The Daily Blog Open Mic – Monday 8th July 2019

1. NZTA chose American IT firm over cheaper NZ firms, documents reveal

   “The internal investigation shows a lot more attention was paid to the Texan multinational than to the locals, who were not given the chance to bid.”

   The inquiry report shows the upfront fees to ISNet amounted to only about $50,000.

   But the revenue stream is about $500,000 a year, mostly from charging each of the 114 contractors about $4000 a year.

   “By contrast, the fees the two New Zealand suppliers would have charged were only a few hundred dollars.

   “The preferred vendor is significantly more expensive than the other two vendors, both the cost to the hiring client NZTA and the cost to the contractors,” the inquiry said.

   The inquiry shows the local suppliers believed the agency was going to give them a shot, but in the end no contestable tender was run.”

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/393851/nzta-chose-american-it-firm-over-cheaper-nz-firms-documents-reveal

   NOTE SAME issue was run with HOP card, which is an expensive joke. AT had a local firm but went with French Thales without giving the local firm a real chance… also HOP has terrible design which means that in Japan your similar card keeps the money for 20 years in NZ, people’s money on it is wiped after months. Yet another example of bad tech, that is being forced on people that is not fit for purpose.

   When you do that we lower productivity and lose more and more people from NZ in the brain drain.

   Same happened to the UK under Thatcherism..

   Why doesn’t Britain have a Huawei of its own? The answer speaks volumes

   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/08/britain-huawei-general-electric-company-thatcherism

2. Some interesting housing news from around the world…

   Rip off lease holds in the UK (note in NZ one waterfront leasehold apartment went for $20k, because of rip off leases the render some of our prime land at the mercy of profiteers with not enough regulation to stop overpricing).

   https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/21/new-figures-reveal-scale-of-controversial-leasehold-homes

   Nearly 40% of Toronto homes not owner-occupied, new figures reveal

   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/toronto-housing-owner-occupied-canada-affordability

3. Good mark-up man!
   The Commission’s proceedings relate to Moola’s conduct between June 2015 and November 2017. During that period Moola offered short term loans with interest rates of between 182.5% and 547.5% per annum depending on the term of the loan.

   Governments both Labour and National have not wanted to interfere with the top rate of interest – can’t see why. It would hardly warp the system to bring it down. Credit card is about 23% per annum I think.

   But interesting to work out what the percentage rate per annum would be on the impost of 10% placed on anything I owe for rates if not paid by the due date plus say 2-3 days they might allow for long weekends etc.
   10% for 3 days on a set amount owed for a 3-4 month period, converted to an equivalent per annum rate for that charge? It’s not a do in your head sum even though it is 10% because it is for part of a year. Could be quite high methinks expressed as a p.a. rate.

   • Shocking mark up, have no idea why the government can not have a maximum interest rate rather than so much open to interpretation and rip offs.

     • Well wouldn’t people just borrow more for consumption. I think cheap credit should be restricted to productive purposes. Just saying. We’ve had a policy of creating endless amounts of money for to long. So I think controlling who gets cheap credit would be a good start.

4. Scoop article – http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1907/S00198/commission-alleges-irresponsible-lending-by-moola.htm
   With really good interest rates referred to before (if you are lending to someone desperate and don’t have a conscience.)

5. GET ALL THE LOAN SHARKS

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