Anorak

Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall - Author Archive

Why The NHS Is So Cheap

I KNOW, we don’t think of it as cheap when we look at the £100 billion a year and rising in taxes that we have to pay to fund it. … (read more)

Posted: 26th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comments (3)


George Osborne doesn’t pay tippy toppy rate tax

GEORGE Osborne doesn’t pay the top rate of tax. Sounds about right.

His salary puts him close to it, yes. And then on top he’s got rental income plus possible dividends from … (read more)

Posted: 23rd, March 2012 | In: Money | Comments (2)


Smoking does not cost the NHS money: nor does obesity

SMOKING does not cost the NHS money: nor does obesity. Nor even does booze. So we can tell the health wowsers to bugger off the next time they use that argument … (read more)

Posted: 22nd, March 2012 | In: Money | Comment


This Budget Day, let us remember, we must kill all the bureaucrats

OUR tale for the day comes from New York City, but the same basic principle applies. Budget Day is when the political class tell us how much of our money … (read more)

Posted: 21st, March 2012 | In: Money | Comment


New iPad not greeted by rioting mobs – is this the start of the end of apple?

SOMETHING really rather strange has happened over at Apple. They’ve released a new product and yet we have no reports of stampeding crowds or rioting mobs screaming into the stores … (read more)

Posted: 16th, March 2012 | In: Technology | Comment


Why you can’t have free trade and price fixing – its kills NHS patients

THERE’S a good piece here about the life and business of a parallel drug importer. Nice Austrian lad getting rich by buying drugs in cheap places (yes, we’re talking about … (read more)

Posted: 15th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comments (2)


The Banker resigning from Goldman Sachs because they’re sharp bastards

THE New York Times today has a piece from a Goldman Sachs senior banking types who is resigning because all the people he works with are complete bastards. (More here.)

This … (read more)

Posted: 14th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comments (2)


Why the basket case iPad is now mainstream

IPADS… Me, personally, I think they’re a waste of space and money but obviously that’s just me. I mean, OK,  something without a keyboard is useless, isn’t it, but apparently … (read more)

Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comments (17)


Is anything more appallingly stupid than this new buy guarantee housing plan?

APOLOGIES, but it really does seem that we’re being ruled by entire cretins. The current government has decided to repeat all of the damn fool mistakes that the Americans made … (read more)

Posted: 12th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comments (6)


Now Ryanair sues the Commission

IT’S usually the other way around, that it’s the Coimission suing Ryanair.

Mr O’Leary has made an official complaint to the independent watchdog that oversees the EC’s spending.

The complaint comes after … (read more)

Posted: 9th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comment


Cutting Benefits Works!

YES, yes, we know, they’re really only Tory Bastards intent on grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt. However, this process of grindingthefacesofthepoorintothedirtbycuttingbenefits does in fact work.

It reduces … (read more)

Posted: 8th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comments (3)


George Monbiot gets Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan wrong

GEORGE Monbiot goes all over Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan this morning:
It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is … (read more)

Posted: 6th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comment


Will people please stop blaming Greece on the Neoliberals?!?

AS a fully paid up neoliberal myself it does irritate immensely when we get blamed for things that are absolutely none of our fault. It’s just fine to blame us … (read more)

Posted: 5th, March 2012 | In: Money | Comment


There’s Ignorance about economics and then there’s Zoe Williams in The Guardian

TO be fair to Zoe Williams in The Guardian this morning she does say that she doesn’t know very much about economics. But then she comes out with this statement:
Real … (read more)

Posted: 1st, March 2012 | In: Money | Comment


Apple is Not worth more than Poland!

APPLE is worth more than Poland?! Gaaah. This is the sort of thing that annoys. Nonsense, rubbish, ignorance…
Following an email announcing the iPad 3 launch, Apple’s share value hit an … (read more)

Posted: 29th, February 2012 | In: Money | Comments (16)


The Socialist Workers’ Party and workfare slavery beats the mighty beasts

THE Socialist Workers’ Party has a view on workfare slavery. It’s all been rather amusing this revolt against the government’s workfare plans.

The idea was, as you will recall, that those who … (read more)

Posted: 28th, February 2012 | In: Money | Comments (2)


The complete irrelevance of buying Fairtrade

WE’VE got the usual breathless report on how massively, hugely, Fairtrade sales are growing in The Guardian:
Sales of fairly traded products have bucked the trend of decline in the UK … (read more)

Posted: 27th, February 2012 | In: The Consumer | Comment


It’s not too late to send the Olympics to Paris is it? The four ceremony rip-off

IS it too late to send the Olympics to Paris:
London 2012 closing ceremony that organisers have promised will be a celebration of British music “from Adele to Elgar”.

In contrast to … (read more)

Posted: 24th, February 2012 | In: Sports | Comment


Don’t Sweat the Greek CDS

NOW that we can see what the Greek bond deal looks like we can now see that the Greek CDS contracts will almost certainly be triggered. These are those toxic … (read more)

Posted: 23rd, February 2012 | In: Money | Comment


Barnardo’s doesn’t get the point at all

THIS is a terribly amusing piece of nonsense from Barnardo’s: you know, the charity that gave up actually caring for downtrodden children to campaign for, umm, whatever it is this … (read more)

Posted: 21st, February 2012 | In: Money | Comment (1)


So what’s going to happen to Chinese manufacturing? There’s been a run on peasants

I KNOW, I know, all those jobs we packed up in boxes and shipped off to China. The Ruin of the North, as bad as anything Willie the Conq did … (read more)

Posted: 20th, February 2012 | In: Money | Comment (1)


Why Government costs so damn much

WHY does the Government cost so damn much? There’s no doubt about it, we’ve got to actually have government of some kind. 65 million people on one island in the … (read more)

Posted: 17th, February 2012 | In: Money | Comment


Apple’s Chinese factories: they’re grrreeat!

APPLE’S Chinese factors are great. Really. You’d really have to have a heart of stone not to laugh over this. Various idiot and weepy lefty types over in the US … (read more)

Posted: 16th, February 2012 | In: Technology | Comment


News just in: young people are stupid and into socialism

NEWS just in – young popels are stupid. Or if you prefer, young people are ignorant, unwise if we have to be really polite about it.
According to a new study … (read more)

Posted: 14th, February 2012 | In: Money | Comments (2)


An apple a day gives you diabetes – ban fructose before we all die

THE  latest from the foods idiots is that we’ve an epidemic of diseases being caused by our consumption of sugar. And not just any kind of sugar, no, it’s a … (read more)

Posted: 14th, February 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (4)