Tim Worstall

North Cyprus doesn’t have a banking problem. The rest of Cyprus has a very large banking problem. North Cyprus isn’t in the euro. The rest of Cyprus is in the euro. And the EU. Sounds like we’ve found our natural experiment to judge the effect of being in the EU/euro. It’s not an experiment that [...]

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So, I’ve hired the production engineers. We’ve a neat and simple plan from here to production then. Part of which is that we need a few hundred kg of rock to test the precise tolerances of that production (for those with a technical bent, we want to test the liberation point). Excellent, off you go [...]

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What a clever idea this is: Ministers have been urged to consider banning the import of woodchip made from ash as part of measures to prevent the spread of ash dieback disease. Given that the disease is now endemic not really going to achieve much. Except of course accelerating the day when the lights go [...]

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Household energy bills will be about £600 higher per year by the end of the decade if the UK relies increasingly on gas, the government’s climate advisers warned on Thursday. But the Committee on Climate Change found that bills would only be £100 higher than today’s average dual fuel bill of about £1,300, if the [...]

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After you strip out the royalties, the interest to the US top company, Starbucks still doesn’t make a profit in the UK. They’ve not been doing any tax dodging at all.

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In the last decade and a half China, which has grown at an annual average of 10%, has increased its spending on research and development by 170%. Hmm. Of course, we need both general stimulus spending – in areas such as healthcare, education and infrastructure – and directed investment in strategic new technologies and sectors. [...]

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Following on here I am advised that the House of Lords agrees with Ritchie so there. Richard Murphy ‏@RichardJMurphy @worstall Shame you ignore the fact that the House of Lords agree with me. But why let facts get in the way of diatribe? This is what Ritchie says the House of Lords said: Tax avoidance [...]

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At the ASI. Inequality hasn’t risen quite as much in the US as many think.

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The aim is to rubbish the poverty measure accepted by all international organisations and to call for new measures that ignore inequality. All of those international organisations use a definition of poverty which is about inequality, not poverty. So if you wish to insist, as is perfectly reasonable even if you don’t happen to agree, [...]

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Splutter: We could give it back to the Turks. Supporting Greek independence was always a mistake. Seems better than the last two solutions we tried – allowing some Germans to run it. Plus they had a third go in the 1940s. Never seems to work out well. We can tell the Turks we will throw [...]

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He’s done a long interview. Here. Anyone who wants to teach economics or accountancy these days has to subscribe to neoliberal economic thinking. Blatantly untrue. Prem Sikka is a Prof of Accounting and he’s certainly not a neo-liberal. George Irvine most certainly ain’t a neo-liberal and he’s a Prof of Economics. Murph might not have [...]

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Compare and contrast. Come along now mighty national investigative organ, do try to keep up.

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see more Very Demotivational

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Here in Freiberg is the Mormon Temple for, umm, not quite sure, Germany? Eastern Europe? Certainly a large missionary centre for them. I’ve seen gaggles of them on the streets: yet I’m accosted by them less than I have been in either the UK or Portugal. Hmm, “accosted” might be a tad harsh. Anwyay, looks [...]

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BERKELEY – Neville Chamberlain is remembered today as the British prime minister who, as an avatar of appeasement of Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s, helped to usher Europe into World War II. But, earlier in that fateful decade, relatively soon after the start of the Great Depression, the British economy was rapidly returning to [...]

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Start with taxing all incomes at the same rate – a worker on an average £26,000 is taxed £5,981, but someone earning the same in dividends pays zero. Those on the 50% tax band only pay 36% on their dividends. Bleedin’ ‘ell Polly! Don’t you know that (in effect) basic rate income tax is collected [...]

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Here. To say that that is the mistake that Marx made is a mistake: for he made more than one. Got quite a bit right too, obviously. The bits he cribbed off Smith are just fine for example.

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Trying my hand at Seeking Alpha. A possible answer to what happened to the MF Global money

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Figures show that the gender pay gap has dramatically narrowed, leaving young women marginally ahead of their male counterparts for the first time. Female workers aged between 22 and 29 earn just over £10 per hour on average, while men in the same age bracket are paid just under £10, the study found. Given that [...]

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An art project (I think this is what it is called? Performance art? Inclusive art? Participatory art?) being done by a beloved cousin. Here. If any of my readers who actually know about such artistic things (clearly, the familial art genes did not acumulate in me) would care to track down the project in London [...]

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