Tim Worstall

Obama has made some mistakes, to be sure, but at least he ended the wars and has the government on a sound financial footing.

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Full of wonders it is: There currently exists a loophole whereby businesses can offset this year’s profits against last year’s losses. This should stay for SMEs as they struggle through these difficult times, but the government have craftily neglected to tell us that the banks who returned to profit this year are exempt from paying [...]

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‘Such essays cannot await the permanence of the book. They do not belong in the learned journal. They resist packaging in periodicals.’ Ivan Illich D’ye think they were just a tad embarassed to put the “Lenin” in there?

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Anthony Giddens was paid to promote Ghaddafi. The broadcaster was among a number of influential people in the west recruited by the US based Monitor Group to help enhance the profile of Libya between 2006 and 2009 when Muammar Gaddafi was attempting to improve international relations. In addition to Sir David Frost, documents released by [...]

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Yet, if the crisis of 2007-08 taught us one thing, it’s that we need a more diverse banking system for stability, resilience and to work for people. That means more mutuals, co-ops and innovative, smaller local banks, not more risk-takers wanting to gamble unaccountably with other people’s money. Jeebus Simms! Innovation equals risk taking! ‘Coz, [...]

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Compass, that lefty campaigning organisation that charges a subscription fee so that Neal Lawson can earn a hefty wedge, is asking people what is their definition of the Good Society. Here. And seeing as it’s friday, that afternoon when we’re all looking for something to do to while away the hours until the pub, why [...]

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This new report of theirs fails I’m afraid. Growing a Better Future. Fails on two levels. The first will seem a little technical but it’s summed up here: It should be emphasized that the model does not capture potential increases in agricultural productivity that are likely to result from increased research and development efforts incentivized [...]

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Ooooh, yes, we need a radical reform of banking. So, what should that radical reform be? The truth is, we won’t get a banking system that is socially and economically useful until we harness public anger at what banks have done – and continue to do – with a determined political class that asks banks [...]

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This looks like an absolutely excellent idea: Campaign group Compass is holding its annual conference at the Institute of Education in London on 25th June. The Robin Cook Memorial Conference will bring together over 1000 centre-left activists, campaigners and thinkers, for discussion and debate. The event will feature over 90 speakers including: Jon Cruddas MP; [...]

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From their new report: Top pay in the financial sector alone accounts for 30% of the top 0.1% of the income distribution scale and this pay has attracted the most public attention. Well, yes, it would, wouldn’t it? When the country’s playing host to the very tippy toppy part of a mobile, highly competitive and [...]

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And fails: what did you expect? “There are businesses and households all round the country who borrow either to invest or because they are borrowing for a mortgage. What’s important, and anyone who’s got a mortgage will tell you this, is not the stock of the debt it’s your ability to pay it back. “And [...]

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Look, this comes from Lester Brown so there’s obviously going to be something wrong with it. However, this is what they say: The study, published in the journal Science, examined how rising temperatures affected the annual crop yields of all major producer nations between 1980 and 2008. Computer models were used to show how much [...]

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So there you are – the Thatcher revolution: Longer hours, lower productivity Jeepers. They reach this conclusion by looking at average working hours for full time workers, then comparing that with productivity per hour of people in work. Ah, no, you see, you’re not supposed to do it like that. You can look at productivity [...]

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….but like other too-good-to-be-true patent remedies, the idea that tax cuts for business stimulate investment and growth just won’t die. Sure, the reason it won’t die is because it is true. From the OECD: The results of the analysis suggest that income taxes are generally associated with lower economic growth than taxes on consumption and [...]

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Apparently not: As the chart below shows, in his short tenure as Prime Minister, David Cameron has already created 117 new Lords. Indeed, David Cameron is creating peers at a rate ten times faster than his predecessor, Gordon Brown, and three times faster than Tony Blair. Well Will, let’s have a look at what the report [...]

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Yes, apparently, the Labour Party, the historic party of the organised working class, frequent party of government, creator of the welfare state, and the outright poll leader du jour, needs the ordure, the fascist, semi-fascist and pre-fascist residues, the most outright reactionary, thuggish and ignorant shit in the country. Without appeasing the scum, it seems, [...]

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Forty years of systematic de-regulation has inflated the banking sector’s “total balance sheet to more than four times (the UK’s) annual GDP”, according to the commission. Simultaneously, and because of the finance sector’s unrestrained usury, greed and speculation, Britain’s productive, manufacturing and agricultural sectors have systematically shrunk as a share of GDP. I don’t know [...]

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Tim Lang: They say that simple attempts to change people’s behaviour ignore the complex range of factors that have led to Britain’s obesity rate rising, from the low price of fatty and sugary food to its availability on every street corner. Their complaint is that by using “Nudge” style policies, the Government isn’t doing enough. [...]

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Howard Reed’s just released a report claiming that remutualising Northern Rock is going to be just great for everyone. Kittens will happily gambol sort of stuff. We’re going to hear a great deal about this as Our Chuka tries to convince us all that giving it away rather than selling it is just dandy. We’ll [...]

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The solution to all our problems: But in the medium to long term it means a complete recentering of the economy towards a more sustainable ecology and a more efficient and low impact mode of production, in which the pursuit of growth in order to simply accumulate more capital is abolished. This is also known [...]

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