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Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

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Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#191

Post by janandonly »

yodsanklai wrote: post #36

I don't understand inflation. I understand that it's a measure of the price of things, but for me there should be two types of inflations 1. a dilution of money. Let say a central bank injects a lot of new money, then all prices will be higher, but salary will be higher too, and the overall effect is neutral 2. some prices increase due to change in supply or demand (e.g. gas or cereal), but salaries and everything el…

Lyn Alden wrote a very understandable guide to "inflation" which turns out to be different beast that are lumped together: https://www.lynalden.com/inflation/

See also previous HN post on inflation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27099536

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#192

Post by tpm »

zen_1 wrote: post #154
tpm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't confirm Estonia but certainly looks credible for Slovakia (1.35% - mine is 0.9%). But beware those are variable rates, so not fixed over the whole mortgage timespan but like 1/3/5/10 years, with 10 years being unusual and also the highest rate. So a lot of people who took out mortgages with 0.6% fixed for 1 or 3 years will have a hard time as the rates will climb significantly soon.

As someone who's not even thinking of buying a house, do fixed rate, fixed term mortgages even exist? It seems variable rate mortgages, while making financing more widely accessible, have caused their fair share of financial issues/instability.

Not an expert, but certainly even in Slovakia you could do an 10 years mortgage and fix it for 10 years. But people usually don't do that because money was getting cheaper until very recently and also 10 years is not enough to finance houses or flats at current prices. And fixing it for longer is either not possible or very expensive.

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#193

Post by at0mic22 »

jgilias wrote: post #144
rjzzleep wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but the Estonian prime minister is a Eurocrat idiot that lacks basic understanding of how either military or economy work or operate. You want to be independent of Hydrocarbons and Russian commodities? Okay well the Chinese model of silently building up the capabilities to do that is one way to approach the issue. France is an even better example of the idiocy of this as France had one of the most advanced…

Yes, it's a problem that there are co-dependencies with Russia. Yes, it's a grave mistake that Europe didn't untangle from those right after 2014. But not untangling them now would be completely brain-dead. I mean... Russia is now a rogue state carrying out scorched earth tactics, officially rewarding units guilty of war crimes (killing of civilians, rape), threatening the world with nuclear weapons, hijacking planes…

So tired of those buzzwords, used with for no particular reason.

Those countries reside on the border of Russia and logistics in operations were fairly easy and cheap. That fueled the business and money flow for may years.

Check out https://data.stat.ee/profile/country/ee/?locale=en. Russia was the second biggest trading partner, having Finland as the first. Surprisingly, if you check the trading structure of Finland, it's mostly the same Russian goods.

Russia accounts in 2B trading balance of Estonian import. This is a lot for a small country. Pretty much from the beginning of 200x the most money there were made either on raw re-export of Russian goods or processing and exporting.

If you have an idea of how to replace those 2B without rising costs tremendously, please share.

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#194

Post by pelasaco »

In Germany, could be better but could be worse too, explaining:

Since around 50 percent of the price of fuel in Germany is made up of taxation, tax cuts can actually make a significant difference. The tax burden on petrol in Germany should be temporarily reduced by 32 cents/l, including VAT. Taxes on diesel should be reduced by around 15 cents/l with VAT.

However, the oil companies are not passing this discount to the consumers, making themselves (oil companies) the real winners right now.

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#195

Post by madboston »

Yesterday I saw this video on YouTube from ColdFusion about Sri Lanka's situation. I wonder how many countries are on the verge of such collapse due to rising inflation. Most of the "rich" countries will survive this situation but at what cost really? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5zxYDHwf-Y

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#197

Post by raphaelj »

agilob wrote: post #151

How does inflation in Estonia impact on inflation of the rest of eurozone? Say that EE has inflation 20%, but X has 2% and they use the same currency. Will eventually (within weeks of months) impact of EE increase inflation in X?

I guess it all goes down to the fraction of oil and natural gas in the average income of these countries.

If your economy is more reliant on these (e.g. for heating, electricity or transport), all prices will go up significantly more compared to a country that is less reliant on these (e.g. because of nuclear/renewable, better energy efficiency, less heating required ...).

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#198

Post by at0mic22 »

_0w8t wrote: post #156
vogre wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy for small country like Lithuania, but completely impossible for country like Germany. There is not enough gas without Russian one to feed its industry.

It is possible within few years. Most of the gas is used for heating. Switch that to heat pumps. Then for electricity to run those pumps upgrade the existing coal power stations to the latest technology that gives 45% efficiency from the existing stations with 30-35%.

Is it possible to use heat pumps for office buildings or factories for instance?

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#199

Post by Avamander »

brodock wrote: post #78

Considering Estonia is one of the most libertarian country, they are likely the only one actually measuring inflation correctly in the EU zone, not just playing with the index to make it fit a certain narrative.

You can't play with the index much if it's a few dozen SQL queries. I'm not even simplifying it too much, the metrics used for calculating inflation are mostly available in very high fidelity. Income, import prices, price of goods and transportation etc.

So for example when other countries calculate Gini index based on a reasonable sample, Estonia could do it across the entire population.

Re: Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent

#200

Post by berns »

itsoktocry wrote: post #80
yodsanklai wrote: post #36

I don't understand inflation. I understand that it's a measure of the price of things, but for me there should be two types of inflations 1. a dilution of money. Let say a central bank injects a lot of new money, then all prices will be higher, but salary will be higher too, and the overall effect is neutral 2. some prices increase due to change in supply or demand (e.g. gas or cereal), but salaries and everything el…

> but for me there should be two types of inflations 1. a dilution of money Outside of the fact that "some people say" (generally anti-fed types) that inflation is an increase in the money supply, why is it you think that? In economics inflation has a specific definition: a general rise in the price level. It can be caused by all kinds of things. A rapid rise in the money supply is one. A breakdown in available suppl…

> In economics inflation has a specific definition: a general rise in the price level. It can be caused by all kinds of things.

When the prices of all goods and services go up, it is the thing you measure them against that is going down. If there were no currency, there would be no inflation, only changes in relative prices.

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