261–270 of 1001 posts
I cannot believe supermarkets these days, it is insane the increases in prices, I’ve seen £5 for a tube of normal toothpaste and £6 for a tiny Pizza that is sometimes available for £3. How people on modest salaries survive I don’t know. Quite often I’m starting to notice dark patterns in pricing where things you normally didn’t worry about will have randomly increased by £2-3 and you get the checkout and you’ve spent…
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.
If wholesale food costs have gone up and they're simply passing that on then they may not be making any more money. Here's wholesale food prices in the US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU578101 In fact you'd expect reduced sales from the higher prices to put pressure on profits. That is what seems to be happening in the UK: https://www.grocerygazette.co.uk/2023/01/31/food-companies-p... But not in the US, wher…
As a person living in the UK, I have definitely noticed a considerable rise in unit prices. One of many examples is that a loaf of my favourite bread increased from £3 to £4 recently, which was a shocker. Toilet roll prices, as ever what the news loves to talk about, has exploded, increasing by around 70% since 2020 by my anecdotal observation. A sad thought I have about inflation is the fact that it is, wittingly or…
https://www.grocerygazette.co.uk/2023/01/31/food-companies-p...
Honestly you're right that inflation can benefit the well off, but I don't buy the conspiracy theory angle. "The Establishment" has been holding inflation rates at historically unprecedented lows for the last generation. It's been the number 1 priority for central banks since the early 90s. The last time the UK inflation rate was above 4% was over 20 years ago.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/inf...
Would it not make sense to have a crypto solution to the inflation problem? Can't governments initiate a crypto currency which can be only used for a basket of goods and the providers of these goods can then exchange this currency for input goods or fiat money after verifying. This crypto coin can be distributed to everyone every month/week and with a expiry date. What I understand is that inflation in high price goo…
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Aren't you just confirming what they said?
Not really, people could eat cheaper food. Not to mention that most people eat too many calories.
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The consumer decides what they are prepared to pay for a product, unless the demand is inelastic. And for food overall, the demand is inelastic. Consumers cannot just say "food is too expensive for me, so I think I'm going to to go without it this month". They can choose between the individual products they buy, so it wouldn't be a problem if just some food items got expensive. But the price of food overall is inflat…
> They can choose between the individual products they buy, so it wouldn't be a problem if just some food items got expensive. But the price of food overall is inflating. That is a false binary. You can still buy flour (or naan or pita), cheese and tomato sauce instead of pre-made pizzas, sacrificing your time against rising food costs. You can buy lentils instead of steak, sacrificing your preferences against rising…
"Let them make cake"
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You are talking like inflation is some conspiracy wielded by “the rich” (who are they? Are they all friends with each other and plan all their schemes together?) against the “others”. Fact is the inflation we are seeing here is caused by the after effects of Covid, the Energy price surges caused by the Ukraine war and in the special case of UK - Brexit, which has lead to huge import shortages due to increased bureauc…
i would add climate change to the mix as impacting agriculture
1. Russia's invasion of Ukraine hit energy prices. Europe-wide Ukraine has been a bit of a scapegoat however as Europe is in an energy crisis in large part due to poor planning. That is, complete dependence on Russian natural gas when for almost 10 years the US saw this coming and begged Europe to build LNG ports;
2. Ukraine produces a significant amount of wheat. The war has disrupted that supply and had a large effect on wheat prices. These are pretty much back down to pre-invasion levels but this brings us to;
3. Corporate profiteering. The solution to this is windfall profits taxation.
Remember when people can't afford to heat their homes and have enough to eat, that's not an inevitability to just throw your hands up at. It's a choice. The government could raises money through taxes and subsidize energy costs as a short-to-medium term measure if they wanted to.
The worst part of this is how many just throw their hands up and say there's nothing we can do other than raise interest rates.