Tim Worstall

If so, which on this list will sue?

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Quite a corker. Given the monstering he’s obviously getting from the libel lawyers a little bit of advice. Instead of accusing people of doing something illegal just insult them. Tell em’ to fuck off, call them cunts. For there’s no law against insulting people so. Not yet at least.

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Here. The cash paid out in NHS negligence claims has risen since the Tories took power. This must be because the Tories are evil bastards gutting the NHS. The graph above shows the annual grand total in whole pounds of payments by the the NHS in respect to negligence claims made against it. As you [...]

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In 30 years time matey, along with all other Cabinet papers.

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The graph above shows the percentage of Corporation Tax raised as a proportion of GDP by Ken Clarke in 1996-7 & George Osborne in 2012-3. No laddie. The figures are here. You appear to be using corporation tax as a percentage of total tax take, not corporation tax as a percentage of GDP. Twat.  

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Context related advertising. You know, that thing that funds the entire internet?

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Therefore no one should have a choice of which surgeon replaces their hip. I have to admit that this logic doesn’t exactly stun with its shiny convincingness. But it is the argument that he’s using.

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I am not informed enough to suggest

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The graph above shows the productivity of coal since 1980. It is measured by calculating the output of each worker in thousands of pounds. In the 1980s, it was much more labour intensive than it is today and each worker produced just £10,000 worth of coal a year. But today, especially with modern excavation techniques, [...]

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Ironically, the UK imports large amounts of fuel as well. The seeming stupidity of exporting large amounts of fuel while at the same time importing it will make little sense to most. If large numbers of people are doing somthing seemingly stupid it’s worth evaluating your own prejudices about stupidity. There is actually a good [...]

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The above graph shows the farm-gate price of 1 litre of milk. It is now at an all time high since records began in 1970. Facepalm. He’s not adjusted for inflation. 1971 price of milk at farm gate was 4.16p. Adjust by retail price index and this is now 44p. Adjust by average earnings and it’s 75p [...]

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 We are taught by Cameron to regard small businesses as the engine room of entrepreneurial spirit in the UK. We are led to believe that their inventions, wealth creation and profits lead to employment and growth. But this is the stuff of fantasy. Three quarters of the 4.5million businesses in the UK employ no one.  Their wealth [...]

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There are currently 2.5 million people unemployed. The government will, by logic, need to create 2.5m jobs to eradicate this by 2015. I’d not actually realised that only governments can create jobs.

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Clearly the state needs to withdraw tax relief from the banking sector. Allowing them to offset the previous years losses, or allowing them to offset income tax payments against corporation tax liabilities means that they already receive relief. You get to offset income tax payments against corporation tax liabilities? You do? Wowee. That’s a gap [...]

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I have spoken before how oil prices have climbed 400% in the last ten years for UK customers. But I am struck by how little coal prices have increased. You’re using the wrong numbers laddie. We in the UK don’t in fact use oil to generate electricity. Well, a tiny bit, the very last tippy [...]

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This is absolutely friggin bonkers. Why should we pay more than £20bn a year in Housing Benefit payments when you could build more than 150,000 affordable homes for that price. Because there are 4.9 million people who get housing benefit. At June 2011: The total number of people receiving Housing Benefit was 4.90 million Thus [...]

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VAT accounts for 35% of the income of those in the bottom fifth of society but it accounts for 15% of the income of those in the top fifth of society. Eh? Eoin, this simply cannot be true. Imagine that everything, but everything, carried VAT at 20%. Income of one of those bottom fifth is [...]

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I think I’d ask Eoin to stop blogging you know. Here’s the latest. I have chosen to look at the profit of 8 major UK corporations. In the chart above I focus on HSBC, Vodafone and Barclays. These companies provide safe storage for your money, they loan you credit or in the case of Vodafone [...]

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Our Eoin: The graph above shows, in the last ten years, the amount of Corporation Tax paid by the profiteer as a proportion of the amount of tax paid by the worker.  On this occasion I exclude VAT & NICs as both profiteer and worker pay them. Is it right that the worker pays more [...]

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