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Post by fish on Oct 17, 2024 15:15:13 GMT 12
I've just had a saga with NZTA that demonstrates NZ's fundamental problem with productivity and our economic future.
The short story is a long long time ago I set up accounts for the Northern Toll Road. Those accounts stopped working, so I've been paying my tolls on a trip by trip basis.
Got an email saying my account is suspended and I owe them $24.
So I phone them to sort it out, cause I've got receipts for $18.60 in toll payments.
Phone call took 45 minutes. To someone that spoke Ingrish as a first language, so that was refreshing.
Anyway, NZTA have no way of crediting the $18.60 I've paid them, linked to my car's number plates, to the $24 'debt' I apparently own them, and which they were threatening to send to the debt collectors.
So they have to credit all the payments I've recently made, one at a time, and then get me to pay them the $24 'debt'. Did I mention this took 45minutes? They are paying their staff, plus overheads, holiday pay, annual leave sick leave, to sort out this seemingly straight forward issue.
I'd been locked out of my account some time ago, so I assumed it was inactive. Turns out the problem was that they asked for my username, which was not my name or email, but the actual account number. When I pointed out that a user name is not an account number, the nice lady said a lot of people change their account number to their username, so they call it a username and not an account number...
Every time I've tried re-setting my account user name I have not received an email. Tried it 9 times and gave up. Nice lady couldn't explain that. But they have my correct email address linked to these two accounts I couldn't use.
Anyway, turned out I owed them something like $5.40 from July 2021, but it just cost them about $30 of staff time to sort it all out, despite my best endeavors at trying to set up accounts, set up pay as I go, and to pay all of my tolls.
It really should not be so hard to pay tolls, and they should be able to link payments to number plates you would have thought. Noting that at the same time I apparently owed tolls from 2021, they were sending me emails I had credit that was expiring - cause account credits only last 3 months...
And, It turns out you can't just give them a credit card number and deduct each trip as you go through. You have to have a balance, and it has to be topped up once it reaches a certain level...
Surely there is an easier way?!?
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Post by GO30 on Oct 18, 2024 9:05:35 GMT 12
I have been caught by that very 'username' which is only a 4 digit number. I have 10-12 vehicles under my account. It is set up that when the funds run low it automatically takes $40 off my card. Been that way for years, never been an issue. Also having seen Mr Fishs 'expires in 3 months' comment I'm suddenly liking the low 40 as that renews way sooner than 3months. But having them expire seems a very arsehole money grabbing scum like activity.
I think, but don't quote me,minimum and the trigger for a refill is when it hits 10 notes or less.
I have it on reasonably good ground that the admin costs of the tolling will total about the same as the actual cost to build the road after 25 (maybe 30) years, which was originally the tolls expected life span. But I think anyone who believes they will take the tolls off is somewhat naive. |
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Post by muzled on Oct 18, 2024 9:25:04 GMT 12
This sounds very similar to the hop card fiasco.
Pretty sure someone took AT to court over that.
Previously any money you had on your hop card expired after x months.
AT changed their shitty system and the money now stays on your hop card.
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Post by fish on Oct 18, 2024 11:14:09 GMT 12
I have been caught by that very 'username' which is only a 4 digit number. I have 10-12 vehicles under my account. It is set up that when the funds run low it automatically takes $40 off my card. Been that way for years, never been an issue. Also having seen Mr Fishs 'expires in 3 months' comment I'm suddenly liking the low 40 as that renews way sooner than 3months. But having them expire seems a very arsehole money grabbing scum like activity.
I think, but don't quote me,minimum and the trigger for a refill is when it hits 10 notes or less.
I have it on reasonably good ground that the admin costs of the tolling will total about the same as the actual cost to build the road after 25 (maybe 30) years, which was originally the tolls expected life span. But I think anyone who believes they will take the tolls off is somewhat naive. I think my troubles kicked off when my credit card expired, so account stopped working / auto top up went to shit. Not sure if they told me or not, but in the 2 or 3 years that the account was working I never had to access it and then had zero idea that my username wasn't my username but an account number. A peripheral issue is the high volume of phishing scams pretending to be NZTA, it is very hard to tell which email is legitimately asking for new credit card details. I had many emails from NZTA with a Japanese email address. And yes, completely beyond me why account balances expire. Sounds like a dodgy rort to me. |
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Post by GO30 on Oct 18, 2024 17:25:44 GMT 12
I hope someone can invent a way to make pine trees palatable.
But then I'm lovin this supply and demand pricing.
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Post by muzled on Oct 20, 2024 16:48:17 GMT 12
This sounds very similar to the hop card fiasco. Pretty sure someone took AT to court over that. Previously any money you had on your hop card expired after x months. AT changed their shitty system and the money now stays on your hop card. Did someone say hop card fiasco? This just came through... We note you haven’t used your AT HOP card since you applied a top up via your online account.
The top up is currently sitting in your Pending Transactions. To collect the HOP money all you need to do is take a trip on public transport using your AT HOP card. This will load the HOP money to your card.
If you do not tag on within the next two weeks, the payment will be automatically reversed back to your credit or debit card.
Let us know if you have any questions. |
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Post by fish on Oct 22, 2024 19:25:50 GMT 12
Last week, the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to three economists, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.” You won’t have read about this in the New Zealand press, besides syndicated cut and paste jobs, even though it is about colonisation, institutions, and prosperity.
The official Nobel Citation says: The richest 20 per cent of the world’s countries are now around 30 times richer than the poorest 20 per cent. Moreover, the income gap between the richest and poorest countries is persistent; although the poorest countries have become richer, they are not catching up with the most prosperous. Why? This year’s laureates have found new and convincing evidence for one explanation for this persistent gap – differences in a society’s institutions.
The economists studied many countries' histories over the last 400 years, focusing on the influence of European countries that colonised most of the world. They conclude that what kind of set-up, or institutions, those colonising countries left has a strong bearing on the colonised countries’ prosperity today.
They divide countries into two types. There are inclusive countries, that give people equal rights, to vote, own property, and operate under the rule of law. There are extractive countries, set up to extract natural resources and benefit a small number of people.
The extractive countries tend to be the ones that weren’t very welcoming to colonisers, for example if there was a lot of malaria. In these cases, e.g. African ones, a small number of settlers arranged to get the wealth out of the ground, and that was about it.
The alternative is inclusive countries, with free markets, the rule of law and democracy. The United States is the obvious example, along with Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. These countries attracted settlers in large numbers and there were too many of them to simply exploit natural resources. Instead they created inclusive institutions.
There is a twist, an historic reversal of fortunes. The countries that were relatively poorer before colonisation, and ended up adopting more colonial institutions, are now relatively wealthier.
Another important observation is that history is not static. Over time, countries liberalise. Colonial institutions were not set down in a state of perfection, far from it. But they were capable of improvement, widening voting rights, compensating for past wrongs, and enhancing civil liberties.
You are probably starting to get a sense of why this work has not been discussed in the NZ Press. It finds that institutions matter if you want people to be prosperous. It doesn’t matter where you start, it’s where you finish that counts, and that depends on adopting the best institutions, democracy, the rule of law, property rights, free speech, and all of those values that allow people to flourish.
No doubt New Zealand universities will be holding book burnings in case these Nobel Prize winners’ ideas make students ‘feel unsafe.’ The same institutions trained the journalists, which may be why there’s been so little discussion about this.
Nonetheless, somewhere in our future is a country where free and open debate is not only allowed but cherished. It would be a country where we can discuss what works to create prosperity.
The central lesson of these economists’ work is really that wealth is not given or taken, it is not ‘owned’ rightfully by any historic group. It can be created, to the point that everyone is richer than 200 years ago, but some people are 30 times richer. The trick is to adopt the right institutions, the policies that work, as quickly as possible, and those institutions are democracy, free markets, the rule of law, and equal rights for all.
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Post by Cantab on Oct 23, 2024 7:10:07 GMT 12
The Nobel Economics Prize has identified some brilliant work over the years, cant see Tea Party taking on the lessons from this one somehow. As for the Peace Prize, I have some real doubts about the current definition of peace they are using.  |
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Post by ComfortZone on Oct 23, 2024 7:47:16 GMT 12
unfortunately, thanks to liebour leaving the NZ economy a smoking ruin, we are not looking good compared with other countries IMF October 2024 Report Issued Today Ranks NZ's Stagnant GDP as 184th out of 195 countries in the worldThe IMF has reported how much GDP is growing in 195 countries across the entire world. New Zealand is stagnant, at 0%, whilst nearly every other country is surging ahead. For 2024, Tables A1 to A5 (in the link below) show our ranking is 184th out of 195 countries. There are 11 nations doing worse than us: Argentina, Finland, Slovak Republic, Estonia, Haiti (civil war), Kuwait, Sudan (civil war), South Sudan (civil war), Yemen (civil war), Ireland (that has until this year been one of the world's fastest growing economies) and Austria. In terms of our Current Account balance, measuring exports minus imports as a fraction of GDP, we are 3rd lowest out of 41 developed nations, with Greece and Cyprus below us.
Ironically, the three gentlemen & one woman most responsible for this situation are former Finance Minister Grant Robertson, now Vice Chancellor of Otago, paid $629,000 and the Reserve Bank Governor, Adrian Orr, paid $830,000, whose contract was renewed by Robertson, together with former PM Jacinda Ardern, recently knighted in Windsor Castle, busily ploughing carbon emissions into the atmosphere through her back-to-back long haul flights, and Former PM, now Opposition Leader, Chris Hipkins, who is trying to be New Zealand's next PM. As for the Otago University Professors who wrote in the British Medical Journal how NZ's Covid policies went hand-in-hand with amazing economics outcomes (even though none of them had ever studied economics) maybe they should retract that paper. For the lot of them, talk about pay (and status) for performance.
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Post by muzled on Nov 8, 2024 20:57:21 GMT 12
A good news story from Michael (woke a/f but good beer writer) Donaldson.
In an era where we’re looking for good news to poke through the veil of gloom that’s pervaded the past couple of years … well, we have some.
The opening of can-manufacturing business Recorp Ltd yesterday is one of the biggest positives for the beer industry in a long-time says Garage Project’s Jos Ruffell.
Until now the production of beer cans in New Zealand was in foreign hands with two Australian companies, Visy and Orora Beverage, the only options.
The Aussie pair currently produce around 1 billion cans a year and Recorp aims to take a chunk of that business and expects can use to grow by 100 million a year.
“It’s great news. We view it as an exceptionally positive move for the industry,” Ruffell said.
“In an environment where good news has been few and far between, I feel really positive about this.”
The business is the idea of former Air NZ boss Rob Fyfe and he’s in partnership with former Air NZ chief operating officer Bruce Parton. Others with a stake include Zuru toy empire co-founder Anna Mowbray, property investment mogul Justin Wyborn and Forsyth Barr executive director and investor Jonty Edgar.
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Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Bruce Parton celebrate the opening of Recorp
Ruffell said Garage Project have switched totally to Recorp for all their cans, noting the fact that it’s a New Zealand-owned company going up against what was formerly an Aussie duopoly.
Recorp Ltd is one of the biggest manufacturing businesses to launch in New Zealand costing more than $100 million to get up and running.
“It’s a staggeringly large project — they said it’s the largest private manufacturing investment in New Zealand’s history.” Ruffell said.
“We like their ethos, it lines up with our own sustainability goals.
“We’re attracted to the flexibility they are offering customers, the responsiveness, and the quality; it’s brand-new lines. And we like that it’s a New Zealand company taking on a foreign-owned duopoly. We feel like we’re working with people who are pushing New Zealand.”
Ruffell also said Recorp offered a variety of can sizes, from the standard 330ml and 440ml options as well as a slim-line 250ml and a large 500ml can. The larger formats can come in regular sizes or “sleek” meaning a slightly narrower cylinder.
It’s understood Recorp will offer lower minimum order quantities than their rivals, which will mean brewers won’t have to tie up so much cash in stock.
It will be interesting to see what formats breweries might opt for — I would be a big fan of 500ml cans!
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Post by harrytom on Nov 9, 2024 5:29:06 GMT 12
It will be interesting to see what formats breweries might opt for — I would be a big fan of 500ml cans!
I buy the occasional russian beer 1lt cans Cant do the Hieniken 5lt keg,tried but left 1 lt behind.
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