Tim Worstall

A little round robin letter: and contrary to most of such, he’s not actually got this situation wrong: Motorway madness in Portugal 14 May, 2012 – Mike Beggs is a regular business traveller to Europe and he has watched the European project break down into chaos over the last few years. This is his report [...]

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The world has read the adventures of Superman, Spiderman, Wonderwoman, Batman and other American superheroes and now, perhaps, it’s time for Kazakhstan’s Astanaman. Competitors can choose the story behind the character, his or her appearance and special traits but the organisers insist that as well as being named after the capital city the superhero must [...]

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Topping the list released in the May issue of the magazine was Vladimir Kim, the close confidant of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and chairman of Kazakhmys, the London-listed copper producer. Forbes Kazakhstan, which has not published its rich list on the internet, estimated his wealth at about £2.2 billion. …Several other people linked closely to Mr [...]

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Others felt it was more like a wholesome nightclub where everyone was focused on the music and on dancing instead of getting drunk or finding someone to hook up with. There was a distinct lack of sexual energy at the Stockholm Lunch Beat, which, coupled with the ban on alcohol and drugs, If you take [...]

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The French don’t really believe in markets.

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Bugger. I was (uselessly, I know) hoping for Le Pen and Melenchon in the second round. Just for the sheer joy of watching what happened next as two loons fought it out.

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I know, I know, it’s terribly naughty to pay bribes to Johnny Foreigner. However: In a candid interview, Mr Deripaska said he paid protection money to criminal gangs. He also built up his own security unit of former KGB agents and Red Army soldiers, as well as paying the local police for protection. A source [...]

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The reason to watch this is that the desire for political liberalization doesn’t strike most populations until the per capita income gets high enough: in the $5-10K range. ….. China is not run by a dictator, it’s more of a junta: a small collection of men who collude politically. Microeconomics teaches us that collusive arrangements [...]

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Money from the employees’ fund at the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) is alleged to have been used to send the son of a police chief in Kazakhstan, where the company mines for iron ore, to college 6,000 miles away in the United States. It is claimed money was removed from ENRC’s subsidiary SSGPO to [...]

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The Argentine government has been tightening the noose on Repsol over recent months, withdrawing operating licences and accusing the company of failure to invest adequately in its Argentine operations. So, in order to increase foreign investment they’ve decided to confiscate a foreign investment. That’s going to work well isn’t it? A century ago Argentina was [...]

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the nationalisation of energy companies (as energy sources are public goods) No they ain’t. They are both rivalrous and excludable so they just ain’t public goods.

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Renounce European Court, Britain urged Britain should turn its back on the European Court of Human Rights because its rulings on the extradition of terrorist suspects risk undermining the special relationship, a former US ambassador said. For I do think we should withdraw from the Council of Europe (seriously, who thinks it is a good [...]

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A group of British and American banks have been threatened with legal action by the Argentine government for advising and writing research reports about companies involved in the Falkland Islands’ £1.6bn oil industry. The full letter in translation is here. The essence of their claim is that a company which writes a research note on [...]

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I see they’re still trotting out the suicide nonsense: Wang Ling was 25 years old when she ended her life on 7 January 2011 by jumping from her brother’s high-rise flat, days after being dismissed from her job as an engineer at Foxconn’s Longhua factory. An employee of over six years’ standing, she had recently [...]

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I came across the intersection of some regular topics of yours, namely China, beer and pedantry i thought i would drop you a line. Do with what you will. After becoming inexplicably (ok drunkenly) interested in importing some crocodile leather chairs I clicked through from Ali Baba to these guys’ website . XINQING FURNITURE manufacture [...]

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The silent film The Artist, a tribute to the golden age of Hollywood which has been described as the most joyful film of the year, took three of the five big awards at this year’s Oscars including Best Actor for Jean Dujardin. Don’t let anyone speak French in it.

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So, back from a day trip to Usti nad Labem to look at a factory (“Yes, that’s a factory OK, I’ve seen one before you know!”) and I’m at the train station waiting for the Hamburg Express. Which is going to arrive/leave from platorm 3. So I am on platform 3. The station has 6 [...]

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The Prime Minister added: “In the spirit of this healthy competition with France… If France goes for a financial transactions tax, then the door will be open and we will be able to welcome many French banks to the United Kingdom and we’ll expand our economy that way.” “If France wants to be so mindbogglingly [...]

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Two bombs planted by Irish Republican Army dissidents detonated on Thursday night in the Northern Ireland city of Londonderry, but no injuries were reported as police quickly evacuated the area following phoned warnings. This is pretty much the way it’s been going for a century now. One group starts to fight for that United Ireland [...]

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Newt Gingrich has pledged that on his first day as president he will set up a constitutional showdown by ordering the military to defy a supreme court ruling extending some legal rights to foreign terrorism suspects and captured enemy combatants in US custody. The Republican contender told a forum of anti-abortion activists ahead of South [...]

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