Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

grocerygazette.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 1001 posts

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

#461

Post by jlmorton »

sofixa wrote: post #441
Jimmc414 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's (inflation) been the number 1 priority for central banks since the early 90s. I might believe this if M2 hadn't increased 4x since 2000 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

What has that have to do with inflation in the UK?

So you're saying just because this is an entirely different economy, country, currency, money supply growth rate, central bank and interest rate regimen, that this means the elites aren't conspiring to do the thing they hate more than anything else, the thing that causes them to intentionally decrease jobs and employment to prevent?

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

#462

Post by sofixa »

elevenoh4 wrote: post #338
jldugger wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuter ... Help me understand: is this a stacked chart? Why does a chart that ends in 2021 show inflation in 2022 and 2023? > This inflation is due to insiders (central bankers) printing money. If this is about the money supply, why is food more affected than other products? IMO everything is a factor, and there is no one culprit, and therefore no one easy fix.

Imagine being a rational human looking at g7 central banks adding 40% to the money supply in https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106649548-159664277043... I look forward to open source ai economic simulation tools - when you change variables like m2, you'll see what happens to inflation - and there'll be no more ambiguity For now: ask gpt-4 yourself & get a lesson

> Imagine being a rational human looking at g7 central banks adding 40% to the money supply in Imagine being a rational human and deciding that a war involving two of the biggest agricultural exporters in Europe, one of whom is also one of the main exporters of oil and gas, as well as a ton of different important materials (nickel, steel, fertilizers, etc.), after 2 years of pandemic that crippled global supply lines and resulted in explosion of prices in many raw materials, have combined absolutely no impact on prices anywhere.

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

#463

Post by ThunderSizzle »

SkipperCat wrote: post #314
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The war in 100% the result of Putin. Putting the responsibility of this on Biden doesn't make sense. Besides, Russia was sending troops into eastern Ukraine since 2014, way before Biden took office.

You showed the evidence in your own post. The return to Biden brought the return of typical American foreign policy, which Trump upset. This foreign policy plan has basically been the same under Bush, Obama, and Biden.

The last time Putin pushed the Ukraine issue was under Obama. Under Trump’s watch, Putin didn't dare touch Ukraine.

If I was Putin, and I wanted to invade a country, I would sure as hell prefer Biden as the opponent than Trump. Trump might actually finish the war before it starts. Biden is still trying to remember he's president.

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

#464

Post by LewisVerstappen »

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…

> In an inflationary economy, the winners are rich who have valuable assets whose value skyrocket - think real estate, businesses, etc.

Uh, that's not true in the slightest?

Are you completely unaware of what's happened in the stock market and real estate market over the past year (these are the examples you provided lol)?

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

#465

Post by Nifty3929 »

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.

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

#466

Post by gorbachev »

symlinkk wrote: post #428
astockwell wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don’t think it’s “extreme privilege” to not notice a price increase of maybe $3? I could see it if you’re living in extreme poverty but anyone middle class and above shouldn’t waste mental energy on things like that

You don't have to live in "extreme poverty" to have to pay attention to every penny you use.

Expenses across the board have skyrocketed in the past year. Try and read some stories about what people living in colder, rural areas in Northern Europe (Scotland, Scandinavia, etc.) have had to deal with and you would start to get an idea.

If your rent suddenly increased by 30%, and winter heating bill tripled since last year and food costs 25% more than a year ago, then a lot of people with normally sufficient income would be having financial issues.

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

#467

Post by rdlw »

swarnie wrote: post #413
mike-cardwell wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It has its moments. Just don't engaged in politics, social issues, economics or international relations. Actually what I'm describing is casualuk which is even wore for its banality some how.

So that leaves... film reviews?

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

#468

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #212
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.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. Stock prices are on the slide and property prices and rental yields are extremely precarious. I also agree that low rates were good as you could invest in property with leverage and in businesses which could borrow and raise money to cheaply to grow. Nobody is having a good time right now.

> I also agree that low rates were good as you could invest in property with leverage and in businesses which could borrow and raise money to cheaply to grow.

You can't get something from nothing.

This was simply subsidizing business borrowing / capitalists at the expense of the labor's purchasing power.

It shouldn't be a mystery why inequality sky-rocketed to surpass Belle Epoch levels under ZIRP.

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

#469

Post by joshlemer »

boc wrote: post #35

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.

Demand for food is highly elastic. Food is not a homogenous substance that costs the same to produce each kind. When people are feeling more flush, they will consume more expensive food products (lobster, beef, fish, berries, mussels) and when they are feeling more price conscious they will economize on cheaper products (wheat, lentils, rice, tofu, chicken, beans, vegetables), and by wasting less food. We're talking about literally thousands of different ingredients and products, produced in different ways in different regions, that can to one extent or an other be substituted for each other.

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

#470

Post by Mizoguchi »

justsocrateasin wrote: post #420
wahnfrieden wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

IIRC deflation and inflation are equally as bad. If 'inflation' rates are negative, the economy grinds to a halt. Having an inflation rate of ~2% is widely considered to be beneficially for everyone, since it's in a 'goldilocks' zone, it creates stability. Inflation of 4% sure isn't as good as 2%, but generally speaking the inflation rate in the UK appears to hover around 2-3% during "stable" periods. https://www.mac…

With lack of fundamentals in economics this is very counterintuitive. Japan is a good example of the negative consequences of zero or negative inflation.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/After-20-years-Japan-still-s...

Post reply on HN