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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

#601

Post by unity1001 »

dukeyukey wrote: post #568
unity1001 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not average for Europe. Aside from Germany, rest of Europe is at around ~10%. The UK is being singled out because its not able to import the groceries it used to do before Brexit now - there has been a low yield crop season in most parts of Europe and the domestic demand for groceries has literally exhausted the supply that can be exported. Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic…

> Aside from Germany, rest of Europe is at around ~10%. That isn't true at all, the UK is about the same as the Euro area taken as a whole. > Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic supply anymore and it has to wait for what remains for export The UK is absolutely capable of tapping EU supply, we've got an extensive free trade deal. I'm eating Spanish cherry tomatoes as I type! Sourc…

"European Union Inflation Rate is at 9.90%, compared to 10.00% last month and 6.20% last year. This is higher than the long term average of 2.12%."

https://ycharts.com/indicators/europe_inflation_rate

> The UK is absolutely capable of tapping EU supply,

I don't understand what are you trying to falsify. CNBC or their news about the UK not being able to import as it used to from the Eu.

"...James Walton, chief economist at the Institute of Grocery Distribution, told CNBC: “The U.K. is highly reliant on imports of fresh produce at all times of year, especially in winter — the EU accounts for much of this import volume. If there are shortfalls in production in the EU, then it would make sense that EU producers would serve their local demand first. This leaves less available for export to the U.K...”"

Having a 'free' trade deal does not mean that you will get priority over the domestic buyer as an outsider.

> I'm eating Spanish cherry tomatoes as I type

Your personal experience does not constitute a statistic.

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

#602

Post by unity1001 »

ghusto wrote: post #532
unity1001 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not average for Europe. Aside from Germany, rest of Europe is at around ~10%. The UK is being singled out because its not able to import the groceries it used to do before Brexit now - there has been a low yield crop season in most parts of Europe and the domestic demand for groceries has literally exhausted the supply that can be exported. Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic…

What's around ~10%? What does that mean? All I know is that here in the Netherlands, the prices they're mentioning are normal.

It means this:

https://ycharts.com/indicators/europe_inflation_rate

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

#603

Post by jrockway »

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 winners from inflation are anyone with debt. If your mortgage was equivalent to 1000 loaves of bread yesterday, and it buys 500 loaves of bread today, you just got a bunch of free money. This assumes wages keep pace with inflation; at the very low end of the spectrum (minimum wage) they probably don't, but for professionals, it seems like everyone has gotten inflation raises over the last couple years.

Other than the sticker shock on the price of everything, it's not too bad for a lot of us.

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

#604

Post by bombcar »

tootie wrote: post #592
bombcar wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the root of conspiracy theories - it's much easier and nicer to think there's some cartoon villain somewhere making your life miserable; it's much harder to admit that the world is just annoying and painful. Also with a "big evil" you can tell yourself that removing that evil would solve everything.

A lot of times, the villainy is really the collective self-interest of thousand of people in a supply chain or open market. No one is going to willingly pay more or sell for less than they can get at any step of the way. I use housing as a good example since it's been a major driver of inflation and most houses are sold peer to peer on the open market. If you're selling your house and you see comparable houses sellin…

From that comes NIMBY; everyone agrees that something should be done but nobody wants to do it. We really don't like be presented with 'we cause things too.'

The house sale is a perfect example, and is something to meditate on. (One solution is 'competition' such as making sure new houses are being built, other companies can produce food, etc.)

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

#605

Post by jrockway »

lostdog wrote: post #557
Nifty3929 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower class does suffer the most, but unfortunately it is the policies intended to help them which actually cause most of the problem. By giving money to people without producing more stuff - or even making it harder to produce the same - you MUST have inflation, rationing, or empty shelves - and often all three. The solution to allowing lower classes to have more stuff is to make it easier for everybody to produ…

What are the typical policies for getting more stuff produced?

Whatever we do with corn is a good example. We have way more of it than anyone wants, but it continues to be produced because the producers are subsidized. (We have found alternate uses for the corn glut; high fructose corn syrup, ethanol in your gasoline, etc. Neither of these things exist in countries that don't subsidize corn production.)

In theory, you could do this with toilet paper or loaves of bread too.

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

#606

Post by [deleted] »

ddren wrote: post #520
Nifty3929 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower class does suffer the most, but unfortunately it is the policies intended to help them which actually cause most of the problem. By giving money to people without producing more stuff - or even making it harder to produce the same - you MUST have inflation, rationing, or empty shelves - and often all three. The solution to allowing lower classes to have more stuff is to make it easier for everybody to produ…

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#607

Post by cameronh90 »

kaanski wrote: post #198
_Wintermute wrote: post #87

For reference, that's a fairly average value for Europe at the moment. Not sure why the UK is being singled out. https://i.redd.it/8hbhiqhowjpa1.png

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…

I see a huge difference between people online and normal people.

Obviously we are going through a tough time at the moment. While there are some things unique to the UK (such as the nurses and junior doctors strike), for the most part what we are experiencing is common to most of Europe and often even the USA. I mean look at France - Paris is drowning in rubbish due to bin strikes and protesters are setting things on fire - yet if anything that seems to be being covered as something positive for them. People taking back power and exerting their rights. Last time that happened here, though, it was treated as an almost apocalyptic event and emblemic of Broken Britain. Sure the Paris strikes are ostensibly about pensions, but really they're about more than that.

By default, Brits tend to lean toward the negative side. I think even before Brexit/Tories/etc. most British people would broadly have considered the UK to be a bit shit, and generally complain more than they say anything positive. However, when measured, the UK is in the top 10 countries on a huge number of metrics and isn't particulary awful at anything. I do find the general negativity a bit tiresome, but it's not entirely a bad thing. That negativity is probably partly behind why we have managed to become and remain such a successful and stable country for so long.

Online, though, British people seem to be incredibly negative in a way that I've rarely experienced in person. I figure one reason why people online are so unflinchingly negative about the UK is that online Brits seem to lean very hard left and we're now on our 13th year of Tory leadership. I'm pretty lefty myself, but an awful lot of the chronically online UK types are literally Trots and Tankies (who are, nevertheless, pro-remain #FBPE, despite the contradiction between those views). Look at, e.g. Corbyn's online popularity versus his real (un)popularity with the electoral base. Or how the Tories actually generally get a similar popular vote to Labour, but online it's hard to find a single person who expresses any support for them.

I also think the UK generally gets its news about Europe from US news sources, especially when it comes to economic policy and comparisons. The US news (especially NYT and such) love to paint the US as a capitalist hellscape compared to the utopia of Continental Europe and the Nordics in particular. In reality, of course, the EU and Nordics are a lot more complicated than that, and in socioeconomic terms we're a lot closer to Europe in most ways than we are to the US, but that doesn't seem to feed through so people draw the same comparisons that are popular in US papers. You also get that with the NHS vs USA's system, as though those are the only two options.

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

#608

Post by aksss »

ddren wrote: post #520
Nifty3929 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower class does suffer the most, but unfortunately it is the policies intended to help them which actually cause most of the problem. By giving money to people without producing more stuff - or even making it harder to produce the same - you MUST have inflation, rationing, or empty shelves - and often all three. The solution to allowing lower classes to have more stuff is to make it easier for everybody to produ…

[flagged]

Gives anybody with elementary knowledge of econ a heart attack. How far up the supply chain do you want to go with these price controls to try and avoid the inevitable shortages and black markets? Labor price controls? Would that be effective?

> "It happens when someone decides to raise the prices"

What would drive someone to raise the price of something with the confidence it will still sell at that price?

Rising demand and limited supply. Someone with a monopoly on all the widget production can arbitrarily decide to limit supply (e.g. your "limited edition" MTG card), which is a farce.

More often and importantly, in an environment where there are many producers of a commodity like toilet paper, they suffer input shortages or other increases to the cost of production/delivery. On and on this analysis goes until you get to your question, "why not stop the problem at the source". Where is the source in the price increase in toilet paper? Paper production costs are up? Ink costs are up? Shipping costs are up? Regulatory costs are up? Energy prices are up? Labor costs are up? Freeze all of these by government mandate?

As the guy cutting down trees for toilet paper with a shortage of gas for your chainsaw (meaning it costs more to run), do you want the cost of your product arbitrarily frozen with no regard to your input costs? What if the cost of your logging lease from the government increased? Can you raise the price of the toilet paper logs you're selling? No? How is that fair? What if landslides decreased your tree availability by half, but the number butts that needed wiping hasn't changed, or worse, has increased? Are you to sell your now scarce trees at the same price you always did? Or shall you sell to the highest bidder? What if the government says you can't auction the trees but must sell them for the same price? Maybe you look for off-the-books compensation - free tickets to the game, whatever. Someone still bears that increased cost.

If rising demand relative to limited supply is the actual source of the problem (too many people want toilet paper) why not stop the problem there by simply rationing toilet paper? Turns out this is what happens more frequently - rationing eggs, toilet paper, trying to prevent hoarding, scalping, etc.

Arbitrarily limiting the supply costs of a product or the demand for a product is a temporary solution at best.

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

#609

Post by samstave »

purpleturtle22 wrote: post #380
symlinkk wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is because you probably make tech money (I do too). My family was poor growing up and we shopped by cent per oz, and noticed any significant price changes and went for alternatives. Planned dinner/produce/meat based off what was on sale, etc. Many, many people notice when milk goes up 50 cents. I still do.

I didnt grow up poor, and I have made "tech money" my entire career - but I very often check cent/oz on products - because I dont like being cheated at that level...

HOWEVER.

Annecdote:

I was at dinner in SF - and we were at a very nice restaurant, nice wine, food etc. My buddy was kvetching over buying this watch, which was something like $200 and was talking about how he wasnt sure if it was worth it...

I looked at him and said "We are spending over $200 on this bottle of wine tonight without blinking, which will be gone in moments - and youre kvetching over a $200 watch which will be around forever?"

Expense-perspective is something to reflect on.

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

#610

Post by pg_1234 »

pydry wrote: post #528
prox wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax the rich and they go somewhere else (see recent discussions about the wealth tax in France)

The wealthy in the UK are largely landed gentry. They can't flee with their property and if they sell it off at firesale prices to ordinary folk to avoid being taxed that would largely solve the housing crisis. The problem wouldn't be that they would leave. The problem would be that they would stay and become violent.

Or, for a really simple solution, tax the land.

Not the structure built on it (well ... not much ... and you can often just tax that through the resources it consumes).

Not only are you taxing the asset that can't flee the country, and which the poor typically don't own, you also incentivise efficient land usage (it becomes too expensive to be a NIMBY).

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