UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by alkonaut » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

crisdux wrote: post #237

alkonaut wrote: post #229

What was the expected cost of Brexit in terms of wage stagnation and inflation relative to EU? Sure, now the cost is added on top of the global average, but the UK economy would be suffering regardless, now it’s just suffering more. But this was a deliberate choice. The Brexit was about “are you willing to pay X to get Brexit?”. Even low estimates of X were pretty bad.

The fears of brexit causing inflation never panned out. How do you justifying your suggestion that brexit has had a meaningful impact on recent inflation? The UK inflation rate has maxed out at around 2.5% for the last decade until mid/end of 2021. It's growth is line with the rest of the developed world.

Any Brexit impact on UK inflation would be due to weakened pound more than anything. But whatever economic impact Brexit will have is mostly yet to be seen, it’s still hidden by the pandemic and the war (especially supply driven inflation).

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

#292

Post by kaashif » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

gw98 wrote: post #54

bsnnkv wrote: post #30

I left the UK for the US in 2019. My I-485 was approved this week. I haven't been able to travel back to the UK since 2019 first because of Covid and then because of the pending I-485 petition. I'll be going back for the first time once my card is delivered. Reading about what has been happening over the past years in the UK while sitting in the US is really strange. Sometimes it feels like reading about a cartoonish…

So you traded our bananas republic for a gun toting corporatocracy with low employment protection and comedy healthcare and no food standards. I'm not sure who's worse off.

I moved from the UK to the US.

Increased risk, increased reward. And if I'm fired, laid off, or deported, worst case I just go back to the UK having already earned hundreds of thousands of dollars more than I would have in the UK.

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

#293

Post by klelatti » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #284

jmfldn wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that, as Chancellor of a government which accepts Brexit as a done deal, it is interesting for him to do anything other than shower Brexit with praise. Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides. This is the sense in which he 'conceded'. Until recently this was omerta. As I say, believe what you want, I genuinely want to be wrong as I feel ever-growi…

"Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides" Well, the Conservatives officially campaigned to remain and Boris had to kick out dozens of MPs at the last election to even be able to implement the vote at all. Whether someone is a truly reformed Remainer or not has been a question at every leadership contest since. So there's nothing significant or new about Torie…

So tell us what entrenched social attitudes were locked in place by EU membership.

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

#294

Post by 77pt77 » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

jahnu wrote: post #196

77pt77 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the opposite of what Brexit proponents claimed. They claimed the UK was so essential that it could dictate its own terms with both the EU and other trade partners.

And the whole sorry story is bad enough, but what really gets me angry is that there have been no meaningful consequences for those that lied or were badly wrong. There has been no acknowledgement or change of heart.

And that's completely expected.

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

#295

Post by mike_hearn » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

LightG wrote: post #239

mike_hearn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm quite sure the OP was responding to the assertion that the UK was declining, not that current inflation is just a UK specific problem (though I could easily point to some Brexit specific issues that have made it worse than that which other countries are experiencing) I hope this clarification has made you feel less tired.

The OP was responding to the article not another comment, and the article doesn't make any generalized claims about decline, so I don't think they were responding to anyone's assertion but rather making their own.

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

#296

Post by jmfldn » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #284

jmfldn wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that, as Chancellor of a government which accepts Brexit as a done deal, it is interesting for him to do anything other than shower Brexit with praise. Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides. This is the sense in which he 'conceded'. Until recently this was omerta. As I say, believe what you want, I genuinely want to be wrong as I feel ever-growi…

"Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides" Well, the Conservatives officially campaigned to remain and Boris had to kick out dozens of MPs at the last election to even be able to implement the vote at all. Whether someone is a truly reformed Remainer or not has been a question at every leadership contest since. So there's nothing significant or new about Torie…

Compared to recent years it's a bit of volte face for a Chancellor to say something like this, I'm not really thinking about the pre-Boris purge era where of course, things were different. Anyway, I don't want to get stuck on this point. It was a throwaway observation and hearing Hunt say this in his current role stood out, and I felt it was moderately significant politically. The weather is changing. Give it 5 years and I think you'll hear murmurings about rejoining the single market. I really do. Public opinion will get there, although it's way too soon politically for that right now.

I don't lay the entire blame for our decline at Brexit's door, I too think it has been decades in the making. For me though, Brexit was a singular moment of lunacy, and many of the morbid symptoms our politics have displayed in recent years, the terrible quality of leaders, the hard right wing creep in some sections of the govt, the sheer reality-ignoring stupidity, does seem to have a Brexit link. But no, I don't think everything was great pre-Brexit. The lunatics took over the asylum is probably more how I see it. Now we have 'grownups' in charge, I'll concede that much, but I find this new project a grim re-run of the Cameron era. Another ideologically motivated choice to slash the state to address a mythical fiscal hole. I dread to think where we will end up after this latest round of austerity. It's truly grim.

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

#297

Post by legulere » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #162

klelatti wrote: post #115

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…

Printing money only leads to inflation, if it ends up in hands that spend it, which didn’t really happen.

We have massive supply side issues though: extreme gas prices in Europe, raised gas prices in the rest of the world and raised oil prices in the world because of the Ukraine war. Extreme electricity prices in Europe because of failing French nuclear reactors. Missing parts from China because of a continuing zero-covid strategy there.

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

#298

Post by kaashif » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #250

detaro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

after all this the UK is seriously proposing free movement of people (among a pile of other things) again?!

We swapped ~300 million EU citizen with similar (often greater) workplace rights and living standards for a soon-to-be trade deal with India that will only happen with the mass migration of far poorer Indians to the UK. Indians which are used to much fewer workplace rights. The working visas that are created for this will remove the rights UK citizens have to make the visa holders "more attractive" to employers. Good…

> Good luck to native workers in the UK competing with an Indian on a work visa that has no working time regulations, holiday allowance, etc.

There's an important point to highlight here: low paid workers from India working long hours with no holiday will not actually be able to compete with either highly skilled Indian workers who can already get visas, or highly skilled native workers or workers from other developed countries, even if they demand holiday, high pay, etc.

Indeed, this migration report [1] suggests that immigration decreases wages for low paid workers, but increases wages for medium and high paid workers.

Immigration doesn't just boost labour supply, it boosts demand too, but not always in the same jobs, so the effects on wages can be uneven.

If it were that simple to replace highly paid workers, we'd have all already been offshored, but that never seems to materialise.

1: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/th...

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

#299

Post by mike_hearn » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

legulere wrote: post #297

mike_hearn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Printing money only leads to inflation, if it ends up in hands that spend it, which didn’t really happen. We have massive supply side issues though: extreme gas prices in Europe, raised gas prices in the rest of the world and raised oil prices in the world because of the Ukraine war. Extreme electricity prices in Europe because of failing French nuclear reactors. Missing parts from China because of a continuing zero-…

It's both: the UK printed money on a vast scale and then gave it directly to people via cash transfers, whilst simultaneously shutting down things it might have got spent on. It was being handed out so easily that they estimate £17 billion were lost to fraud alone. Spending on furlough was approx £70bn, and the population of the UK is only officially 67.3 million so that was basically cash handouts of ~£1000 to every single man woman and child in the country.

As a consequence, savings broke records over the pandemic period [1]. Now restrictions are gone that money is flooding into the economy as everyone tries to buy things. Simultaneously supply chains are still recovering and energy/gas supplies are limited, this is true. Nonetheless, you can't print thousands of pounds per person and not expect that to create large price increases.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoracco....

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

#300

Post by jlawson » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #153

kesor wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume that a government in an elected democracy will solve anything or be any better than the current situation. This has proven to be false over and over again in history. The only countries that flourished and had tremendous economic growth, are those who had a period of more personal freedom and an almost non-existent government. The more government you have, the less can the human spirit succeed in moving th…

> “The only countries that flourished and had tremendous economic growth, are those who had a period of more personal freedom and an almost non-existent government.” Post-WWII USA was both a period of big government and tremendous economic growth. The government is just people deciding to come together and delegate power. It’s not something separate from people. Why can’t the “human spirit moving things forward” expr…

Government is separate from the overwhelming majority of people, because the overwhelming majority of people have no practical influence over the government.

Power concentrates to a few. Sometimes very few, as in North Korea. Sometimes a slightly broader few, as in America. But it's always a few. The rest are acted upon by government.

Also it's pretty jokey to say that government is people delegating power. The only reason it needs to be delegated is because it was seized in the first place - by government!