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Last week, Thomas Coughlin reported that “the wellbeing framework that puts the ‘value of a statistical life’ at $4.7 million is coming under fire.” There is a lot to criticise about the wellbeing framework, and I am hardly one of its cheerleaders. But it is absurd to criticise it for trying to apply proper cost-benefit assessment – and even more absurd to criticise it for putting a value on statistical lives. Read more

As if to squeeze the most out of the short parliamentary term, the Government has been busy with a flurry of initiatives. Such a hurry can be costly. Read more

The Tax Working Group released this week its much-anticipated “Future of Tax” report, which recommends introducing a broad-based taxation of capital gains at full income rates. As proposed, the 33% headline rate would be one of the highest among industrialised economies. Read more

Some folks take the wrong lesson from intermediate microeconomics – or never took the course in the first place. I worry that too many of them staff Wellington’s bureaus. Read more

Only the officials at Inland Revenue know why they commissioned a poll on Kiwis’ attitudes to tax that included questions about the respondents’ general political orientation. Releasing the polling data should be part of fixing any perceived problems. Hamish Rutherford’s reporting at the Dominion Post raises questions about the Department’s political impartiality. Read more

Lime scooters are Satan’s own vehicle. If you ride one, you will lose control, scrape your knees, maybe even break a leg. Read more