The idea of governments collecting data on our subjective well-being might seem slightly Orwellian to many people. It could bring to mind images of officials from the government statistics office knocking at your front door and telling you that they are from the government and they have come to help you by collecting information about [...]

Question from a reader:
“I have been acquiring Perth Mint silver and gold in the depository scheme and am concerned about confiscation issues in the long term. Probably it will not happen, but again given the mindlessness of recent policy decisions there is no reason why the Australian government could not just decide to tax the [...]

Overcrowding of prisons is putting pressure on criminal justice systems to use alternatives to custodial sentences. Electronic tagging is one method which can be used either instead of, or to reduce the length of, a prison sentence or as part of a non-custodial sentence. This is in effect a form of house arrest or curfew, [...]