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How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

economist.com

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Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#151

Post by dfawcus »

derriz wrote: post #98
petre wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never signed up for being part of the EU. The UK joined the EC. Maybe they should stay in the EEA and everything would be fine, but even that has too many restrictive rules now that the English are unable to skirt. Like freedom of movement for goods and for people.

This is a Brexit lie based on a superficial change of name - the constitutional basis of the European Union is specified in the 1957 treaty of Rome and the later Maastricht treaty ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Rome ). The treaty of Rome explicitly states that the goal is the creation of a single market for goods, labour, services, and capital. This was the foundation of the union that the UK voted to jo…

Yes the nature of the organisation has largely stayed the same, during its name changes: EEC -> EC -> EU. We joined a political union, which had goals at the time to create the SM, and a single currency.

However the UK did not vote to join in a plebiscite. We joined in 73, and had a referendum on leaving in 75.

I'd suggest that the issue in the UK was in part that the changed nature of our constitution after joining was never explained in schools (no Civics classes). Plus almost all discussion of it domestically tended to use the phrase "Common Market".

So we ended up creating a generation who were naturally eurosceptic, and were quite surprised by the changes post '94 once the EU emerged, and the single market reforms came in to existence.

Basically a lot of the people in that generation were not aware that we had joined a political union, with a level of law and government above that of the nation state. The generation before (who voted in '75) should have known that. The various institutions of state (government, civil service, courts, judges, etc) knew.

However that general ignorance existed (and still exists), it being reflected in our MPs, where a lot of them still (after 3 years of confusion) still do not understand the nature of their (and our) relationship with the EU.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#152

Post by dfawcus »

hnarn wrote: post #66

In Sweden, "jämförelsepris" (comparison price) is mandatory for many goods. This means stores have to, in addition to price, display "price per gram" or whatever unit makes sense. This way, you can quickly compare different groceries despite differing packages, and shrinking the item for the same price would be visible when looking at the comparison price.

The similar per unit (usually per g, per kg, per ml) pricing is a recent addition in UK shops, only in the last 2-3 years as I recall.

So while Sweden had this as a national law w/o EU pushing it, I rather suspect the UK now having the same is due to Single Market harmonisation - i.e. an EU rule. That is what the SM does.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#153

Post by graycat »

darkwater wrote: post #74
graycat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I wrote, I don't use an oven! Instead I finish the baking in a covered steel pan, and this does give a crisp bottom. > match a commercial pizza oven. "Match" in what sense? What I described is different but works great. For the 20 minutes, even in Manhattan, tough to take the order, make and bake the pizza, slice it, box it, and deliver it, all in 20 minutes. For the quality, that's a matter of taste, but frozen,…

You bake the pizza in a what? My Italian origins strongly disapprove this :/

So far it looks like the flour, yeast, salt, water, sauce, cheese, and sausage don't know about transgressions of Italian origins and traditions!

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#155

Post by aembleton »

The ONS who calculate the UKs GDP are aware of this and have an interesting report on it: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/arti...

"In order to accurately measure inflation, we use quality adjustment processes to account for any changes to a product’s weight, volume or size"

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#156

Post by CryptoPunk »

chewz wrote: post #78

Shrinking portions is the simplest way. The other is replacing products. Say supermarket bakery introduces new bread with seasame seeds only 25¢ more. Then slowly there is only new seasame seeds bread on shelves and regular bread becomes rare. Later seasame seeds is slowly dispearing from bread and voila - you have made regular bread 25¢ more expensive. The other way is lowering quality of products. Inflation basket…

>>And electric drills or washing maschines? Don't get me started. Today's Bosch electric drill lasts one building season, my fathers Bosch electric drill lasted 35 years. Price is the same or lower but you get way less for it.

Survivor bias?

Statistics show that at least one major product category, cars, are seeing their lifespan increase:

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-k...

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#157

Post by mikepurvis »

eyeball wrote: post #119
mikepurvis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumerist (RIP) used to run a great series called the "grocery shrink ray" where they would call out these changes: https://consumerist.com/tag/shrink-ray/

Damn. I didn’t know consumerist had been wiped out. Bought by consumer reports?

Something like that: https://consumerist.com/2017/10/30/please-pardon-the-interru...

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#158

Post by Viliam1234 »

lrem wrote: post #70
hnarn wrote: post #66

In Sweden, "jämförelsepris" (comparison price) is mandatory for many goods. This means stores have to, in addition to price, display "price per gram" or whatever unit makes sense. This way, you can quickly compare different groceries despite differing packages, and shrinking the item for the same price would be visible when looking at the comparison price.

Same EU rule is circumvented by some shops by having the comparison prices in mismatched dimensions (volume Vs weight Vs unit).

Sometimes the average items have a price "per 1 kg", but the expensive ones have a price "per 100 g".

Yeah, you can easily multiply the number by 10, but it requires conscious attention.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#159

Post by simonebrunozzi »

WalterBright wrote: post #84
chewz wrote: post #78

Shrinking portions is the simplest way. The other is replacing products. Say supermarket bakery introduces new bread with seasame seeds only 25¢ more. Then slowly there is only new seasame seeds bread on shelves and regular bread becomes rare. Later seasame seeds is slowly dispearing from bread and voila - you have made regular bread 25¢ more expensive. The other way is lowering quality of products. Inflation basket…

> a quality of simple bread from 40 years ago Wonder Bread was popular in the 1960's, 50 years ago.

Wonder Bread was nothing like quality bread. Quite the opposite.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#160

Post by p_l »

twic wrote: post #106
p_l wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EC had explicit goal of "beer closer union", going cm to its immediate predecessor. Some people claim it was sold as purely economic union, some claim it was well known goal back then. But a lot of the rules that are supposedly so bad are rules that would be there in a purely economic union.

If the European project was really focused on a "beer closer union", it might have been more popular!

Hahaha. Can't say autocorrupt didn't make a nice change this time ;)
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