Increase in Inflation recently?

[odyssey06]

The charts here have that detail.

Perfect that's what I'm looking for... interesting to note that as per the OP:
Health increased primarily due to a rise in the cost of dental and medical services. This increase was partially offset by lower prices for pharmaceutical products.
Restaurants & Hotels rose mainly due to higher prices for alcoholic drinks and food consumed in licensed premises, restaurants, cafes etc. This increase was partially offset by lower prices for hotel accommodation.

 

[Purple]

Perfect that's what I'm looking for... interesting to note that as per the OP:
Health increased primarily due to a rise in the cost of dental and medical services. This increase was partially offset by lower prices for pharmaceutical products.
Restaurants & Hotels rose mainly due to higher prices for alcoholic drinks and food consumed in licensed premises, restaurants, cafes etc. This increase was partially offset by lower prices for hotel accommodation.

Medical inflation is a problem everywhere. Of course doctors would never engage in price fixing, certainly not Hospital Consultants but GP's do have meetings to discuss, eeh, clinical issues within their areas. By sheer coincidence prices for all the GP's in that area may go up shortly afterwards.

 

[WolfeTone]

Is this what you are looking for?

I would classify this as the jiggery-pokery that @joe sod was talking about.

Items are removed because of 'declining popularity'?
Maybe they have become just too expensive? Maybe not. Hard to tell if they are not being counted.

The best way to gauge inflation is to measure the cost of living for yourself. There are too many variables in the national statistics for them to be reflective of your own circumstances. They are a good guide, and helpful for overall trends.
For my own part, the last year has seen a significant drop in the cost of living across mortgage repayments, insurance, groceries. Energy costs also down due to lack of use of the car. Home energy is up near 20%.

 

[cremeegg]

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.

It is through using debt that capital is accumulated nowadays.

'Working people' as you call them do not usually have any significant debt.

Investors who have borrowed heavily benefit from inflation.

 

[cremeegg]

interest rates, that determine the value of money, have been falling since 2008, from 4.75% to 0%.

Do falling interest rates make money more or less valuable.

€1m in capital obviously generates more income if interest rates are higher.

A future income stream of say €1,000 per month is more valuable if discounted at 1% rather than 5%

 

[joe sod]

Do falling interest rates make money more or less valuable.

€1m in capital obviously generates more income if interest rates are higher.

falling interest rates make existing bonds more valuable so they go up in value relative to newly issued ones because older ones now pay a higher interest rate. Thats the real reason why interest rates have been driven negative to keep the biggest financial asset of all the bond markets on side. The bond markets dwarf the size of the equity and the real estate markets and are the means by which the worlds governments are paying for the pandemic. We saw what happened in 2008 when the bond markets turned up their noses at italian, greek and irish bonds.
Therefore no matter what "real inflation" is running at official inflation will remain low because they cannot raise interest rates.

thats why the bishop brennan analogy is a good description, you kick bishop brennan up the ass and then pretend you havn't done it, but only the ECB and the Fed can kick bishop brennan not the irish government

 

[RedOnion]

Therefore no matter what "real inflation" is running at official inflation will remain low because they cannot raise interest rates.

My major issue is the price of tinfoil hats is not included in the statistics. There's obviously a demand for those...

There are trillions of euro worth of CPI linked bonds held privately. If there was any fooling around with the numbers going on, there's be court cases about it. The amount of nonsense that gets passed off as factual on this site and is left unchallenged is getting ridiculous.

Apologies for the 'spurious' links to the official CSO website.

Heres background to the CSI CPI methodology

Consumer Price Index - CSO - Central Statistics Office

www.cso.ie

All of the methodological documents, including a list of the items, and their weights since the index was rebased are detailed here:

Methodology Documents - CSO - Central Statistics Office

www.cso.ie

What exactly are you not able to find there which would better inform you about how CPI is calculated?

 

[Sarenco]

The bond markets dwarf the size of the equity and the real estate markets and are the means by which the worlds governments are paying for the pandemic.

Not true.

The market cap of global, publicly traded, investment-grade fixed-income securities is lower than the market cap of global, publicly traded, equity securities.

I look forward to reading your explanation as to how the CSO is artificially misrepresenting the “real” inflation rate.

 

[WolfeTone]

@RedOnion I don't think anyone is disputing the data that you are posting. Rather it's relevance to the everyday perceptions of ordinary people.

"Approximately 51,000 prices are collected for a representative basket consisting of 615 item"

This is all fine and good, but realistically how relevant is it to anyone? Who has 615 items in their basket?

If you are an investor with property ownership your perspective of the 'real' inflation rate is going to be different to someone trying to save a deposit at negative interest rates while house prices increase.

Here are some recent comments from ECB chief LaGarde on the matter

"our economies are changing increasingly quickly. We need to keep track of broad concepts of inflation that capture the costs people face in their everyday lives and reflect their perceptions, including measures of owner-occupied housing. This is not about moving the goalposts for monetary policy. It is about future-proofing how we measure inflation."

We can interpret this comment to mean whatever we want. My interpretation is that it is a tacit admission that the methods used by central authorities to measure inflation are inadequate at best and, need some jiggery-pokery, to bridge the gap of the inflation rate that increasing numbers of people are perceivably experiencing against the official rate that they are being informed of.
The gap between the official rate versus the 'real' (or perceived) rate is widening for increasing numbers of the population and that is why you perceive there to be increasing demand for tinfoil hats.

 

[RedOnion]

@WolfeTone
I completely agree. I don't smoke, so the price of tobacco has no influence on my cost of living. But its included in the statistics.

There was a claim there's there's fooling around with the numbers to suit the desired outcome. And that the data on what's included isn't readily accessible. That was what I was specifically responding to, not whether of not the basket is representative of every individual in the country. The basket is what it is, there's a methodology in the selection of items, their weighting in the basket, and how price data is collected.

If you think the removal of camcorders and getting photo film developed in 2016 was purposefully done because those items were getting too expensive, then fire ahead with that narrative.

 

[WolfeTone]

There was a claim there's there's fooling around with the numbers to suit the desired outcome. And that the data on what's included isn't readily accessible. That was what I was specifically responding to

Ok, I don't subscribe to such claims.

If you think the removal of camcorders and getting photo film developed in 2016 was purposefully done because those items were getting too expensive, t

No of course not, and I understand the sentiment of removing them but I consider it somewhat part of the inadequate approach being applied.
Whether it's camcorders or some other out of fashion, outdated, good or service, there is a cost to be borne with those that continue to stock and or invest such items which feeds into the overall inflation (deflation) rate, albeit at micro levels.

 

[joe sod]

All of the methodological documents, including a list of the items, and their weights since the index was rebased are detailed here:

Methodology Documents - CSO - Central Statistics Office

www.cso.ie

What exactly are you not able to find there which would better inform you about how CPI is calculated?

thanks for that yes, there is some detail there now but it takes a bit of searching however I did notice one thing that is a big factor the weighting of sectors that were closed down has been reduced in 2021. Therefore the big expenditure items like fuel , motor cars, licensed premises entertainment were reduced down in 2021 considerably. Of course that is legitimate however that means that inflation is low because spending is low but any discretionary spending that people are "allowed" to do is increasing in price.
Therefore there will be a big spike in inflation next year as these anecdotal price rises get fully reflected (or not so in the official inflation statistics) , a change in a decimal point number of a big expenditure item is not immediately obvious in an excel spreadsheet but it has a big effect on the overall figures.
Therefore next year you don't fully restore the weightings of those closed down sectors, where the price rises are likely to be greatest, there are alot of ways that the figures can be massaged a little here and there and it all looks perfectly ok. There are alot of highly paid statiticians in the CSO alot better paid than moi.

 

[PMU]

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.

But not in the real world. There is a trade off between employment and inflation. The public policy objective is to maintain the highest possible level of employment consistent with price stability. If workers could force through higher wages, i.e. become price setters, in periods of high inflation, all you can get is either higher inflation (bad for the average worker and the unemployed) or higher unemployment (also bad for the average worker and the unemployed).

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.

Only if your post tax income rises faster than inflation. Otherwise, you are worse off as you pay increased prices for goods and services due to inflation, leaving you with less money to service your debt. In fact, you may have to get additional debt (i.e. short term loans, credit card bills, etc.) to pay bills that suddenly increase due to inflation or to maintain your life style in the short-term.

Furthermore, central banks stamp out inflation by rising interest rates, the interest you pay on outstanding debt wil increase also leaving you worse off.

And if you have inflation, working people, and everybody else, just sees the value of their savings evaporate, also leaving you worse off.

This is a good paper on the subject.

From the ESRI? The house think-tank of left-wing losers? That crowd haven't got over the fall of the Berlin Wall.

 

[Purple]

Only if your post tax income rises faster than inflation. Otherwise, you are worse off as you pay increased prices for goods and services due to inflation, leaving you with less money to service your debt. In fact, you may have to get additional debt (i.e. short term loans, credit card bills, etc.) to pay bills that suddenly increase due to inflation or to maintain your life style in the short-term.

If I'm paying back a €400k mortgage and inflation is running at 5% then the real cost of my mortgage drops by 5% each year.
Those who have paid off their mortgages have savings. Those who have not paid off their mortgage have no savings, at least their savings are less than their debts. When your debts are bigger than your savings then inflation leaves you net better off over the medium term.

Furthermore, central banks stamp out inflation by rising interest rates, the interest you pay on outstanding debt wil increase also leaving you worse off.

Yes, there is short term pain as repayment rates increase and if you can't keep up with them then your net debt increases faster but inflation is the friend of the indebted.

And if you have inflation, working people, and everybody else, just sees the value of their savings evaporate, also leaving you worse off.

That only matters if your savings are greater than your debts but yes, inflation erodes the real value of savings, just as it erodes the real value of capital. That's a good thing as it allows more wealth to be retained in labour.

 

[Leo]

"Approximately 51,000 prices are collected for a representative basket consisting of 615 item"

This is all fine and good, but realistically how relevant is it to anyone? Who has 615 items in their basket?

The prupose of the chosen items is obviously not to be representative of any individual's shopping basket! It's a collection of stuff that the general public buy in large quantities, and therefore are a good measure of where the public are spending their money.

Whether it's camcorders or some other out of fashion, outdated, good or service, there is a cost to be borne with those that continue to stock and or invest such items which feeds into the overall inflation (deflation) rate, albeit at micro levels.

Yes, at micro levels. Niche products often have large swings in pricing and should have no affect on overall macro inflation numbers.

 

[WolfeTone]

The prupose of the chosen items is obviously not to be representative of any individual's shopping basket! It's a collection of stuff that the general public buy in large quantities, and therefore are a good measure of where the public are spending their money.

I know. And it is useful for that purpose.
But that purpose is not very efficient way for an individual to measure the level of inflation on their own individual incomes. There is a much more precise way of measuring inflation - monitor your own bills and spending habits.

 

[Leo]

There is a much more precise way of measuring inflation - monitor your own bills and spending habits.

But habitual spending and inflation are two very different things. The fact that you use the car less and so buy less petrol does not mean the price of petrol has fallen.

 

[WolfeTone]

The fact that you use the car less and so buy less petrol does not mean the price of petrol has fallen.

Of course not, but if you are using less petrol and your income is the same then your cost of living has reduced.
Inflation being a measure of the increases in the cost of living.

 

[Purple]

Of course not, but if you are using less petrol and your income is the same then your cost of living has reduced.
Inflation being a measure of the increases in the cost of living.

There has to be an element of "all else being equal" about it though. "What if everyone becomes a monk?" shouldn't be one of the variables.

 

[WolfeTone]

There has to be an element of "all else being equal" about it though. "What if everyone becomes a monk?" shouldn't be one of the variables.

I don't really get that Purple? I'm not disputing the CSO or the national stats. I'm merely suggesting that there are more precise and reliable ways to gauge the inflation rate on one's standard of living that using those figures. Those figures are a useful as a comparable guide that is all.