private | Continental Telegraph

Posted on November 9, 2019 by Tim Worstall

How Excellent, The NHS Pays Private Hospitals

This is a weird thing to be complaining about. The National Health Services goes and buys medical services from private sector providers:

The number of NHS patients having surgery in private hospitals has nearly trebled since 2010, sparking accusations that for-profit companies are benefitting from an “enfeebled” health system under the Conservatives.

NHS figures obtained by the Guardian show that it paid for 214,967 people in England to have an operation in a private hospital in 2009-10, Labour’s last year in power.

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Tim Worstall

Clearly, We Should Abolish State Schools

The logical outcome of this finding is that we should abolish state schools altogether and everyone should go to private schools.

For we do, righteously, desire that people earn more. We want the country and the people in it to be richer. So, we find that private schooling leads to higher wages therefore all should have private schooling.

Private school pupils earn 10 per cent more by the time they are 25 even if they do not have better grades than their state educated peers, a study has found.

Posted on July 9, 2019 by Tim Worstall

So, Labour Wants To Steal All The Money From Eton

To be against private schools, well, chacun a son gout as the enemy say. That parents sending their kids to them also already pay the taxes to fund the state education system is one of those things people like to conveniently forget. But, you know, we must eliminate privilege and all that.

So says a part of Labour. But that’s not all they’re saying either:

While Labour’s current policies include adding VAT to school fees, the motion urges Labour to “go further to challenge the elite privilege of private schools and break up the establishment network that dominates the top professions”.

Posted on April 7, 2019 by Tim Worstall

Don’t Let The Government Run Industry – The Chinese Experience

That China has relaxed the governmental grip upon industry in recent decades is true. That China has become very much richer in recent decades is also true. The two are not a coincidence, there’s causality there. However, we hear often enough that it’s the residual control over industry by the government that drives that success. Sure, OK, so the bureaucracy doesn’t specify prices or detailed actions but the general guidance provided by a politically driven bureaucracy explains the outperformance.…

Posted on December 31, 2018 by Tim Worstall

Labour Insists The University Admissions System Is Staffed By The Ignorant

There could be a certain amount of truth to this contention, that the British university system is staffed by the ignorant. We think particularly of Bath Spa University which has been offering £750 sign ups to new students – commit to the government paying £27,000 in fees, you paying that back in dribs and drabs, and we’ll give you £750 in cash now.

Hmm, actually, that’s a very decent gaming of the system, not a sign of ignorance at all.…

Posted on November 4, 2018 by Tim Worstall

It’s Official – Public Sector Workers Make More Than Private Sector

The Office for National Statistics has given us the low down on public sector wages – they’re higher than those in the private sector. Of course, we all knew this, it only being those public sector workers themselves, plus their union reps, who ever try to argue otherwise. Quite why the tax eaters should gain more than the tax growers is never adequately explained but that is that stance, isn’t it.

It is true that we can quibble with this finding.…

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Tim Worstall

Worth Observing The Ghastly Mess Government Makes Running Things – Like Education

A reasonable little pencil sketch of the education system in Britain is that everyone gets taxed so that the government has a monopoly on the education of 93% of us. The other 7% is over in the private sector. Note that those who pay for such private education pay again, they’ve already paid the tax for that free education, decided they thought that free was worth what it is priced at and no, they don’t get their money back nor any subsidy.…

Posted on June 9, 2018 by Tim Worstall

Communal Methods of Land Tenure Might Not Allow Development – Evidence From Denmark

No single paper like this is going to be conclusive either way but the traditional claim that communal methods of land tenure do too allow development might not be tenable:

Denmark is a paragon of economic development because it rapidly modernised its agriculture 150 years ago by using technology and cooperatives. This column argues that Denmark’s development story has in fact been misrepresented. Rapid agricultural development was the end of a process begun by landed elites in the 18th century.…

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Tim Worstall

Nonsense – Fossils In Private Hands Are Not Lost To Science

A very strange insistence happening here, that fossil in private hands are somehow denied to science. A most odd claim as who owns the thing doesn’t change whether it can be examined or not. But then that’s not quite what is actually being said here:

Should fossils be allowed to be in private hands at all? I have some scattered about my home: mostly small ammonite fragments picked up during family walks in Dorset. It strikes me as illiberal to stop such an inspiring pastime.