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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

#211

Post by pavlov »

Normille wrote: post #110
piva00 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look at the Swedish numbers I feel the same and then I see that prices went down for "photography, audiovisual and computer equipment" and... Nothing else. Fuel is up 40+%, food by 8-10%, housing by 2%, electricity by 30+%. How the fuck do we end up with a normalised rate of inflation of 6-7%?? I do need to do proper research on the models because just using my common sense it doesn't make any fucking sense...

The graph looks really odd to me too. Even allowing for an uneven distribution of inflation rates, The 'Eurozone average' is way down near the bottom, suggesting most countries have above average inflation --which seems a bit like the old oxymoron "80% of motorists consider themselves to be above average drivers"

The eurozone includes many small countries which also tend to have higher inflation than the big countries.

If average inflation is calculated over the whole population, it’s going to be heavily weighted towards the handful of big countries, and so it indeed makes sense that the majority of countries would have higher than average inflation.

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

#212

Post by rjzzleep »

_0w8t wrote: post #161
foverzar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume that oil and gas are only used as energy components, but they are also raw materials required in industry.

If energy usage is removed, then surely there is enough oil and gas in other countries to supply Germany.

People like you look at these things as if you just shift numbers around on an excel sheet. There is still physics and geography involved here. German industry is already hardly competitive in terms of price, what do you think happens when those raw materials are 10 times more expensive?

Now there is a price crunch for LNG tanker charters further pushing up prices. Also it's so disingenuous. Indians are now refining Russian oil, selling it back to Europe but Eurocrats and lying politicians get to pretend they're going off hydrocarbons.

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

#213

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

welkj23jOIJ3 wrote: post #146

Inflation is highly manipulated by goverment and is usually 2x lower than real inflation. On the following site you can check the inflation calculated based on the past methods (before 1990): http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts as you can see, inflation calculated using the old method is 2x higher than the current one (8% vs 16%)

The problem with the Fed's measure is there's too much substitution.

The problem with Shadowstats is that there isn't any substitution.

If the price of gold goes up - but you can get your cavities filled with a way cheaper and better substitute - that seems like a win.

If the price of silicon goes up, but you can get an exponentially more powerful computer for the same price that uses less energy (because the chip size shrinks) - that seems like a huge win.

If the price of cars is flat - but the safety ratings, reliability, and gas mileage have improved enormously, that seems like a win.

Then you have things like food and housing where the substitutes actually make things (arguably) worse...

One thing is clear - if you use Shadowstats measures of inflation - the US economy is ~25-75% smaller than it was in the 80s. This idea is absurd.

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

#214

Post by ls15 »

toxik wrote: post #43
davzie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have 9% inflation in the UK but the reality of the costs of things that you need to live a relatively simple life (food, heating oil, fuel costs), have all gone up way more than 9%. A shop that used to cost me £80 a week now cannot be had for under £110. So you can calculate them all you like and look at the data, but the reality in my life is that prices have risen way beyond the 9% we're told is the amount.

That is completely normal, though. Inflation is not the exact price adjustment of every basket of goods over time, that is simply not possible to represent in a single number - rather, it is some arbitrarily chosen basket of goods meant to represent an average household. It does not have to be perfect to be meaningful.

> It does not have to be perfect to be meaningful.

It is deceptive though, if this number is not representative of people's actual cost of living and it is then used to adjust their income for inflation. How clear is it that this basket really represents an average household (today)?

Employer: "What do you mean, cost of living has gone up by 14%? Official inflation is 7%, but the best I can do this year is 3.5%."

Politician: "Inflation is X every year, so we increase pensions by X% every three years."

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

#215

Post by piva00 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #203
piva00 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look at the Swedish numbers I feel the same and then I see that prices went down for "photography, audiovisual and computer equipment" and... Nothing else. Fuel is up 40+%, food by 8-10%, housing by 2%, electricity by 30+%. How the fuck do we end up with a normalised rate of inflation of 6-7%?? I do need to do proper research on the models because just using my common sense it doesn't make any fucking sense...

If housing is truly only up 2%, it probably makes up 25%+ of the basket. If Food is only up 8% - it's not too hard to imagine how you could get a 7% number... Electricity and fuel don't make up a huge portion of the average consumer's total basket of spending.

Groceries are pretty expensive in Sweden, just came back from the shop and spent the equivalent of 20€ and got: 500g of coffee, 12 eggs, 2L of oat milk and bread.

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

#216

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

unicornfinder wrote: post #42
lekevicius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Lithuania we were already independent from Russian gas and oil (lesson learned over the decades), and had liquid natural gas terminal for a few years. But inflation is also very high.

Thing is even if you're not using Russian gas directly, prices are still going to be influenced by the global gas market (and the wider global economy in general).

IIUC, Russian oil is roughly the same price as it was before the invasion: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1112243/urals-crude-oil-...

Other oil has gone up so much because everyone is switching off Russian oil. Russian oil is not going up. So it's actually not a bad time to be a Russian oil consumer...

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

#217

Post by tauntz »

throwaway4good wrote: post #126
tauntz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It affects the income gap. People in the startup sector earn _much_ more than other sectors - the difference is, if I'm not wrong, one of the biggest in the EU. So it creates a) a lot of inequality and b) drives up prices of certain goods (houses, apartments) because there's a noticeable % of the population in the startup sector who has now their sweet exit money that's looking for a new home.

"People in the startup sector earn _much_ more than other sectors - the difference is, if I'm not wrong, one of the biggest in the EU." Do you have a source for this claim? I would be very surprised if that was true.

Don't take my word for it indeed - I saw an article with a nice graph about that like a year ago but 10 minutes of Googling didn't turn up anything at the moment.

So here's an anecdote instead :) Sweden. Average salary 36100SEK, average "Software- and system developers" salary 46500SEK. So a software dev earns ~30% more than the average salary. [1]

Estonia. Average salary 1576EUR. average "Software developer" salary 3753EUR. So a software dev earns ~140% more than the average salary [2]

Now I didn't find an official source for "% of people employed in the startup sector" for both countries but my guess is that it's much bigger in Estonia than in Sweden (based on [3]) and that's the reason for my overall pessimistic view that the startup scene here in Estonia is one of the biggest causes of income inequality in the EU (and I'm saying this as a person living in the startup bubble in Estonia myself)

[1] https://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/pxweb/en/ssd/START__AM...

[2] https://palgad.stat.ee/en#

[3] https://2020.stateofeuropeantech.com/chart/746-3309

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

#218

Post by at0mic22 »

jgilias wrote: post #201
vogre wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Nope, I can not, actually. This just doesn't correspond to reality. Name one city that has suffered the fate of Mariupol from US actions. Even NATO bombardment of Serbian cities doesn't come even close to the level of destruction that the Russians are inflicting indiscriminately.

No post body was provided.

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

#219

Post by em500 »

itsoktocry wrote: post #113
piva00 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look at the Swedish numbers I feel the same and then I see that prices went down for "photography, audiovisual and computer equipment" and... Nothing else. Fuel is up 40+%, food by 8-10%, housing by 2%, electricity by 30+%. How the fuck do we end up with a normalised rate of inflation of 6-7%?? I do need to do proper research on the models because just using my common sense it doesn't make any fucking sense...

> How the fuck do we end up with a normalised rate of inflation of 6-7%? I don't know about Sweden, but the BLS publishes their data and methodology for the CPI calculation. You can quibble about details, that's fair, but it's transparent. It's based on a basket of goods and proportional spending on those goods in the basket. In some calculations food and fuel are excluded because of volatility (controversial, for ob…

> In some calculations food and fuel are excluded because of volatility (controversial, for obviously reasons).

From the BLS FAQ[1]:

Has the BLS removed food or energy prices in its official measure of inflation? No. The BLS publishes thousands of CPI indexes each month, including the headline All Items CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) and the CPI-U for All Items Less Food and Energy. The latter series, widely referred to as the "core" CPI, is closely watched by many economic analysts and policymakers under the belief that food and energy prices are volatile and are subject to price shocks that cannot be damped through monetary policy. However, all consumer goods and services, including food and energy, are represented in the headline CPI.

Most importantly, none of the prominent legislated uses of the CPI excludes food and energy. Social security and federal retirement benefits are updated each year for inflation by the All Items CPI for Urban Wage Earners

The FAQ clarifies a bunch of other CPI misconceptions overheard regularly in internet forums.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/common-misconceptions-abo...

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

#220

Post by blorgle »

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…

Jeff Snider from Alhambra Partners routinely makes this distinction: https://alhambrapartners.com/2021/10/13/perfect-time-to-revi...

They have a great podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/eurodollar-university/... and routinely appear on finance podcasts to explain this.

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