Thursday, Mar 20, 2008
Add some more confusion
BBC News: Surprise rise in UK sales
UK retail sales unexpectedly rose strongly in February, driven by higher food sales at the supermarkets, official figures have shown.
Posted by afrobaggie @ 10:49 AM (864 views) Add Comment
16 Comments
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1. afrobaggie said...
Mainly due to a rise in food sales. Is this anything to do with the fact that food prices have risen...
2. japanese uncle said...
Provides strong case for the BoE not to succum to the voice for cutting IR
3. afrobaggie said...
JU, not if Sir John Gieve has any influence...
4. cyril said...
it strikes me that the link between interest rates and inflation is misunderstood. We have inflation in food prices because of worldwide demand, crop yields, speculation and stockpiling (e.g. sugar) and all sort of thing. Nothing to do with UK IRs.
5. japanese uncle said...
Cyril
I am afraid the market is just rigged yet again by the speculators. Demand for food cannot dramatically increase overnight unless millions of people suddenly start to eat like Gargantua.
6. rickyb said...
Surely price increases are the symptom of monetary inflation and not the cause? The current rises in CPI and RPI inflation are the result of excessive money supply growth that started over 4 years ago.
7. hpwatcher said...
Lets reserve judgement, before having a closer look at the figures.
8. Blank Cheque said...
Tin hats and canned food mostly.
9. cornishman said...
If people go out to restaurants less often because they are strapped for cash - supermarket food sales are bound to go up as they still need to eat something. I'll be bet that restaurant takings are down.
Same sort of thing as moaning about high street sales being down and taking no account of internet sales booming.
10. jack c said...
The only true measure of sales must surely be by volume on a like for like basis eg X amount of bottles of beer in Jan versus X amount of the same bottles of beer in Feb - you cant claim a genuine "increase in sales" if it is down to an increase in price - which in the case of beer (no pun intended) will also be affected by the recent rise in duty - or I am missing something here?
11. afrobaggie said...
Exactly Jack C. There are lies, damn lies and statistics!
12. cornishman said...
jack - I think you have a point. It is 'odd' that the increase is 5.5% since last year [about the rate of overall food inflation?] and up 1% since last month [after heavy discounting to get rid of all the Christmas stuff in January].
Probably being used to prepare people for no interest rate cuts for a while - the main reason being to prop up the pound - not that anyone would admit that, of course.
13. george monsoon said...
People stockpiling tinned food to prepare for what is to come?
14. Dave said...
If you look at the actual stats, sales of household goods down 4.2%. Worst since 2000. Look on the ONS site.
15. jack c said...
Guy's they provided an explanation on todays BBC working lunch - the rise in "sales" was down to Valentines day & Mothers Day where sales of Chocolates, flowers and champaign rose dramatically !
Lets hope Crash Gordon doesnt get wind of this or we'll have Grandmothers day, Grandfathers day, Civil Partners day, we won the olympics day, carbon footprint day, sustainable solid fundmentals day etc... anything to keep the consumer spending spree going and the economy afloat
16. Jonb said...
Jack C - I believe we already have a Grandparents Day, and various environmental days, but nobody pays any attention to them.