KEY POINTS:
It's all very well Allan Bollard wagging his Governor of the Reserve Bank finger at the nation, tut-tut-tutting in disapproval like a startled quail because we're all spending too much money on stuff. He's the cause of much of this.
Who took away the 5c piece last year?
Dr Bollard, that is who. I don't remember New Zealanders asking for their pockets to be rid of small change, yet we were told we no longer needed the 5c piece so, before you could say tuatara, it was extinct.
Or so we were led to believe. Someone forgot to tell the retailers, because in every shop you still see most items priced at something-dollars and something-five cents. In the past few weeks I've kept a close watch on my shopping, recording what happens when my total spending in any one shop comes to an amount ending in 5c. The shop may or may not have a sign on the till stating all transactions will be rounded up or down to the nearest 10c. That's fine if the bill ends in 2c or 8c, but what happens when it falls smack in the middle at 5c? Is the glass half empty, or half full? Half full, in all but one retailer, the dairy-butcher "hangi in a pie" somewhere north of Awanui in the Far North (best mutton chops in the land despite looking like they'd gone through a bandsaw). Wrapping up my chops and sirloin for $17.85, Mr Butcher took my $20 note and handed back $2.20.
But elsewhere - the chemist, the supermarket, the hardware shop, even dairy selling ice creams - all took an extra 5c from me when they had the chance. Why don't they just say, "$4.50 please" and be done with it, rather than this "$4.45 thanks" then give you back 50c in change? It's not on.
Furthermore, it's inflationary. If we look at the week before Christmas and the three days afterwards, when electronic transactions were up 21 per cent on 2005, worth more than $200 million, we start to get some idea of how much extra money we're handing over, just because Dr Bollard took the 5c piece out and shot it.
And those records don't include cash transactions. Which begs the question: if I'm not allowed to hand over 5c when I'm paying by cash, how come the retailers are allowed to charge 5c? I don't get it, but maybe this is one for the Commerce Commission - Bollard's old stamping ground, as it happens.
Speaking of which, the Commission's current head, Paula Rebstock, came in for some flak at the end of last year for her fearless standing up for the consumer. But I don't think the commission goes far enough. In fact, I've been gathering a few tasks for Rebstock's lawyers to get their teeth into this year.
For starters, they could look at what sometimes happens when you use a fuelcard or credit card to buy petrol, which service stations (and that's a misnomer) still insist on pricing to the nearest tenth of a cent. It's a rort, and it's tricky to explain, but bear with me.
I've taken a random receipt - from a BP station as it happens. We paid $47.10 for petrol which, the receipt stated, included GST of $5.24. But in fact, the GST content of $47.10 is $5.23. When that company does its accounting, there must be an issue whether their books record the GST as $5.23, when they've taken $5.24.
And then what happens when I claim back the GST in my six-monthly return? I claim $5.23; the petrol station, presumably, has paid the IRD $5.23. Who owns that 1c difference?
Any business pocketing an extra 1c on every transaction, every day of the year, is making a good little profit.
And while the Commerce Commission's looking into the company that's charging $15 a month to the idiots who've got no one better to text than a bimbo in a television quiz, investigators could go on a diet of Griffin's biscuits to see if they have better luck than me at winning cash. All summer I've been buying Meal Mates, Krispies, Huntley & Palmers crackers, seeking out the packets with the sticker telling me to "Be in to win cash instantly! $100,000 prize pool. Details inside this pack!"
Alas, there are no details in the pack. Nothing but biscuits - not even a little scratchie telling me I haven't won anything.
It's like getting to the bottom of the cornflakes packet and finding no plastic Indian - hugely disappointing.
Which brings me back to where I began, the disappearance of the 5c piece. I've argued before that the Reserve Bank is as useful as a talking oyster. Ratcheting up interest rates to try to curb household spending is a stupid exercise when most people have fixed mortgages.
I'm no economist, but it's not hard to see that forcing people to spend more by making 10c the lowest monetary unit, then slapping down their naughty habits by hiking up their interest rates is just not logical.
But then maybe only an economist ignores human behaviour.
