Tim Worstall

China continually surprises: it's ever so slightly odd to find yourself outflanked on the free market, capitalist, side by the remnants of a communist state. But that's what has just happened in China and it gives us the example of what we should do with the BBC. Sell it.

For that is exactly what the Chinese are doing, selling off chunks of the State broadcasters:

I know, I know, we're told that stock markets are short termist in outlook, obsessed only with the next quarter's results. This is an appalling indictement of neoliberal capitalism and must be stopped immediately by putting politicians who only look to the next election result in charge.

I realise that this next little point is not proof of anything, nor an entirely solid refutation of the above, but I do think it indicative:

Via The Guardian I find a paper doing the usual bleating about how it's simply just terrible that Apple works the way it does, gets all that grubby manufacturing work done in China. True, this paper is a little more sophisticated than the usual we're all exploiting the Chinee stuff. But then again they do use "Foucaldian" and not as a term of derision so they're not that good.

However, in there I found one quite remarkable set of numbers. So I shall remark.

This is just glorious from Red Ken:

Livingstone is confident he can offer cheaper energy to Londoners by exploiting a Transport for London contract which allows it to buy energy at "half the price" of a domestic consumer.

"So we will be just buying more energy and then selling it on at a much cheaper rate than the energy companies do it," he said.

We face something of a dilemma here. For it's certainly true that we need government but it's also true that we need those doing the governing to understand the governing they're doing. And we have evidence that those we have at present do not.

Yes, it's wrapped up in unlovely jargon but this is what we exist to do: shift the Overton Window. Chris Dillow:

As we all know inequality in the UK is higher than it is in almost every other European country. We must know this because people have been shouting this point at us from the pages of The Guardian (and other points left) for more than a generation now. However, there's a really rather good reason to think that it's not quite as true as they would have us think. This table from the Spectator is the beginning of the story:

I've never been very taken with the arguments in favour of subsidising various forms of renewable energy. I've qlways far preferred the idea that if we really do have an externality in the form of CO2 emissions then the answer is a Pigou Tax on that externality and that will sort everything out over time. However, given the joy with which governments like to pick losers that wasn't an argument that was really going to work.

So, knowing that drugs are bad for human beings is not a compelling reason for advocating their prohibition. Actually, the prohibition paradigm that inspires mainstream global drug policy today is based on a false premise: that the global drug markets can be eradicated. We would not believe such a statement if it were applied to alcoholism or tobacco addiction, but somehow we assume it's right in the case of drugs. Why?

I was slightly puzzled to see this piece stating that the Club of Rome's predictions about the Limits to Growth have been updated. Further, guess what, civilisation is still going to fall over around 2030. For, you see, we're going to run out of everything just like they said and billions will die, empires tumble into the sea and Gaia will be displeased.