Tags: European Union

Immigration rules and deportation: Yes, EU rules do trump Westminster

February 24th, 2013 · 5 Comments

This judge here: he’s doing absolutely nothing at all other than applying the law correctly. The country’s most senior immigration judge has openly defied the Home Secretary by insisting that Parliament’s attempt to get tough on human rights abuses by foreign criminals is outweighed by the European Court. This is simply true. EU law outweighs [...]

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Tags: European Union

Yes. This.

February 22nd, 2013 · 8 Comments

As I would put it we’re ruled by fuckers who’ve never done a day’s work in their lives. Not real work. They simply have no idea. Which is why we’re ruled so damn badly. And the Mandarinate. Have you seen the tests you have to pass to get into the EU bureaucracy? As an example, [...]

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Tags: European Union

How did we end up being ruled by out and out liars?

February 22nd, 2013 · 10 Comments

Will the tax be borne by ordinary citizens? We have taken every measure to ensure that it isn’t. This is a tax on the financial sector, and 85% of liable transactions are purely between financial institutions. Day-to-day financial activities of citizens and businesses are outside its scope. Even if the financial sector passed on some [...]

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Tags: European Union

How goddam stupid do you have to be to do this?

February 20th, 2013 · 8 Comments

So, we’re subsidising the hell out of the installation of solar panels in order to stop Gaia from boiling. Then we impose a tax on cheap solar panels that would stop Gaia from boiling. The UK could lose billions of pounds and thousands of jobs in the solar industry if the EU imposes tariffs on [...]

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Tags: European Union

From food regulation to chemicals registration

February 17th, 2013 · 5 Comments

Christopher Booker (with, no doubt, the help of RAE North) tells us all about the EU food inspection system. What Mr Paterson recognised from the start, unlike any other politician in Britain, was that the root of the problem lay in what had followed when, a decade ago, the EU took over all “competence” to [...]

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Tags: European Union