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UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

grocerygazette.co.uk

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Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#381

Post by mike-cardwell »

Veen wrote: post #234
kaanski wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general there seems to be a weird zeitgeist of negative exceptionalism in the UK at the moment. Not sure why but generally journos seem to write about issues like they are only hitting the UK when a simple google search shows they aren’t. It does come across like a weird concerted effort to paint the UK as collapsing since leaving the EU. The majority of journos seem to be able to write only negatively about UK cu…

> In general there seems to be a weird zeitgeist of negative exceptionalism in the UK at the moment. Especially on Hacker News. I tend to avoid UK-based posts on here because the content is fairly predictable: the UK is going to shit and Brexit is to blame, repeated ad nauseam in the absence of any evidence that it's true. If I wanted thoughtless UK doom mongering, I'd read the Guardian or the NYT.

If you think HN is bad, you should spend 5 minutes looking at the state of the UnitedKingdom subreddit.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#382

Post by costco »

random_upvoter wrote: post #264

There seems to be a widely accepted and unchallenged consensus that political power is unable to address inflation. Maybe it ain't necessarily so? In 1971 Nixon froze prices and wages by executive order. But these days the political world seems oddly submissive to whatever the market wants to do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock

The current scandals surrounding Ticketmaster, sneakers, and GPUs are all you need to know that price controls would not work today.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#383

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

emodendroket wrote: post #331
samhuk wrote: post #167

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…

I'm not so sure I would say that. Inflation is more harmful to those with assets, it generally accompanies a strong labor market, and the means central banks use to fight it amount to deliberately increasing unemployment.

We can say that inflation is good for those with assets, and interest rate hikes are harmful to those with assets, and the two tend to go together -- but not always; that's mainly up to the central bank.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#384

Post by hypertele-Xii »

Veen wrote: post #193
clnq wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ironic way, the consumers decided to leave the EU and expose the UK to higher inflation. Though much of the world has been seeing severe inflation at this time, it would have probably been better if the UK had access to a broader food market.

The UK still has access to those markets. The problem is not that we can't import goods, but that there are fewer goods to import and they are being sold at higher prices. For example, in January, food inflation in France was 14.8% and in the UK it was slightly lower at 13.3% and the OECD rate was 15.2%. It's not a Brexit problem; it's a production problem. - https://tradingeconomics.com/france/food-inflation - https…

When food starts to run out, governments serve their own people first. This is also true for the EU. If there's not enough to go around, the UK simply won't get to buy any.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#385

Post by astockwell »

symlinkk wrote: post #336
UncleOxidant wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw $6.99 for a pack of 12 flour tortillas yesterday. Could not believe it. At that price I'll try making my own.

I find comments like this weird, I never think about purchases that small. I honestly have no idea how much I pay for tortillas normally but $7 would not even be a blip on my mental radar

And that is OK, as long as you recognize your position of extreme privilege there.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#386

Post by fifticon »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #276
tacker2000 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not really an active conspiracy. It's just the rich pursuing their own interests. When the workers or poor pursue their interests too effectively, the rich in positions of power make them take their medicine. But when the rich do it too effectively, well, that's just the free market and you can't do anything about that.

i really don't like the way this medicine tastes.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#387

Post by [deleted] »

FredPret wrote: post #307

I know this doesn't fit the European worldview, but if only they had Costco. They make 0-1% margin [0] on their groceries - which by the way is very high in quality. Essentially all their profit is from their annual membership fee. You have to buy massive quantities of everything though. This works well if you live in a huge North American house and have an SUV to transport your month's (year's?) groceries. [0] I saw…

[deleted]

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#388

Post by anonymouskimmer »

tantalor wrote: post #279
samhuk wrote: post #167

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…

> the lower class suffers by far the most This is a tautology. The lower class is defined that way. If they didn't suffer the most, they wouldn't be lower class.

The "proportionately" is assumed.

It's possible to imagine circumstances in which the upper classes suffer proportionately more than the lower classes. We have, in fact, had these circumstances. Such as the impact of transition from land wealth to industrial wealth during the first couple of industrial revolutions that saw various nobles having to sell their ancestral estates and belongings. Meanwhile the lower classes gained jobs that allowed them to afford more than they could before.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#390

Post by kzrdude »

lifty wrote: post #228
samhuk wrote: post #167

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…

Tell that to the economists, who predominantly say that inflation helps the poor, supposedly because they have loans.

I think inflation can be a force that equalizes between high and low wealth groups, but that's only if it includes wage inflation.

Inflating wages makes wages relatively more important than existing assets.

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