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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

#631

Post by simonh »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #359
simonh wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope you don't mind me re-posting this from another comment of mine, but since you specifically raise the UK it's actually more relevant here. In the UK it doesn't look like gouging is the issue: 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…

Why doesn’t 4% count as weaponized? That’s higher than typical annual raises, not to mention non workers

It’s not been 4%, it’s been below that. Mostly less than half that actually. And I was wrong, it’s been that way for over 30 years, not 20.

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

#632

Post by Tycho »

The interesting thing about food is that most people in the country probably spend 10x on food than what they really need to (including eating/drinking out). We pay for convenience and luxury, but if push comes to shove there’s a lot of economising to be had.

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

#633

Post by RhodesianHunter »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #454
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 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…

>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.

Completely inaccurate. Giving people money that came from taxes does not increase the money supply.

Giving people money that came from selling bonds does not increase the money supply.

Only printing money increases the money supply.

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

#634

Post by ClumsyPilot »

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…

government can directly invest in production capacity to produce stuff.

Like they can build housing and windfarms, etc.

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

#635

Post by moffkalast »

samstave wrote: post #561
lepus wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't know anyone who thinks about everyday purchases like this then you're in a social bubble. This is a normal concern for a lot of people.

Funny anecdote: Jeff Bezos was interviewed in Pay Pal days after making many millions, and as they drove across the GGB, was asked why he was still driving his beat up honda - he said "Why, just because I have some money? Its still a good car!" FF 2020: Jeff Bezos builds worlds most expensive yacht, and is having a municiple bridge dismantled so it can pass through, and local residents want to throw eggs at it as it…

I think we're all reading the wrong message from that quote. It's supposed to look like the guy's humble but that's just the miser entrepreneur mindset. Spend as little money on luxuries, spend as much as possible on making more money. The CEO at the company I work at is the same way, drives absolute banger cars in an effort to save money or something. I think he ends up paying more in repairs than if he just bought a new one.

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

#636

Post by ocbyc »

tacker2000 wrote: post #204
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…

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 had to scroll down to far. Cheap nuclear energy now!

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

#637

Post by tigerlily »

There's a lot of arguments about the mechanisms of inflation, and its various symptoms, but surely the root cause of inflation is elevated energy prices?

I mean energy underpins the price of everything else in an economy, especially production and transportation, which in turn affects the price of groceries. I guess as far as groceries go there's also a significant labor component, but still, it must surely be the cost of energy as the principal driver of inflation?

Edit: typos

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

#638

Post by samhuk »

nostrademons wrote: post #547
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…

Passive rich are usually severely hurt by inflation as well. One feature of inflation is that interests rates rise to cover expected future inflation. High interest rates = low asset values, since the value of an asset is the discounted value of all future cash flows and the discount rate goes up with prevailing interest rates. In theory companies' earnings should rise with inflation, but in practice existing compani…

Thank you for taking the time to provide the detail. I see now that the subject is quite a lot more complicated than I thought, and it's less about wealthy versus not-wealthy but rather a list of X versus Y, where X and Y are not what you would necessarily expect, such as gvmt versus citizen, etc.

Again, thanks.

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

#639

Post by [deleted] »

solveit wrote: post #573
cool_dude85 wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Says who? Why can't the people producing stuff simply take lower profit margins instead?

Prices lower than the market-clearing price necessarily mean rationing or empty shelves. If you have a hundred potatoes and two hundred people, lowering prices just mean some people won't be able to buy at the low price.

[deleted]

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

#640

Post by wonnor »

TheFattestNinja wrote: post #598
martinald wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assets are deflating at the moment though. S&P500 is down, property prices are down, etc. Asset prices are highly inversely correlated to interest rates, so for a 'rich' person you are actually much better off without inflation, as interest rates are lower and asset prices rise faster.

Always worth remembering that, at least for property prices, "being down 10%" doesn't mean that 1y they were worth 100 and this year are worth 90, but that 2y ago they were worth 100, 1y ago they were worth 110, and this year they are worth 119. In other words we often talk about "the % year on year increase is down", not "the value of the house is down".

Can you point to a single usage in the context of property prices where "being down X%", without specifying that X is referring to a YoY increase, means what you say?
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