We had some fun this week reporting the analysis of one Geoff Dunsford, an actuary who had roasted the health lobby for its figures on obesity and smoking. These afflictions are apparently costing society $58 billion and $31.5 billion respectively, each year.

Smokers and obese people are, of course, doing everybody a favour by generally not sticking about too long after their working lives have ended to be a drag on the public purse; you know, pensioning-up, hanging around the doctor's for a yarn, clogging up the roads.

Anyway, Dunsford struck at the heart of the fancy valuation methodology. It came down to VSL, the value of a statistical life. Multiplying the number of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) by the value of a statistical life years (VSLY) accounted for $50 billion of this $58 billion in costs of obesity.

That's right, a hypothetical price for a hypothetical person who is never going to cost anybody anything anyway.

The sparkling gem was the schism between the VSL for an obese person at $6.35 million and the VSL for a smoker at just $2 million.

What of the countervailing effects of smoking on obesity? Should the obese person's VSLY of $266,843 (VSL per year) decrease by $53,267, which is the smoker's VSLY, were the obese person to take up smoking, lose weight but then die of lung cancer?

Should we add a premium to the big smoker-drinker demographic for the entertainment they bring to other people's lives? Surely this is a non-financial benefit, against the $50 billion in non-financial costs, to society?

Obese, drinking smokers usually have a superior sense of humour and, hence, their loss arguably imposes a greater cost on society than the loss of a dour, skinny, smoking non-drinker. A press release should be issued immediately, headed: "Loss of Party Animals Costs Australian Taxpayer $89 billion p.a.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/bonds-ru ... z1f3aIe8rP