Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

Supporting the creative power of liberty. Avoid central planning, promote innovation through competition, support localism and let prices inform consumers. UK Joined March 2020

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

43 minutes ago

@alexmassie @DanNeidle What's a bit worrying about that is that the Fiscal Commission got it so wrong. I am sure none of their specialists will take the blame, and no-one will investigate why their advice was agley.

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Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan

a day ago

Who knew? Declaring something “a human right” magically abolishes all costs. The reservoirs, the pumps, the pipes, the filtration - all become free. Why did no one tell us?

Softboy @softboywin

2 days ago

I just found out water is a human right in Ireland and nobody pays water bills. Every country should be like Ireland. Water IS and always should be a human right

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

59 minutes ago

Well, fancy that. "Progressives" will not believe this however.

Cut My Tax @CutMyTaxUK

17 hours ago

HMRC data shows that the average amount of tax paid by top earners in Scotland fell in 2024-25, the first year in which the SNP Government imposed a top 48p rate. The tax hikes, which also included imposing an “advanced rate” of 45p on earnings between £75,000 and £125,140, were

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

a day ago

@SamaHoole Farming is a great example of price control followed by bureaucratic interference, the hallmarks of socialist control. Bizarrely one intended consequence of cheaper food that bankrupts farmers is our obesity epidemic. The central state responds with sugar taxes and NHS rationing.

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Magatte Wade @magattew

2 days ago

A lot of intellectuals get nervous around free markets because free people make the planner less important. If a woman in Senegal can open a shop without begging ten offices for permission, hire two people, serve customers, and keep enough of what she earns to grow, she has already solved the problem the conference people wanted to manage for her. The Marxist professor can still write papers about her, but he cannot design her future from a hotel ballroom. That is why big government is so attractive to certain people. It turns their theories into power, and every poor person becomes another argument for giving the planner more authority. The question I care about is simple: Does the system let ordinary people build their way out, or does it keep them dependent on powerful people who enjoy being needed?

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

4 days ago

@IPPR Good luck with that. Costs don't somehow evaporate if you control prices. But those who pay those costs do evaporate if they know that revenue minus costs leave a negative margin.

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Summerisle @LairdSummerisle

5 days ago

The discussion of the BBC licence fee assumes that it's some kind of intractable problem, but it's actually very simple. Put adverts on all free-to-air channels, and if you don't want adverts, buy a paid subscription to the iPlayer. Would anyone be opposed to that?

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

5 days ago

@emmafildes Note the words "imposing", "stop", "force", used to justify takings, if you think good policy outcomes come from totalitarian coercion you need to re-read the history of 1776.

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Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist

6 days ago

Mr Burnham seems to have suggested: - raising income tax personal allowance; - much more spending on social care; - more defence spending (Healey as ChX); - no end to triple lock; - keeping to fiscal rules; - etc Either he can’t deliver this or we’re in for big tax hikes

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Julian Jessop @julianHjessop

6 days ago

Some advice for Andy Burnham! Inflation happens when too much money chases too few goods and services. This means tinkering with prices or subsidising demand will not fix the cost-of-living crisis. What’s needed instead is sound money and fundamental reforms to boost supply...

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

a week ago

A good response to slogans proclaiming the value of a Wealth Tax. It has no enumerable tax base. Neither does Corporation Tax, hence its code being 1000+ pages long. Extremely destructive for all wealth creators; especially smaller traders who can't afford tax specialist support.

David Hearne, CFP™ @dontdelay

a week ago

Wealth tax fun You find out wealth will be taxed at 2% above £10m You’re worth £30m and you’re taxed £400,000 (You don’t have £400,000 you have a house worth £1m and shares in your company worth £29m but that’s a separate point) A year later you’ve lost £10m of wealth and

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

@garyseconomics If the "Golden Age of Capitalism" (not a term I have heard before) was 1950 to 1970, that's a fantasy. 1860 to 1900 perhaps; when Gladstone proposed scrapping income tax, kyboshed by the need to pay for the Crimean War. (oday, we seem to be stumping up for that yet again.)

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

What is the leftist response to this? Nationalising distribution? Few will rember the UK's National Distribution Company in the 1970s. It made a loss, provided a lousy service and had opaque prices. Competition killed it. Freedom to do trade matters, it makes everyone wealthier.

Brad @BradleyKellard

2 weeks ago

Jeff Bezos: "I've created $2.1 trillion of wealth for other people." "Somebody needs to make a list where they rank people by how much wealth they've created for other people." While talking about his net worth, he floated an idea that flips the whole concept of a "rich list"

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

This is also why tax revenues are largely a burden on wage earners; there a lot more of them than businesses and you can identify their overall annual income much more easily than that of a business where net earnings are much more difficult to evaluate.

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

Claims that billionaires pay no tax are bonkers. They might pay proportionally less on their total turnover than salaried workers, but businesses are taxed on margins, not turnover. Tax turnover and those margins go and the businesses wouldn't exist, nor the tax they pay. 1/

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

i-Scot supporters, who proclaim Scotland has massive energy and water resources, now seem to be campaigning against AI data centres because they use up a lot of energy and water. What exactly is the vision here apart from obtaining political power to limit freedom and prosperity?

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

Thomson is honest enough to imply that his preferred method of inducing equality is to "end up with ... assets held by the state or by communities". This avoids the central issue of the economic effect of not allowing private property; general penury and minimal personal liberty

William Thomson @Williamgallus

2 weeks ago

We must #TaxWealth. But a one-off, or an annual wealth tax, is not the best solution. So what's my beef with the proposal? 1/7

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

@GBNEWS An industry growing on the back of taxpayer subsidies doesn't add to GDP. If the prices induced are very high it can reduce it. What we see here is a cabal of interests purporting to serve the public interest but who are serving their own interest. (ref: Adam Smith, 1776).

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Eben Wilson - Liberty Matters @LibMatters

2 weeks ago

@normanbluecoll1 For entrepreneurs the responsibilty is a trade off between incurring personal loss in trading vs paying for the central state. Many find the way the state uses their money wasteful and careless. Freedom to create wealth destroyed by state coercion is immoral.