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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

#611

Post by moffkalast »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #465
andy_ppp wrote: post #137

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…

The fix is to produce more stuff. It's that simple. It might not be easy though. It would require us to focus on production, remove barriers, streamline regulations, encourage and actively celebrate production. It seems these days we're ambivalent toward the production of stuff, or even antagonistic to it in many cases. So we have less stuff. Combine this with giving people more money and you get inflation.

There's no incentive to produce more stuff if you can just price gouge your current supply for equal or more profit with less manufacturing investment. Especially for necessities like electronics or food where your entire supply will be sold regardless.

You might say there's then an incentive to undercut, sure, but if you undercut too much you'll be left with no inventory as the rest of the manufacturers decide on fixed prices as a cartel (which has now become the norm in most industries). The trust busting has been nowhere to be seen in the last decades and the results are in.

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

#612

Post by legitster »

tootie wrote: post #452
legitster wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty lazy narrative. Prices are rising even in non-branded goods and markets. Smaller retailers are not-undercutting the bigger retailers. Couscous and margarine and eggs being more expensive across the board at the supplier level. This does not speak to any sort of cartel behavior.

Not to veer off into the psychology of it, but there's just such an overwhelming desire by most people to place blame for any misfortune on some intentional human behavior.

Well, also, we know from behavioral economics that people behave their most irrationally when they try to perceive value.

When a store runs out of flour, people don't get as mad at the store as if they raised the prices but keeps flour on the shelf. Despite the fact that having an expensive option for flour always leaves you better off than having no option.

After Hurricane Katrina there were some prominent examples of people being arrested under anti-scalping laws for trying to haul in food and generators from other areas to sell.

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

#613

Post by varjag »

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]

laughs in 1990s Belarusian

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

#614

Post by surement »

ochoseis wrote: post #499
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…

It is said that inflation (caused by money printing at least) is a hidden tax on everyone, which definitely hits the poor more than a progressive tax scheme would.

it's a tax on your bank account, but other assets can increase in value proportionally with inflation

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

#615

Post by vuln »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #584
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…

We avoid inflation by taxing the wealthy and redistributing that to the lower socioeconomic classes. Global ecosystems are already in a free fall, we don’t need to “encourage production” [by deregulating industries? perhaps getting rid of those pesky environmental and worker protections? (that’ll definitely help out those workers) ] and even more rapid resource consumption.

Has this ever successfully been accomplished and if so where? Thanks!

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

#616

Post by samstave »

clnq wrote: post #60
illiarian wrote: post #29

Meanwhile in Sweden the CEO of ICA, the largest supermarket chain in the country (53% of the market) said yesterday: "It is actually the consumer who controls what they are prepared to pay for a product. In the end, it is they who decide." https://omni.se/icas-vd-det-ar-kunderna-som-avgor-matpriset/...

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…

Why do people keep using the term "inelastic", why not just say 'rigid', 'stiff', 'fixed', - I assume they are trying to state they dont ebb/flow?

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

#617

Post by samhuk »

Paul_S wrote: post #545
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…

What I want to know is what kind of bread costs 4 pounds? For people not in the UK: bread at a supermarket costs a quarter of that.

I will copy a previous answer of mine to a similar comment:

A 1kg wholewheat sourdough loaf. I'm a bit picky regarding bread and have actually started making my own in the last few months due, in part, to A) rising prices, B) manufacturer corner-cutting, and C) it's fun!

Regarding "A quarter of that", that is, IMHO, very optimistic. 1kg of bread for £1 would be quite the steal.

However I should have been more specific about it being sourdough, which is much more expensive to produce than "regular" bread at UK supermarkets.

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

#618

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

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.

>The problem would be that they would stay and become violen

So? Let them be violent. What are they gonna do? They don't have guns like in 'Merica.

They're dangerous not because they'll be violent (they won't be), but because they hold missive political leverage.

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

#619

Post by samhuk »

saos wrote: post #535
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…

> riots Cmon..I'm a brit too. I haven't seen riots. It's dangerous comment from you.

Perhaps I should have been a bit clearer on that part. I was thinking of the recent political turmoil in France, which is somewhat related to the economy (rising retirement age is always a response to struggling economies, in part due to ailments like inflation).

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

#620

Post by lesuorac »

theturtletalks wrote: post #590
NalNezumi wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to come from the same place as the argument of "trickle down economics". Yea no, I've seen similar things done in Japan with abenomics (with one of the targeted goal even being more inflation; without achieving it) and studies show it doesn't work. Those spending never reaches the "lower classes", and seldom even reach places where it would have the potential to increase productivity. It's a tired, old arg…

His argument is that the government can do 2 things: 1. Interest-free money for businesses to launch, grow, and advance. This leads to more goods in the market and thus lower prices 2. Free money straight to the people which means more money in the market and thus, inflation, empty shelves, etc. His general point is that having interest-free money keeps existing players honest since newcomers can come in and start a…

> His general point is that having interest-free money keeps existing players honest since newcomers can come in and start a competing business

I mean if you blocked companies from acquiring their competitors sure.

Otherwise you just end up with the largest company treating acquisitions as an R&D expense.

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