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After spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out whether paying NZ Steel an enormous amount of money to install a new electric furnace made any kind of sense, I have finally come to a conclusion. If the subsidy does make sense, it would indicate severe problems in how industrial allocations have been handled. Read more

“There is a lot of ruin in a nation.” It is one of those sayings that is easy to misinterpret. Taking Adam Smith’s famous quote literally, there are so many ways for a country to go wrong. Read more

Last week’s government Budget increased projected government operating spending over the next four years by $8.4 billion while projected revenue fell by $10.7 billion. Projected government borrowing rose by $20 billion. Read more

Let’s imagine a computer game, shall we? It is called ‘Master Lobbyist’, and your job is to play the governments of two countries off against each other. Read more

If a lot of the government’s health policy people started looking warmly at homeopathy and other kinds of medical pseudoscience and woo, we’d all recognise that as a problem, right? Maybe we would want to test our intuitions about it. Read more

New Zealand has just received its 2023 Budget. Our Government has a clear predilection for spending. Read more

An IRD report on effective rates of tax attracted much public attention last week. It was launched by the Minister of Revenue, David Parker. Read more

In 1983’s classic film War Games, computer-whiz Matthew Broderick hacked into Pentagon supercomputer WOPR - almost starting World War 3. WOPR had been programmed for war gaming. Read more