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As someone who doesn't live in the UK, the impression I get from headlines is that the UK is becoming poorer by the day, the NHS has collapsed, crime is exploding, poverty is rising, most people can't afford anything anymore, the Royal Mail is hanging by a thread, and the economy is in free fall. What's the reality? In London and outside?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brexit plus war.
Brexit plus sanctions. War has nothing to do with that, at least not war in a classical sense. Economic or total war that some countries are involved in can be considered as a major reason.
> This saw select fruit and vegetables rationed in UK supermarkets, due to shortages caused by bad weather conditions in the South of Europe and Northern Africa and many growers having to cut back due to rising costs of heating greenhouses. Besides the obvious degradation of the energy and fertilizer markets from the war in Ukraine, the collapsed Pound is probably the biggest factor here.
I'll leave this here: https://exchangeconversions.com/charts/CAD-GBP-chart-1-year.... As someone who occasionally orders stuff from UK businesses, I wish the pound would collapse against the Canadian dollar. Like, 1:1 or 1:1.2
What about grocery store profit margins? > Bread was up 20.8%, with pasta products and couscous up 25.3% This is unjustified. Under no circumstances could this happen unless a) price gauging, or b) supply chain is drying up. Edit for the ignorant: > The UK is largely self-sufficient in production of grains, producing over 100% of domestic consumption of oats and barley and over 90% of wheat. Average yields over recen…
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Not quite sure why, but their relative productivity per worker has been dropping since 2007 compared to all other developed nations. [1]
With low productivity, it doesn't matter if you have sweet trade deals - you're still going to decline eventually.
Demand for food is inelastic, so it makes sense that companies are raising prices as high as possible since people still have to eat. Generally this leads to price competition from other food brands, but when single companies own dozens/hundreds of food brands it’s easy to act like a cartel and keep prices high.
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For some reason they didn't want to cash in before?
They didn't have the pricing power/their customers didn't have the tolerance for rising prices/coordinated action and corporate consolidation means prices are going up and it doesn't matter what your choices are. Circumstances materially changed over the last few years, and inflation is a great time for profit taking as we're seeing, which reinforces the inflation. In a competitive environment the excess profit-takin…
> They didn't have the pricing power/their customers didn't have the tolerance for rising prices/
Just for everyone's sanity, it's WAY easier to believe that there are underlying market conditions that should be addressed and not worry too much about retailers. They are just doing marginal pricing. If there is a shortage on eggs, it's better for everyone that they price eggs so they stay on the shelves than to price them as if nothing is happening and then people panic because they can never find them anymore.
The profits may be up, but the revenue is still down overall.
The UK politics seems like a separate level of dysfunction. It seems like all the worst decisions being made together. For some reason people voted for Brexit. The PM who was the chief Brexit Campaigner (Boris Johnson) had to resign because of entirely avoidable mistakes. The next PM had to resign too soon due to trying to bring policies which were not well thought out. The current PM had to be annointed since it did…
I'm hoping for boringly competent management of the economy plus a gradual drift back towards relatively friction free trade (both goods and services) with our largest neighbour.
Wage growth would be good and some action on housing so wage gains don't just turn into house price rises.
What about grocery store profit margins? > Bread was up 20.8%, with pasta products and couscous up 25.3% This is unjustified. Under no circumstances could this happen unless a) price gauging, or b) supply chain is drying up. Edit for the ignorant: > The UK is largely self-sufficient in production of grains, producing over 100% of domestic consumption of oats and barley and over 90% of wheat. Average yields over recen…
> This is unjustified. Under no circumstances could this happen unless a) price gauging, or b) supply chain is drying up.
Are you aware that both Russia and Ukraine are (normally) major exporters of grain?