Author Archives: Tim Worstall

Posted in Education

We need another number here

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At half of England’s universities, fewer than 5% of students are classified as being from disadvantaged white backgrounds, according to a new report from the National Education Opportunities Network (Neon). This fact is bluntly stated as being a problem in the introduction of the report rather than the conclusion, but it is worth looking beyond these headline figures. What do reports like this really tell us?

Actually, the number tells us nothing at all without one more such number. What’s the portion of the age cohort that is disadvantaged white?

Guess what’s the one number we’re not told?

Posted in Food

Tee Hee

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In response, a backlash against palm oil has developed: last April, the supermarket Iceland pledged that it would cut palm oil from all its own-brand foods by the end of 2018. In December, Norway banned imports for biofuel production.

But by the time awareness of palm oil’s impact had spread, it was so deeply embedded in the consumer economy that it now may be too late to remove it. (Tellingly, Iceland found it impossible to fulfill its 2018 pledge. Instead, the company ended up removing its branding from foods containing palm oil rather than removing palm oil from all of its branded foods.)

What lovely virtue signalling.

Posted in Food

Well, so they should

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NatWest worker told mother all vegans should ‘be punched in the face’

And if you cant reveal your intimate concerns to your own mother than who can you?

NatWest has apologised after a mother was denied a loan during a phone call and after revealing she was a vegan told that they should all “be punched in the face”.

The bank said it had suspended a male call handler, who has worked at one of its southern call centres for between five and six years.

It has admitted the outburst took place and was “wholly inappropriate”.

The mother, who was applying for a loan of £400 for a nutrition course, said she was left shocked and upset when the man went on a rant about vegans during her loan application on January 23.

Ah, That is different. Assume it’s because his bird has stopped giving him steak…..

Posted in The Blogger Himself

What fun

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Ashford University course work:

ECO 204 Week 5 Discussion 2 Public Choice and Rent Seeking (Ashford University)
Public Choice and Rent Seeking [WLOs: 4, 5] [CLOs: 1, 4, 6, 7]. 1st Post Due by Day 3. Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read Tim Worstall’s article, One Benefit of Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains – Public Choice and Rent Seeking Popularised.
Based on the article’s information and Chapter 14 in your textbook, especially Sections 14.1 and 14.2, respond to the following:
• What is the public choice idea or theory?
• Explain what rent seeking is.
• How can you combine the ideas of public choice and rent seeking?

OK, Ashford, but still.

Being used in a syllabus I’ve not assigned myself….

Posted in Ragging on Ritchie

The vehemence of his claim is becoming clear

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In the first they suggest that there is ‘taxpayer’s money’. I question where they place the apostrophe. And they are, anyway, wrong. They do not understand that a government with its own currency and central bank creates money for the country, and not the other way round. That’s a fundamental flaw.

Well, youse see, if government makes it then it can righteously call as much of it back as it wants. It’s the perfect justification for MOAR TAX isn’t it?

Posted in Ragging on Ritchie

Ritchie made a claim about Singapore

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So I thought I would check it:

But Murphy said it would be hard for the UK to replicate the Singapore model. “More than 80% of people live in government-owned housing so it does not need to tax people, it just charges rent.”

I did think that was odd. So I went and asked the Singapore Ministry of Finance:

“The Housing Development Board (HDB) is Singapore’s public housing authority, and its main function is to provide affordable quality housing. HDB does not profit from the provision of public housing. HDB’s public housing programme incurs deficits, which are covered by Government grant, as reflected in HDB’s published financial statements.

In addition, we would like to clarify that vast majority of HDB flats are sold. There are various Government grants to encourage home ownership through public housing. In the Financial Year 2017, the estimated percentage of Singapore residents living in HDB flats is about 80%. Approximately 98% of this group are staying in sold HDB flats. Only about 2% are staying in rental flats.

To answer your question directly: Government funding, from the general budget is provided to HDB to cover its overall deficit.”

That is, Ritchie’s spouting bollocks. Again. Wonder when we’ll see the reverse ferret here. For we’re certainly not going to see an apology, are we?

Posted in Science

There’s me told then

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The mystery of eel migration which has puzzled ecologists since Aristotle is about to be solved, the Environment Agency has said as it announced plans to locate their origin.

The critically endangered species travel some 3,700 miles from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean to spawn – but where exactly remains completely unknown.

Researchers claim the eels spawn and die somewhere in the Sargasso Sea, a vast area off the east coast of the United States and north of the Caribbean.

So yes, I know about the migration, and elvers. Catch them in the rivers you do.

And yet I’ve always vaguely – for I’ve not tried very hard at this – thought that the elvers are coming downstream.

Sigh.

Posted in Feminism

Well, yes, this is a problem

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Martina Navratilova, the nine-times Wimbledon singles champion, has attacked the “insane” practice of allowing male-born transgender athletes to compete against biological women.

Writing for The Sunday Times, Navratilova describes it as “cheating”, saying that hundreds of trans athletes have “achieved honours as women that were beyond their capabilities as men”.

She adds: “It is surely unfair on women who have to compete against people who, biologically, are still men. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her.”

As PJ O’Rourke put it on a slightly different matter there are times when these things are important – making babies – and times when they are not – trading bonds.

Now all we’ve got to do is work out which is which?

So, how stand we all?

Ever the peacemaker, I promised to keep quiet on the subject until I had properly researched it.

Well, I’ve now done that and, if anything, my views have strengthened. To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires. It’s insane and it’s cheating. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair.

Posted in Newspaper Watch

Umm, what?

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By definition, buybacks intend to punish the shareholders who sell and benefit those who don’t, which in RBS’s case involves the taxpayer.

Who is this idiot?

Simon Goodley is a Guardian business reporter

Like the Halal Butchery Reporter for Peppa Pig Weekly then.

Pre-announcement of buybacks shares are at one price. Post- at another. Those who sell into this new price have benefited just as much as those who hold on.

How could it be any other way? If those who sold into buybacks lost out they’d never sell into them, would they?

Posted in Science

Is South Asian right here?

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You all know more than I do:

Marriage between cousins leading to fatal genetic conditions remain a factor in a significant proportion of child deaths in Bradford, according to a safeguarding report.

The report by the West Yorkshire city’s child death overview panel found that consanguineous relationships led to deaths from genetic and congenital abnormalities.

The report, published annually by Bradford children’s safeguarding board, reviewed 69 child deaths. These included 29 that occurred in 2017-18, 33 in 2016-17, and seven that took place in previous years.

More than two-thirds of these deaths, 67%, involved children under the age of one, most of whom died within 28 days.

Children of south Asian heritage were overrepresented in the figures

South Asian? Or Pakistani? Is cousin marriage common among “South Asians” or is it more restricted than that?

Posted in Ragging on Ritchie

Seems like a reasonable demand

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And third, pension funds must have their own version of a living will. If banks need these then so too do pension funds. The possibility of being dependent upon bailout should be seen as the absolute last resort: the obligation of the company to meet its liabilities as they fall due should be paramount, and if it cannot be met then a charge over the equity in issue of the company that has promoted the scheme should be put in place: no shareholder of that concern should be able to extract value until the obligation to the members has been met.

One that’s largely already met tho’ isn’t it?

Posted in The Blogger Himself

Hmm

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The first British saint of modern times is to be created after the Pope gave final approval for the canonisation of Cardinal John Henry Newman.

We’ve got a portrait of him on the wall. An original – no, not the Millais one.

Wonder if it’s time to take that to the Antiques Roadshow?

Posted in Sex

Umm….

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She accepts the relationship was consensual but said: “I was looking for help and he took advantage of me. He abused his power.”

The relationship ended after two months when Lord Ahmed told her he would not leave his wife, she said.

“I genuinely did believe that he had feelings for me, I’m just so stupid… and I believed that he was going to help me,” she said.

In her interview with Newsnight, Ms Zaman said she feels exploited by Lord Ahmed because she was suffering from anxiety and depression.

The woman is 43 years old.

Posted in Feminism

That’s interesting

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Mother is no longer a gender-specific term that applies only to women, lawyers on behalf of the Government have said.

Therefore the motherhood pay gap is no longer a gender pay gap. And so sexism cannot be the cause. Not that it is anyway but now we’ve confirmation