Tim Worstall

@joehas 25% of Spaniards have access to a second home (from Eurostat). That is, folk aren't, in fact, living in a flat.

Words by Harry Law Why Spain has the world’s greatest cities 14th May 2026 The traditional European apartment city has declined almost everywhere. There is one big exception. "Spanish cities are unusual. They are much denser, tighter, and more deliberate than other European cities, let alone North American ones. They reject picket fence for apartment block and choose balcony over front lawn. Two thirds of Spaniards live in flats, against 41 percent of Poles, 36 percent of the French, and just 10 percent of the Irish. Of the remaining third, most live in terraced rowhouses. In Spain’s cities, over four fifths of people live in an apartment. At the edge of Madrid or Valencia, dense mid-rise blocks stand beside open countryside without sprawl in between, something that has almost never happened in an English-speaking country, and that has been rare in France or Germany for a century. You’ve likely felt the result if you’ve ever been to a Spanish city. Spain’s settlements have some of Europe’s lowest per capita transport emissions, in part because about 70 percent of trips in Madrid and Barcelona are made on foot, tram, or metro. Almost every neighborhood is mixed use; almost all urban Spaniards live in the ‘fifteen-minute cities’ that seem like remote ideals in most affluent societies. Add nationwide life expectancy higher than almost anywhere else in the EU, and you can make out an urban form that keeps carbon, commute times, and hypertension in check without asking citizens to sacrifice home ownership.

@buildbikepaths @Victoria_Spratt That is indeed the interesting question.....

@Victoria_Spratt Economically productive -- but are they producing more than the massive subsidy they are receiving through cheap rents?

A tweet by a prominent “YIMBY” argues against having social housing in some London boroughs because the homes could be lived in by more “economically productive” people… FYI 41 per cent of lead tenants in social housing are in work Others are carers or retired (and there are some who are out of work) It is not correct to say social housing tenants are economically unproductive - many do vital jobs which the Capital couldn’t function without

Good grief this is stupid. As the Thinking Man's Marxist, @CJFDillow has long pointed out, the reason for CB independence is to prevent coordination. The CB is there to kill the baleful effects of govt stupidity. Sorry, policy. They're *meant* to be in opposition to each other

Here's a good description of the problem then. Torsten seems to think that the NHS and BBC are the things that make us proud of our country. Rather than what they are, not very good ways to solve specific problems. He claims we're proud of Lanyards....

@CeeElexF @RobertJenrick Excellent, so, that's settled then. Now, how can I afford to live in London? And will the wife agree?

@worstall @RobertJenrick I second Worstall for chief economic advisor.

I am looking to hire a chief economic advisor. As Reform prepare for government we are looking to expand our growing team of policy advisors. I’m after an exceptionally talented individual with a strong grounding in macro economics. If you’re passionate about getting growth again in the economy, and have ideas to shake up our stale economic debate, this role is for you. We have a once in a generation opportunity to build a new economic model that transforms this country for the better. If you have the energy and determination to do that with us, this role is for you. The job will involve: -policy development -modelling -in-depth research No experience in Westminster is required. Business experience is preferable. The pay is highly competitive, but variable depending on the candidate. Please email your CV and a cover letter to jenrickr@parliament.uk Applications close on the 29th May but will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

@denisyurchak Ed Prescott (also, Becker, Mirrlees, in part) gained his Nobel for working on this. It's the "tax wedge". Supply of such labour is depressed by how much tax must be paid on the labour income.

I can’t pinpoint it, but there is something very wrong with the economy of Western Europe It’s incredibly hard to hire anybody to do work here and you end up doing most things yourself You are moving apartments - you paint walls on your own You need to hang window shades - you buy a drill and install them yourself Same goes for most household chores and tasks Hiring anybody is expensive af compared to salaries here, you need to wait a lot, and also the quality is usually subpar I understand it - the labor should be paid fairly But also most people you meet here are not rich - they barely make ends meet If you earn >€60k yearly, fly more than 2 times a year and travel more than twice a year, you are already living a top tier life Meanwhile in the US, labor is also expensive but people constantly hire each other to do things, spend money and it makes the economy grow and everybody becomes richer, consumes and travels more and as a result the economy does even better In global comparison Europe becomes poorer, but we are trying to reduce consumption, make labor even more expensive artificially, while we should do the opposite: increase consumption and stimulate entrepreneurship

If we've a queue for below market price housing then that's supply and demand working on housing, isn't it. Thus housing is indeed subject to supply and demand. QED. adamsmith.org/blog/our-word-…

Quite. "The international spread of vector-borne disease, such as dengue and chikungunya" Kill the beavers, drain the wetlands. theguardian.com/environment/20… Climate change emergency means we can't go around creating ague ridden swamps.

@mattyglesias It's a guesstimate. One that's sometimes useful. Thinking of it as accurate - or always useful - is an error.

I don’t really believe in purchasing power parities.

@owenjonesjourno @jonburkeUK "Which pushed kids marginally below 60% of median household income" rather than poverty. But then you know that.

@jonburkeUK Do you still support the two child benefit cap which drove hundreds of thousands of kids into poverty

Analysis of Green Party leaflets since ex-Libdem Polanski became leader showed across 40+ pages & 10k words: 🤔 1 mention of ‘climate change’. 🤔 1 mention of ‘nature’. 🤔 0 mentions of ‘net zero’. Stop telling me this guy is an environmentalist and a socialist. He isn’t.

Things metallists want to know. Why is Andy Burnham advertising hafnium oxide? Seems a fairly limited audience TBH. theguardian.com/politics/2026/… And is it zirconium free and thus requiring a nuclear goods licence?

@Robinson_IP @KaiserLoengramm Given rural US cooking at that time that's a good joke. See @asymmetricinfo on what farm cooking was like until recently.

@worstall @KaiserLoengramm French food was seen as sophisticated, but that doesn’t mean everyday British food was bad though. Wasn’t it GIs going home saying “they boil everything and it’s low quality” that led to the bad reputation?

I have quite an odd origin story for being an Anglophile, which is that I first fell in love with British cooking. I had heard so often the stereotype of it being terrible, so I went to an English pub and actually tried the stuff. I found it phenomenal and fitting to my palette. It really is quite great. Bangers and mash, beef Wellington, shepherds pie, meat pies, yes even things like beans on toast are all great, hearty food that is honestly my favorite cuisine. My favorite breakfast of all is a full English, with black pudding and all, alongside a cup of English breakfast tea with a splash of milk. I am actually of the belief that this particular stereotype was actually crafted specifically to facilitate mass replacement migration, to build false pretenses that the native ethnic foods and culture of European peoples were simply inferior to nons, when that could not be further from the truth.

@TNinestein @s8mb Well, yes, but I have a solution there too. If you cannot afford to live in the centre of one of the world's most expensive cities then why are you?

@worstall @s8mb The problem is that, even before Labour restricted it, the income of many council housing tenants in central London meant that they could not afford to buy even with a discount.

Exactly right, and if you allowed these people to sell the rights to these properties, most of them would. It’s a gigantic misallocation of resources, and fixing it is the fastest way to create a lot more housing in central London for economically productive people.

@Fat_Jacques @RobertJenrick @GHWTowler I'm not an economist. Which, you know, is a sort of bar, no?

@worstall @RobertJenrick I’m disappointed he hasn’t beaten a path to your door. Surely @GHWTowler could put a word in? I’d like to live in a country where Timmy did the economics. It would work, and Spud would explode!

No, no, this is pendantry of which I approve. The *correct* use of "decimate" is that we select, at random, one in 10 of Labour MPs. We strip them naked, provide the other 90% with clubs then insist they beat the 10% to death. Works for me. Bryant might enjoy it too much, but

@IGMansfield youtube.com/watch?v=SnBPiq… Either that or the Fiat Figaro ad.

Friday Question: If you could only play one piece of music to an alien, to introduce them to earth, to humanity and to our culture, what piece would you pick?

@jfwduffield @PeterSchof1415 Hmm. "This settles a historical controversy in showing that the Anglo-Saxons intermarried with, rather than replaced, the existing populations." I have a feeling that that answer is different for mitocondrial and Y.....

@PeterSchof1415 wellcome.org/press-release/…

This is obvious nonsense. The genetic evidence shows that the English are about 75% Ancient Briton & 25% Anglo-Saxon.

@ATabarrok @fastworkers6 Well, quite. Much too fast. A quarter of a century ago I supplied Airbus (no, really!) with some weird alloy to make a wing from. Which they did and as far as I know it's still in testing.....

@fastworkers6 If this is how airplane wings are made, we're screwed.

How airplane wings are produced.

@Robinson_IP @KaiserLoengramm Pre-war Wodehouse is full of French chefs.....

@worstall @KaiserLoengramm I thought it was wartime rationing that created the stereotype