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UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

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211–220 of 364 posts

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#211

The UK is declining, and people are starting to notice it. People are blaming the government, and clamouring for more support and money, but unfortunately I suspect it’s not that simple. The elephant in the room, in my opinion, is that we simply don’t have the money to maintain the standard of living we once enjoyed. Almost all political conversations here are contingent on this fact, but this underlying problem is r…

> It’s not clear to me _why_ this has happened

I always assumed it was a combination of WW II, collapse of the Empire and then a series of terrible governments since the 1960s.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#212

It might not seem like the biggest issue at the moment but the departure from fact based economics seems to me to underly lots of UK’s current issues. One example. They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules. Result is higher costs for businesses and uncertainty for anyone trying to plan. This allowed someone like Truss to get into power with a fantasy economic plan. You can w…

This generic explanation for everything always gets posted to HN whenever the UK comes up in any capacity, but it isn't "fact based economics". Inflation is surging throughout Europe and the world. Trading Economics has a useful map that visualizes it: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate Inflation is high because governments printed enormous sums of money to fund lockdowns and furloughs. Helicopt…

We have evidence that Brexit is making food imports more expensive and the UK has been slow to tackle inflation in the first place.

Like yes, increasing the money supply is the root cause here but nobody ever states what the alternative should’ve been.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#214

It might not seem like the biggest issue at the moment but the departure from fact based economics seems to me to underly lots of UK’s current issues. One example. They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules. Result is higher costs for businesses and uncertainty for anyone trying to plan. This allowed someone like Truss to get into power with a fantasy economic plan. You can w…

Brexit is bound to have economical impact. Why wouldn't it?

If you asked a heart surgery patient mid surgery if they're doing OK their -- and any professional's -- answer would range from "no, my chest is open" to "inconclusive until the surgery is complete.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#215
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you're right, the UK is done. Little to no industry left, they were a nation of bankers and multinationals that exploited their former colonies. But it's not because of Brexit, COVID or Russia. It's because they never adapted and the rich in their country cared more about maintaining status than improving the country. Look at France and Germany: industry, tech, lots of "producing" businesses thrive. Paris has even…

Germany is incredibly backward compared to the UK - they're still using faxes and cash for a start.

I would take the German economy all day every day over the UK economic house of cards. The UK doesn’t make anything and was mostly acting as the financial center for the trading block in just left.

Brexit was a disaster for their economy and it will take decades for the UK to stop feeling the pain.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I wholeheartedly agree. I just want to emphasize that, to the degree that UK's overall problems are worse that the EU's, Brexit is largely to blame. And this is taking into account some pretty boneheaded things that EU countries did, like Germany deciding to phase out nuclear in 2011.

To what degree are they worse than the EU's? You're making a very slippery argument here. You started by asserting that things are worse in the UK than elsewhere in Europe and this is due to Brexit, but you didn't name any specific way in which things are worse. So you were called out on it because this discussion is about a single data point - food price inflation - which is not different to elsewhere. Now you're sa…

The UK CPI increase year-over-year was 11.1% in October [1].

The France CPI increase was 6.2% for the same period [2].

That is a huge difference for similar developed economies.

1. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bull....

2. https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/france-inflatio....

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase Peter Hitchens again; “If you can’t figure that out by yourself then you are too wet behind the ears to make it” It’s a big world out there with a lot of variety and the appropriate destination depends on a lot of individual factors.

Convenient way to avoid the question. Where would you go?

Amsterdam/Netherlands.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very skeptical that Brexit’s negative consequences will ever be so unambiguous that people admit them. There will always be some non-Brexit excuse. Equally, remainers are too keen to blame everything on Brexit. Reading the UK personal finance subreddit is really sobering. Most people’s idea of a high salary (even in good industries) is less than a mediocre junior dev salary in the US. I feel extremely fortunate t…

There are effectively no non-American corporations competing with FAANGs on salary. Not at any real scale.

FAANG in London are competing with finance, and there are plenty of non-American firms in finance paying high salaries.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#220
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brexit is annoying for consumers (try buying stuff from Germany as easily now) and actively lethal for some businesses. I'm feeling the sovereignty already

More annoying than that. Try hiring software engineers. When I started working in London 15 years ago my colleagues were from a mixture of counties across the EU, easily greater than 50%. Now it's rare to see a CV from outside the UK except for a perhaps people from India.

So? What's your issue working with British and/or Indian people?
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