Being Cheap is not Being Thrifty

When I was working in California a few years back, I got told a story by one of the factory operations guys. He used to run a firm that maintained and serviced coin vending machines in Los Angeles. Around the airport and hotels, they used to get large numbers of the old NZ 10 cent pieces in the coin hoppers, becasue they were exactly the same weight and size as an American quarter and would fool the electromechanical coin sorter. It meant you could get a candy bar for about USD0.15 rather than USD0.50 - although the operator was stuck with change they couldn't use.

There's also an old joke in England: how was copper wire invented? Two New Zealanders struggling over a penny.

Why are Kiwis so relentlessly cheap? Put another way, why are we are utterly focussed on price rather than cost, and fail to plan in a way that leaves everything kludged together in a way that runs, sort of, after a fashion, a reasonable amount of the time?

It comes across in the way everything is done here. 

Roads that are just a flexible waterproofing layer on a metalled road, and require constant, expensive maintenance under the impact of modern traffic - but that's OK as the initial price is low while the high long term costs in both repairs and lost productivity can be hidden in the operations budget, rather than up-front capital expenditure. 

The way roads aren't rolled after road works: new tar and gravel get laid, but the traffic rolls the stones in, meaning everyone gets covered in tar and stone chips, and then eventually, maybe, a road sweeper brushes up the loose stones. Hay: but it's cheap! Except for the people who have to replace windscreens or touch up their paint.

A vital ferry service that staggers along from crisis to crisis, where a proposed solution was cancelled becasue it had become driven by politicised agendas rather than good information, and had therefore gotten wildly out of control in scope, time and cost. However, no alternative has been planned and we all just wait for the next breakdown to the point that I won't take my car across Cook Strait any longer as I don't want to get caught with paying for parking for weeks in Wellington. A friend ended up parking his car in Nelson for three weeks after having to wait that long for a space on a sailing after a breakdown, and he'd had to fly home to Wellington - and then back to pick up the car.

In my own town there's no public transport to the Airport so travellers have to rely upon friends, very expensive taxis, private shuttle companies of variable quality and expensive airport parking - it's also why so many cars are parked on the side of the road near the airport to avoid getting gouged for parking. My guess is that becasue the city council own the airport, the bus services are run by the regional council who have no stake in the airport, and that apparently they don't talk to each other, we'll never get a service. A lack of planning, limping along on temporary solutions that become permanent, and relentless cheapness carry the day, as always.

A hospital build in Dunedin that was badly planned and executed from the start. Who thought it was a good idea to site a new hospital on reclaimed land that's a couple of metres (maybe) above sea level, when a much better site was available at Waikeri - but heaven forfend that some kind of cosy arrangement was entered in to for the benefit of a few. Because it has become politicised, so the ability to make rational decisions has been lost and we'll likely end up with a lash-up solution of some kind that won't satisfy anyone...