Chats with Plunket

I had a decent chat with Sean Plunket yesterday morning over at The Platform. I'm going to have to start checking their daily podcast list; I'd missed Richard Meade's bit there on the rumoured Cash for Clunkers scheme. 

I've embedded the video below. 

They'd asked me to come in and talk about income tax rates and fairness; I'd prepped a bit around what inflation-adjusting the tax thresholds would look like - also the topic of my column this week over at Newsroom. I'd there suggested hooking the tax thresholds to percentiles in the wage-and-salary distribution, but keying it to either CPI or HLPI would be fine too.

The chat with Plunket wound up hitting a far broader range of things, from immigration to congestion charging. I'd managed to forget that I'd written a submission on Auckland's proposed congestion charging.

Hadn't realised going in it was video rather than just audio; might have worn a prettier mask for video. But I'm indoors, so I'm masked. 

Fun times. My 4pm yesterday, which I'd asked to have at an outdoor beer/coffee spot because I'm Covid-averse, got punted to Zoom because he'd gotten Covid. If he'd been infected a little bit later, we'd have had the meeting before he'd tested himself. It's worth being careful out there. If you make a habit of being unmasked in risky places, your likelihood of catching Covid's got to be approaching 1 - or higher given potential for repeat infection.

Fortunately for me, I've already sunk the costs of others' disapprobation for my idiosyncrasies, making being the only masked person at Wellington Treasury events no more uncomfortable than being one of the few who still think supply and demand are important.