Tim Worstall

The global economy has shattered.
No it hasn’t you silly little man. Global GDP will be around $60 trillion this year as it was around that last year.
The new understanding goes hand-in-hand with discoveries in evolutionary biology, neuro-cognitive science and child development that reveal that human beings are biologically predisposed to be empathic. [...]

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The most common response to this complaint is the current terms can’t go on, because Easyjet and Ryanair pay their staff much less. And it’s not fair if some people are being treated horribly, so the answer is to treat everyone horribly and then no one feels bad. Maybe charities should [...]

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Here.
UK banks building societies and UK branches
and subsidiaries of overseas lenders would have a
remuneration cap imposed. A low compensation
ratio would be set at around 15%.32
Note 32 says:
32 The compensation ratio is the
percentage of an institutions net
revenue allocated to staff pay
Well, we all know we can play games with the definition of “net” revenue.
As a way [...]

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If you start off misunderstanding the very basics of capitalism then of course your prescriptions for making it better are going to be complete nonsense, aren’t they?
But so should reward be proportional to our extra effort. It is a fundamental part of human beings’ hard-wiring. The scales symbolically declare that justice is getting [...]

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Signatories to a letter in The Guardian.
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, nef
Ann Pettifor, author, The Coming First World Debt Crisis
Billy Hayes, General Secretary, CWU
Dave Prentis, General Secretary, UNISON
Gavin Hayes, General Secretary, Compass
Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass
Prof Gregor Gall, Universityof Hertfordshire
Prof Prem Sikka, EssexBusinessSchool
Richard Murphy, Tax Justice Network UK
Stewart Lansley, author, Rich Britain: The [...]

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Contains this gem:
5. Volatility – many hedge funds thrive on instability
in the markets, whereas the national
interest lies in having stability.
Yes, very good, and it’s by people thriving on instability, trading it, that we get stability.
Twats.

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Well, actually, a communist reveals his blithering idiocy:
In one room, Jane and Louise ­Wilson’s film Star City, shot on location, is shown on all four walls using four projectors. It’s an all-­encompassing, smothering experience, symbolising the capitalist state’s suppression of the individual for the sake of profit.
Eh? We’re comparing the Soviet Union [...]

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Read through this blog.
The Spirit Level really is trash science. Sorry lefties, but it is.

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This is amusing. Over at the old website I used to get long rambling comments from Darius Guppy (under a variety of pseudonyms) concerning this bloke:
He set out to restore the family fortune by faking a robbery in which he claimed he had lost a stash of gems. Lloyd’s paid up within [...]

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Exxon, who has been accused in the past of being too conservative in terms of exploration and development, has been finding more oil than it produces for each of the last 16 years,

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Compass weighs in behind Robin Hood Tax campaign coalition
Compass and the nef?
Must be barking, eh?

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You know, looking at the list of supporters, there’s only one who even pretends to have any knowledge of economics.
That’s the new economics foundation.
It’s going to be a complete disaster, isn’t it?
Oh, here’s a lovely little point.
Although 0.05% is a tiny tax, $400 billion is a substantial amount.
That’s what they expect to raise (not the [...]

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The cost of a nursery place for children aged over two rose by twice the rate of inflation last year while childcare for a toddler now swallows half the gross earnings of an average parent in England working part-time, according to a report out today.
Yes?
And?
The Government’s spent the last 13 years piling regulations and legal [...]

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Yes, in The Guardian:
It also interlocks very conveniently with US economic interests in the region and in Haiti in particular. Food and water may be scarce, but some of the factories in the so-called export processing zones, where Haitians labour in sweatshop conditions, have managed to get their machines working again. Yet there is still [...]

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The hideously depressing thing is that Cuba under Battista–Cuba in 1957–was a developed country. Cuba in 1957 had lower infant mortality than France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had doctors and nurses: as many doctors and nurses per capita as the Netherlands, and more than Britain or [...]

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Quite simply, we cannot have economic growth because it’ll cause climate change. Thus we must stop economic growth.
In slightly more detail, economic growth necessarily means that we’ll go over 2 oC of warming and thus Flipper will boil as the oceans evanesce into the atmosphere.
Thus we should stop economic growth.
I refute it thusly:
The IPCC tells [...]

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Its the profit motive thats destroying this country today. We need to adopt a planned economy that is there for the workers just as they had in the Soviet Union.
Yes, I do think that’s a serious comment.

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Complaining about the contracts here.
The oil contracts are structured so that price risk lies primarily with the state, while the private companies are virtually guaranteed a healthy return even if the market slumps. As the oil price rises, investors will make a higher and unlimited profit, taking close to one quarter of oil revenues, whether [...]

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On a recent post about the list of idiots I get this comment:
As one of the idiots, I’d like to thank Mr Worstall for being so right about everything. His absolute certainty in his own judgement makes me feel confident that his policy recommendations must make complete sense and that his analysis of how capitalism [...]

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Racism trumps all other evils in society, period.
Barbara Ellen.
Seriously? Jebus woman, get a grip. Racism  trumps slavery? Yes, there are still societies which have slavery and our own did in the past. Racism trunps crucifixion in the public square? Yes, this does still exist in some societies (it is still a punishment used in Saudi [...]

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