Inflation rates

I would question the weightings of the items in their surveys. I don't thin k that luxury items should be included, only things that people on low inco mes need. So no BMWs, cell phones, avocadoes, etc. I have no idea what item s they choose but I'll bet many of their choices will be stupid.

ink that luxury items should be included, only things that people on low in comes need. So no BMWs, cell phones, avocadoes, etc. I have no idea what it ems they choose but I'll bet many of their choices will be stupid.

The official figures seem to have little connection to my experience of rea lity.

NT

incomes need. So no BMWs, cell phones, avocadoes, etc. I have no idea what items they choose but I'll bet many of their choices will be stupid.

The lower orders, no matter how short of spondulics, all have mobile phones. Note the heavily pregnant seventeen year old. She is using the baby buggy which contains her eldest child as a shield against the traffic. As she drifts blindly across the road across in front of you, notice that she is managing to push (if not control) the buggy with one hand. The other hand is holding her phone to her jewel-encrusted ear.

Bill

Only one?

Televisions, computers, scent, cosmetics, fancy clothes, hairdoes, nails, pre-prepared food etc.

They have no idea what is is to be poor. They might get chance to find out later on.

Do you mean 1% (eg CPI of 2.2 +/- 0.022 %) or 1% point (eg CPI of 2.2

Both are too extreme. The ONS used to reckon that +/- 0.1 percentage points was about the margin for the year-on-year change but stressed that that wasn't a "proper" statistical measure. They don't even publish that now but hope to do somethingsoonish. See eg and

And remember ONS make available underlying data so you can always DIY an index.

Bugger. Sorry. Should have been

Interesting that it does not mention RPIX, which is the one I normally look at.

Colin Bignell

And these 'lower orders' (ahem) of which you speak ... are they to be ... condemned? ... pitied? ... villified?

Your dogma continues to be on show

J^n

and you see no poverty in all of this?

J^n

Consumer Prices Index: Cell phones and Avocadoes are in there ...

Doesn't seem to far from the mark but that document doesn't give quantities or details of cars. Of course depending on your life style whole sections can be ommitted like meat/fish/tobacco/booze...

The latter.

Quite. And they keep changing the goods in the 'basket'. IMHO this is to artificially manupulate the figures. Of course you can calculate your 'personal' inflation. Every time I have done this it has been way higher than the official figures.

Do you buy the same stuff year after year after year? No, me neither.

It's quite a long while since I last bought any blank VHS tapes, for a start.

Generally, reality has little connection to my experience of life. :-/

Absolutely not. Plenty of whingers about. There is no real poverty in the UK nowadays.. There was poverty after WW2 for a few years. There will be plenty of people here remember it.

You have to travel to third world countries to see poverty these days. Todays youngsters haven't a clue. But they may find out the hard way. If it happens, older people will cope better, they will remember how.

I mostly agree. I have met people with nothing, but they're few in uk. Poverty is a much misused word here.

NT

There is little poverty, there is neglect caused by people spending what they have on the wrong things.

The "official" idea of poverty being on less than 2/3 average wage is silly.

I imagine that gas mantles would have been a significant expense over 130 years ago, but not light bulbs. Strangely enough I don't buy light bulbs any more, but I do want some gas mantles (to make LEDs look like gas lights!)