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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

#801

Post by argentinian »

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]

You are thinking like Argentina's politicians now. Here there are laws to try to have "Just prices" (price controls) https://www.argentina.gob.ar/economia/comercio/preciosjustos And our inflation is over 100% a year.

Many people don't seem to learn from history. When something appeals to their emotions they follow it blindly.

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

#802

Post by Gustomaximus »

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…

> Debtors over savers. This is well documented in econ textbooks - inflation is a transfer of wealth from savers to debtors, because debtors can pay back their debts with less valuable money.

Wouldn't this be true when interest rates are fixed only? People with variable rates will suffer as interest rates tend to spike during inflation and drive bankruptcy.

Also given wages lag inflation, the debt cost proceeds the payback.

So it feels a mixed case of, this will make some people loose out significantly, but those that can see the other side do well.

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

#803

Post by Nifty3929 »

mjevans wrote: post #682
somenameforme wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has had extremely low interest rates for a very long time, and yet effective competition is further than ever in many industries. Something I'd observe is how unreasonably difficult it can be to legally sell things in the US. For instance hitting on this topic (of food prices), why can't I simply start baking bread and selling it? You can make an amazing loaf of bread for a tiny fraction of what people pay in…

Safety, including healthcode safety, is a good thing. A level playing field ensures that everyone in the market is making safe, hopefully good quality, products for that market. Reviewing, streamlining, and creating easier for small businesses to follow guidelines about the regulations that exist in a given field also sounds like good ways of improving consumer choice and safety.

Absolutely! Food safety is critical!

Let's just be honest with ourselves that these regulations cause us to have less stuff, and consider when they are worth it, and when they are not.

And 100% - making it easier for individuals/businesses to comply with regulations is winners all around.

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

#804

Post by slaymaker1907 »

clnq wrote: post #733
sebzim4500 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, people could eat cheaper food. Not to mention that most people eat too many calories.

This is an interesting point. It's definitely easy to switch to cheaper calories. Candy bars have high calorie counts and are cheap. Even today in the UK, you could buy 2000 kcal worth of candy bars for about £1.60. And the inflation will push some people toward such food choices. Maybe not that extreme, but switching to cheaper food generally means eating less nutritious food (unless you were over-spending), which i…

What kind of candy bars are those? That's like 10 candy bars. A US Hershey bar is only 220 calories which is pretty standard for a candy bar. The real MVP for calories at minimum price is peanut butter. A bottle of Walmart peanut butter apparently goes for $2.18 currently and is 2880 calories total.

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

#805

Post by DeathArrow »

makingstuffs wrote: post #710
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…

Yeah, the reality is that this will always be the case as long as the national minimum wage (rebranded as the living wage) is in no way related to inflation or the GDP of the country. As long as execs and CEOs are free to reap the benefits brought by their staff without paying any of it back this problem will continue to be exasperated. Another contributing factor in the matter is the fact that politicians seem to be…

> This gives them very little incentive to actually help people at the bottom of the totem pole

Err, votes are the biggest incentive for politicians.

> Is a shelf stacker in Sainsburys a high skilled job? No. Is it absolutely crucial in order for Sainsburys to have a working business? Yes.

Not really, they will soon use robots.

> The same is true for the cleaner in a bank. If a bank is covered in dirt and stinks people are not going to bank there. Likewise with cleaners of trains and pretty much any other industry.

I think in Japan cleaning is robotized already.

> When you pair the fact that governments are funded by the same people whom are also funding a divisive narrative throughout all media outlets you end up with a grim and bleak outlook for society.

Governments funded from taxpayers money.

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

#806

Post by [deleted] »

mjevans wrote: post #682
somenameforme wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has had extremely low interest rates for a very long time, and yet effective competition is further than ever in many industries. Something I'd observe is how unreasonably difficult it can be to legally sell things in the US. For instance hitting on this topic (of food prices), why can't I simply start baking bread and selling it? You can make an amazing loaf of bread for a tiny fraction of what people pay in…

Safety, including healthcode safety, is a good thing. A level playing field ensures that everyone in the market is making safe, hopefully good quality, products for that market. Reviewing, streamlining, and creating easier for small businesses to follow guidelines about the regulations that exist in a given field also sounds like good ways of improving consumer choice and safety.

[deleted]

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

#807

Post by munk-a »

_yb2s wrote: post #739
Silverback_VII wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Monopoly, at some point there is just nothing you can do. The resets are probably the collapses of civilizations.

Money isn’t fundamentally a zero sum game like it seems on the surface… rich peoples wealth is invested, and gets used by less wealthy people to also create value - they might say draw a salary supported by a business loan, or mortgage a house.

You're quite correct - but poor people's money also does that. Rich people's wealth is generally less productive in being accessible for loans since it's generally tied up in speculative investments... compared to less well off folks that are more likely to have a pile of cash in a bank account.

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

#808

Post by Nifty3929 »

medion wrote: post #763
somenameforme wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has had extremely low interest rates for a very long time, and yet effective competition is further than ever in many industries. Something I'd observe is how unreasonably difficult it can be to legally sell things in the US. For instance hitting on this topic (of food prices), why can't I simply start baking bread and selling it? You can make an amazing loaf of bread for a tiny fraction of what people pay in…

There has been a complete and confusing lack of deregulation talk in the inflation discussion and I don’t know why. Your example could also be taken with housing - why is construction not deregulated in smart ways to jump start residential building? Building a house is a total red tape disaster.

Because home prices are tracked so closely, sited widely, and used as a barometer of economic success and political success.

But yeah I think that's weird and destructive. Wouldn't it be better to prominently track and celebrate how much new housing is built?

OTOH, many people have all or most of their net-worth tied up in their home price. So even though NOTHING CHANGES when that price goes up or down, it has a psychological affect on them, who vote a lot.

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

#809

Post by astrange »

munk-a wrote: post #799
astrange wrote: post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth taxes, unlike most taxes, would be inflationary because they force selling assets and therefore increase monetary velocity.

Both income and point of sale taxes definitely feed into inflation so I'm not certain why you're trying to draw a distinction between those taxes on productive money and taxes on accumulated wealth (generally unproductive money).

Those are deflationary. They reduce transactions (because you want to spend less) and they reduce the money supply. Wealth taxes reduce the money supply as well, but they increase transactions because you have to buy the currency to pay them in by selling your assets.

That's because you still have to pay wealth taxes in currency, not just by giving up your "wealth". You can't pay taxes in 1/4 of a house or painting.

Although I'm pretty sure an 80% wealth tax would just collapse the economy because people wouldn't own their homes or businesses anymore. Maybe you could take 80% of their debt too?

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

#810

Post by slaymaker1907 »

dangwhy wrote: post #501
mytailorisrich wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something called price elasticity of demand, which is how much demand reacts to changes in price. Here we're discussing food ... People have to eat so demand for food, at least staples, does not change much when prices rise as long as people can afford to pay (and by and large currently they can). It should also be noted that in developed countries the price of food has collapsed as a proportion of people's…

> People have to eat People in west vastly overestimate how much they have to eat. We wouldn't have health epidemic if people can just stop eating all the time.

This is complete nonsense. Yes, people overeat, but it only takes a small surplus of calories to put on weight.
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