[Misc] price gouging

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Tonight as I’m working late I went down to Screwfix to buy some cable NONE in stock common is muck lighting cable they normally have loads of it.

Yep. May not sound like a life-threatening item, but....and suddenly you find you can't make your breakfast....or do your job.

We can probably identify the problems, but where are the solutions?

"Let's not talk this great country down.....world beating vaccines....world beating trade deals....sunny uplands"

OK, Boris, mate.

("But under Corbyn"...... . . . . what about under....Milliband! Dull.....in the EU....the nation probably FORCED to wear facemasks and socially distance against their god given will....loving the freedom under the freedom-day-man, the chancer who stepped in after clueless Cameron and she May or May not )

I love a bit of political aftertiming, me

Hope you get your supplies in soon, and we can all swiftly move forward, nothing to see here, etc.

 

[zefarelly]

Bottles of Corona beer suddenly gone from 720ml to 620ml in the shops in our town. Same price as before.

You'd be dissatisfied if it was 1L and 50p.

Real Beer is available all over the country at sensible prices

 

[Albion in the north]

Happy to help. Thought I would get things going a bit.

Things being expensive is hardly a new point, BBC from 2001: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1136184.stm

More interestingly, are Napster right to start charging people: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1142815.stm

So in post 2 you say its Brexit but in post 14 you say its hardly a new thing, quoting an article from 2001.

 

[sydney]

If you don't like the cost of living in the UK perhaps try and see how you get on living in Afghanistan, I'm sure some poor soul over there will be willing to swap with you

that deserves it's own thread surely.

 

[Blue3]

For the UK it's Brexit and it's only going to get worse.

Agree with so many working from home building an garden room office has been a boost to the garden shed/room industry but with materials, skilled labour and drivers all in short supply combined with opportunism from some has increased costs to the customer by 150% according to a report by the BBC a couple of days ago

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Work has stopped on next door's bespoke 'shed' because the builder (trusted local man) can't source materials.

Can't find lactose-free milk in Faversham - the missus has kindly offered to schlep to Canterbury for me tomorrow.

I can't comment on the supply of crisps, fish fingers and chocolate for obvious reasons.

Covid and Brexit, with the supply chain ****ed is my guess.

That's what happens when you make big changes without a plan, and make big plans without knowing how to effect the necessary changes.

A carpenter working for us a couple of months back said that the US is buying up loads of building materials, especially wood, and thereby inflating the cost and availability.

And for people either to state “of course it’s down to Brexit” or “it’s got nothing to do with Brexit” is daft. Brexit has to be factor - a major factor in some cases - but is not the only cause…….. and clearly not in Australia.

 

[nicko31]

Central governments just keep printing cash, throw in Covid disruption and its the perfect storm for inflationary pressure. When you hear about madness like Bitcoin you know there's trouble ahead...

The B word is just the icing on the cake for the UK

 

[Half Time Pies]

All the evidence (2008, Japan) seems to point to the fact that QE does not result in inflation. It does however artificially inflate asset prices.

 

[Notters]

Central governments just keep printing cash, throw in Covid disruption and its the perfect storm for inflationary pressure. When you hear about madness like Bitcoin you know there's trouble ahead...

The B word is just the icing on the cake for the UK

Would like to know what you mean by this? If anything bitcoin is the only sane part of it all!

 

[Half Time Pies]

Would like to know what you mean by this? If anything bitcoin is the only sane part of it all!

I know several people who have been buying in to crypto, including my mother-in-law! when I’ve asked them questions about what it is, and why they own it they genuinely don’t have a clue! They are buying in to a volatile asset that they know very little about for fear of missing out, and this asset can go up or down in value by 1/3 in a matter of days driven by tweets from Elon musk! If that’s not madness then I don’t know what is!

 

[mreprice]

All the evidence (2008, Japan) seems to point to the fact that QE does not result in inflation. It does however artificially inflate asset prices.

Like Bitcoin

 

[Doc Lynam]

Like Bitcoin

Correct and Bitcoin is a deflationary asset

 

[dsr-burnley]

Yep, it's in the news today https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/01/shop-prices-rise-driver-shortages-brexit-red-tape

At risk of stating the obvious, the Guardian article posted on page 1 of this thread says that prices are 0.8% lower than last year. Which makes some of the complaints about price rises somewhat redundant.

 

[The Clamp]

There are global shortages. A lot of the world can ride it out because they didn’t divorce their biggest trading partners, slag them off and then try and beg and make threats in order to be allowed to carry on enjoying the privileges that are awarded to paid up members of one of the world’s biggest trading blocs.

 

[The Clamp]

 

[zefarelly]

At risk of stating the obvious, the Guardian article posted on page 1 of this thread says that prices are 0.8% lower than last year. Which makes some of the complaints about price rises somewhat redundant.

A lot of prices bolted before Covid . . .it's merely compounded this countries idiocy.

 

[The Clamp]

The U.K. is just over 100,000 haulage drivers short of what it needs to deliver a viable service.
60,000 short from lack of take up or interest in the job
24,000 returned home after Brexit and won’t return
20,000 have been unable to take their tests due to Covid. The backlog is being cleared now. Plus drivers took early retirement, the average age of an HGV driver being 55.

It’s having a huge impact.

 

[virtual22]

Now we don't have them, and the a large number of our general workforce turn their noses up at menial jobs for basic pay. So, we have to increase pay to make these jobs attractive.

You make it sound like this is a bad thing! I personally believe that for way too long in this country some of the people doing the hardest jobs are the most under paid in society an example that comes to mind are care workers, very few of us can do this job, or would choose to. We have traditionally filled these roles by people from overseas who are willing to take a lower wage. I'm happy to see people in these sorts of roles get an increase in pay where ever it is they come from.

We also have to factor in that if wages increase, so does the tax take meaing we can invest in the things that need it. Yes we have to be wary of inflation but it's not a race to the bottom.

With regard to prices going up in general, of course they will. We live in a global economy that is largely based on greed and maximising profits at the expense of all else. Is it price gouging, not really, it's capitalism at work.

 

[virtual22]

There are global shortages. A lot of the world can ride it out because they didn’t divorce their biggest trading partners, slag them off and then try and beg and make threats in order to be allowed to carry on enjoying the privileges that are awarded to paid up members of one of the world’s biggest trading blocs.

Sorry but this is largely rubbish. Try buying anything that needs a semi-conductor at the moment, anywhere in the world and it's a similar story. There just are not enough to go around as we stopped making them for nigh on a year. Apple are saying their new Macbooks may be more expensive, Microsoft cannot make enough Xbox's, car manufacturuers cannot make enough cars, these are glabal businesses not UK business. No one is riding this out at the moment whether you are in Europe or not. The problem with making unfounded sweeping statements like this is it detracts away from actual problems caused by leaving the EU, which there are many.

 

[The Clamp]

Sorry but this is largely rubbish. Try buying anything that needs a semi-conductor at the moment, anywhere in the world and it's a similar story. There just are not enough to go around as we stopped making them for nigh on a year. Apple are saying their new Macbooks may be more expensive, Microsoft cannot make enough Xbox's, car manufacturuers cannot make enough cars, these are glabal businesses not UK business. No one is riding this out at the moment whether you are in Europe or not. The problem with making unfounded sweeping statements like this is it detracts away from actual problems caused by leaving the EU, which there are many.

Hence my very first line is there are global shortages.