Tim Worstall

@DanNeidle Sweden, no inheritance, gift, wealth taxes. Capital gains at 30%, not income tax rates. OK, and?

a fun way to look at it:

@maxwell_marlow Why would sellers want you to know that?

One of the great information asymmetries in modern Britain is housing transactions. You don’t know how much others have bid! If that can be fixed, I’m sure transactions would be much more efficient.

@willgoodbin So you agree that the general agreement among economists - stick on a carbon tax and let the market sort it out - should be more generally reported then?

@worstall Its called reporting the news, Tim. It's in the public interest for the climate crisis to be properly explained.

"Not enough propaganda!" says propagandist.

@Henry_Keating87 @jbhearn Certainly on Mainland Greece they found that when burnt land didn't gain automatic planning permission there were fewer fires.....

@worstall @jbhearn In crete land with vegetation like olives or alike is protected … land that has been burnt to a crisp isn’t… amazing when a new hotel needs land how quick a fire pops up out there!

The BBC has just given a long description of wild fires in the U.K. and then went on to explain the cause of heatwaves. There was no attempt to explain the cause of wildfires. Can someone help the BBC to link wild fires to their cause?

@speakoutsister I'd suggest a little more observation of teenage boys. It certainly starts out as being to genitals and chromosomes, to a sex. It doesn't even always happen that the change to a person occurs.....

Stop saying "same sex attraction'". No one is attracted to a sex. They are attracted to people, who may be of a particular sex..Not genitals and chromosomes.

@jonburkeUK This is not true: "Private companies have drained 93% of U.K North Sea oil and gas." We've been through this before. 93% of currently defined reserves, sure. But not of deposits.

Tom is completely wrong about U.K North Sea oil and gas. These are the facts: 🛢️ Only a tiny proportion of U.K and Norway oil & gas fields overlap. 🛢️ Private companies have drained 93% of U.K North Sea oil and gas. 🛢️ U.K North Sea oil and gas production peaked 27 years ago.

@moving_charlie "Allo!" says the man who has been shrieking for 25 years now that the personal allowance must be - at least, at the very least! - the full year, full time minimum wage. £25k or so. Anything less is a vileness.

The intelligent cry would be "cut taxes for working people". This would solve inequality faster than anything. Taxing the rich, at best, solves nothing, and at worst drives investment away, making conditions even worse for working people. Cut taxes. Stop wasteful government.

@pmarca C Northcote Parkinson wrote the book that defines our modern civilisation. Started out as humorous essays - what a lot of base truth there is in a good joke, eh?

Managerialism in its final form.

@mikecosgrove45 Guilty!

@worstall Convicted traffic offender?

I approve of this. Given that absolutely everyone says "Convicted criminal George Cottrell", even the BBC, then turn and turn about, it should be "Convicted fraudster Louise Haigh". Even the BBC. Let us be even handed about such things. Make it so. All references, by everyone, should now include "convicted fraudster Louise Haigh". Ah, see, the Telegraph is already using the new stylebook. telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/1…

@DanNeidle @anandcheam Negative real interest rates turn to positive real interest rates. Land/house prices rise then decline. Actual economists (I am not one either) would suggest that this is predictable. In fact, many did predict it. Even, that was the point of doing it all.

@anandcheam And, whilst I'm not an economist, my layperson's view is that a gentle decline in real-terms Central London property prices is an unalloyed good thing.

London as Global financial hub is dying. As per some analysts, prices fell as much as Mayfair down 57% Kensington down 54% Westminster  down 24% Belgravia down 18% Prime central Londond prices have rewound 13 years back to 2013 prices! This is in terms of Pound, in terms of USD, it is down further 20 pc. Because of tax policies, it may become a place where super rich only stay during summers, if that. It took 2-3 centuries of colonial rule for London to become global financial hub, letting it die will be the worst act of self harm. We do not have any coherent plan what we will replace it with. All well and good to say, let’s get back to manufacturing, but where are the numbers? Without numbers, it’s pure wishful thinking. Reckless. @ChrisGiles_ @DanNeidle @andyburnham

Also, vaccines work on those who don't already have it. A reasonable guess would be there are very few 45 year old gay men engaging in high risk activitiy who do not already have HPV.

Nope, they're not. They are not refused at all. £300 spent at Boots would get it done. That the NHS does not provide it for free to grown adults is not the same as stating grown men are denied it.

@DanielPriestley "Discovered" I'm not sure about. "Noted and wrote down" I'll agree with.

About 250 years ago a quirky moral philosopher named Adam Smith discovered a chain of logic whereby the selfish desires of man would result in widespread prosperity. It’s one of the greatest discoveries of all time. Here’s how it goes… 1.Selfish desire seeks wealth, status, security. No virtue required. This is the raw material, as unpromising as it sounds. 2. In a market with property rights, you can’t take, you must trade. Theft and fraud are policed, so the only legal route to someone else’s money is offering them something they want more. Self-interest is channelled through voluntary exchange. This is the crucial valve: the baker serves your bread not from benevolence, but because it’s how he gets paid. 3.Every voluntary trade creates value for both sides. Nobody trades unless they prefer what they’re getting to what they’re giving. So each transaction is positive-sum by construction. Wealth isn’t moved; it’s made. 4.Competition forces the selfish to serve better. You’re not the only one chasing that customer’s money. To win, you must offer more value, lower prices, or something new. Greed disciplined by rivalry becomes, functionally, service. The customer becomes the boss of every capitalist. 5.Prices emerge as signals of what people actually want. Millions of trades compress dispersed knowledge - scarcity, preference, urgency - into a single number. No planner needed. High prices shout “make more of this” and falling prices say “stop making this.” The cure for high prices IS high prices. 6.Profit directs capital toward unmet needs. Profit is the reward for spotting something people want but can’t get, and losses are the punishment for guessing wrong. Capital flows automatically toward solving problems and away from waste - a self-correcting search algorithm running on selfishness. The profit motive pulls the greedy person towards genuine service and efficiency. 7.The pursuit of advantage drives innovation. The only durable way to out-earn competitors is to do something new - create a better product, a cheaper process. Each entrepreneur trying to get rich makes the previous solution obsolete and the average person’s life better. 8.Specialisation and scale compound productivity. Competition pushes everyone toward what they do best; trade lets them exchange it. Output per person rises. 9.Rising productivity spreads as falling prices and rising wages. Competition doesn’t let producers keep the gains forever - they’re competed away to consumers. The luxuries of one generation (cars, flights, antibiotics, computing) become the staples of the next. The rich get richer, but the poor get richer too. 10. Prosperity becomes self-reinforcing and civilising. Wealth funds education, health, science, and even the welfare state that redistributes it. Commerce rewards trust, reliability, and cooperation with strangers (doux commerce). A system built on self-interest ends up producing the most extensive cooperation network in human history: millions of strangers coordinating to put breakfast on your table. The hockey stick after 1800: from ~$3/day for all of human history to a 30-fold rise in living standards wherever this system took hold is pure magic.

@SamRo Rio, eh? Brazilian babes *and* cheap tabs and booze? I already speak some Portuguese so.....

Deutsche Bank has an "Oasis" index, which is the price of 5 beers and 2 packs of cigarettes

@CharlotteCGill Mr. Darwin would like a little word. Teenage girls being attractive is how the species is built.

Are you from the most dangerous country on earth? Do you find teenage girls attractive? Then please, move to Britain!!! (Every government since Blair was elected)

@garyseconomics This is such unmitigated toss. Capital gains were wholly, entirely, untaxed until 1965. There were high income taxes, sure. But wealth, riches, weren't taxed. It's even possible to connect that to high growth rates.....

The Golden Age of Capitalism happened when tax rates were extremely high on the very rich. It's no coincidence.

This Isn't The Way It Works Honey, It Isn't, by @worstall open.substack.com/pub/timworstal… Wholly misunderstanding a market economy. Everyone except the government gets to waste their money as they wish.

@pmarca More jobs, fewer jobs, depends upon elasticity of demand. Something we don't in fact know a priori. We have to do it to find out. Does making transport (or taxis, etc) cheaper increase demand so much there are more jobs, or does it not? We dunno. So, find out by doing.

Overheard in Silicon Valley: “We must have no fewer gig economy jobs, because that would be oppressive! But also no more gig economy jobs, because that would be exploitative!”