(Apologies to the moderator if this is in the wrong place). Have you noticed an increase in inflation recently and what do you think about it? Does it impact your financial strategy? In the past few weeks I've bought a few services that I hadn't availed of for many months (doctor, dentist, physio), booked a few more and got take-away meals from some favourite restaurants that have recently re-opened. I've been struck by the price increases across the board from 5% to 15%. I don't begrudge the higher charges in light of the pressure businesses have been under during lockdown but wonder what's going on. Is this part of a general inflationary trend?
Increase in Inflation recently?
- Thread starter Silvius
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Brendan Burgess
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Hi Silvius
The CSO is excellent for answering questions from the public.
Give them a shout and ask them if your experience is correct.
Brendan
The CSO is excellent for answering questions from the public.
Give them a shout and ask them if your experience is correct.
Brendan
Maybe, but not according to the CSO to the end of March https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/prices/consumerpriceindex/
Inflation is a good thing for average working people as it increases the value of labour (wage inflation) and reduces the value of money (capital). For the last few decades the value of labour has reduced significantly relative to the value of *Capital. That's not a good thing.
*edit: typo fixed
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A lot of those businesses have specific additional covid costs in terms of PPE, cleaning, staff capacity or reduced volume.
Supermarket prices seem stable.
Huh, the party ?
Typo fixed
There is a bit if jiggery pokery going on with inflation statistics, very hard to find out the granular details of exactly what products are included in the index now. It's not just an Irish phenomenon as our money and interest rates are set in Europe. The ecb want to keep interest rates negative and keep highly indebted countries access to cheap money. Therefore the pretence that there is no inflation will continue because they can't raise interest rates .
It's like Fr Ted , kick bishop Brennan up the ass but pretend you haven't done it and then convince bishop Brennan that you haven't done it because that would be preposterous.
This is debateable It applies only for those workers that are price setters rather than price takers in the market. Only if your post-tax income increases greater than the rate of inflation are you a 'wnner' and it's doubtful if many workers are in a position to do that. Otherwise your wages are just eaten up by increased prices for goods and services, assuming you can still keep your job. When there was high inflation in the 70s and 80s it wasn't exactly a workers' paradise.
This is also debateable. If you look at PAYE receipts as a proxy for value of labour, Revenue's income tax receipts report 2020 states that “PAYE income tax net receipts grew steadily over the period 2016 to 2019 and declined slightly in 2020, by about €202 million (1.2 per cent), but the share of receipts arising from PAYE continues to grow.”. So if the tax take from labour and its share of taxation is increasing, it's doubtful if the value of labour is decreasing, but interest rates, that determine the value of money, have been falling since 2008, from 4.75% to 0%.
Have you actually looked or just making wild statements with no basis again? It's readily available information.
NoRegretsCoyote
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I know this well and have my own very technical issues with how the CSO does its inflation estimates, but:
- The source data is not rigged. CSO is a national statistical institute in a developed country, not Venezuela. The CSO has very strong legal protections from political interference and its staff are in my long experience really good by public sector, or indeed any, standards.
- If there is a bias in the methodology, it is to slightly over-estimate inflation.
Eventually price takes get to be price setters when they go on strike or labour shortages increase prices.
Periods of high inflation are, in the medium term, great for working people as they erode the real value of debt. They also increase the value of labour.
Labour inflation is way behind capital inflation (stock markets, houses etc) so in real terms the value of labour is reducing. This is a good paper on the subject. Looking at tax takes or labour price inflation in isolation is meaningless. We are creating a Capital Owning class in this country which will be just as embedded as the old Anglo-Irish landlords. That infamous leftie Michael McDowell was writing about it in the IT the other day. Apparently even the wee man in the Park was breathlessly pontificating about it on the Late Late recently.
Alright, well then can you point me to where this information is , I mean the granular data of the thousands of products that have been included in the statistic and also what proportion of products were replaced since the last statistic was completed. I searched high and low and could not find it before, I must be stupid
NoRegretsCoyote
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Have a read of this Eurostat report here.
They do not publicise exactly which products or services they sample. No national statistical institute does this.
Are there particular expenditures that are not covered by the statistics that might cause people's wallets to feel lighter but not picked up by the stats? Would doctor's fees for example be listed?
NoRegretsCoyote
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Well they don't survey illegal drugs and s€x work for example
But otherwise it is aimed at being a representative basket of all sorts of legitimate expenditure on goods and services.
Is this what you are looking for?
So it should be picking up for example, increases in the costs of medical services, medical insurance OR say electricity bills, broadband bills, transport costs such as the price of petrol or bus fares, car servicing or car insurance?Well they don't survey illegal drugs and s€x work for example
But otherwise it is aimed at being a representative basket of all sorts of legitimate expenditure on goods and services.
I scanned the PDF you linked but it didn't give information one way or another.
The charts here have that detail.
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