Tuesday, Oct 06, 2009
This is why house prices will fall
BBC: Maths 'failing bargain hunters'
"Just over 1,000 adults were given the example of a chocolate bar that was priced at £1.99 for one, but £3.45 for two.
Some 87% of those asked were unable to work out how big the saving on two bars would be, the campaign organisers said.
Around 57% of those asked could not work out how much a packet of sausages would cost if it had a third off."
Posted by phdinbubbles @ 03:21 PM (1554 views) Add Comment
29 Comments
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1. Mikthe20 said...
Has the human race split into two sub-species?
2. Another_pleb said...
I wonder if there have been any studies into people's performance at basic arithmetic and structured reasoning tests and their performance at paying back loans on time and managing their finances. When I apply for a job, I usually have to perform well in an aptitude test, when I apply for a bank loan, I just have to seem as if I can pay the money back.
Personally, I've long ceased to be shocked when I encounter someone who has problems with what used to be known as The Three Rs. A friend of mine once refused to accept that four months is one third of a year.
3. crash n burn said...
Was this survey carried out in some overly priced chav town??? I don't think I know anyone who couldn't answer that question.
4. will said...
I'll just have the one bar - thanks.
5. Djia977 said...
It could equally be said to be the reason why house prices must rise.
6. tenant super said...
I also think one of the reasons for the insane boom was people's inability to conceptualise the price of houses. Admittedly some of the mind-boggling bailout figures are beyond my ability to grasp in a meaningful way, but I can grasp how much money £250K is. That's a quarter of a million pounds, eight times the average London wage, 100 decent holidays and far too much for a lousy 2 bedroom flat the wrong side of Clapham (which is what a friend of mine paid recently).
7. crunchy said...
More Labour spin.
Yeah I really should have bought two houses at the artificial temporary 8.13% discount before prices took off again. Silly me.
I would rather pay double and will be soon for a chocolate bar for now thanks.
8. mrflibble said...
It's reports like this that give me the fear our currency will end up priced as junk as it is discovered we really do have nothing left to offer the world. OK you could argue this survey was done in Chav Town, but 90% of the population still believe houses only ever go up. Still with El Gordon at the levers they would be right...
9. alan said...
crash n burn,
Yes, it was probably somewhere near me. You called it right!
10. Bluebeach said...
OK brainboxes, £100 to anyone who correctly calculates the cost of the sausage.....?
11. bluebeach said...
ok......£100 to anyone to correctly calculate the cost of sausages
12. greenshootsandleaves said...
So what's new? Not knowing what APR, for instance, stands for has never stopped people from borrowing up to their eyeballs on their credit card(s), much to the delight of the companies concerned. Luckily, when it comes to really big purchases (such as houses), there's always a smugdog/estate agent or other trustworthy person ready to offer a helping hand, i.e. interpret the market signals and guide them through the complicated bits.
13. japanese uncle said...
Pushing complicated credit arrangement including credit card loans involving revolving repayment, to the vast majority of population operating on this level of arithmetic knowledge is nothing short of criminal.
14. Robbie said...
What a pointless result, did any of them understand what 87% means?
15. str 2007 said...
''The campaign will be talking to shoppers in various Sainsbury's stores this week to promote the courses. ''
Shouldn't they be in Lidll or Iceland.
What a snob LOL
16. uncle tom said...
ok......£100 to anyone to correctly calculate the cost of sausages
OK, if the sausages cost a guinea and are now one third off, that would be fourteen shillings.
But if they cost a pound, they would now be two angels.
Or if they cost a shilling, they would now be two groats
Can I have my £100 in threepenny bits please Bluebeach -
- that would be 8,000 of them :)
17. magnifico said...
str @10
In my opinion people in Lidl and Iceland would be more likely to have money sense.
By the way I haven't been posting in a while but regularly follow the blog.
For what it's worth I think the HPI of both Nationwide and Halifax will turn negative next month.
18. mdmick said...
Ah, but sausages with a third off would give you sages!
Ahem...
19. uncle tom said...
Indeed mdmick - but without the exclamation mark you'd be short changed..
20. greenshootsandleaves said...
Magnifico @ 12
I think you're right (about the HPI), but just suppose that only one property is sold in the UK next month (that's a fairly big 'if', I know) and that that property happens to be that super mega jumbo white elephant in Windlesham ('ifs' don't come any bigger than that, do they? I tell you, even if I had the £70 million, I still wouldn't buy it!), .... Imagine what that would do to the already skewed stats....
Come to think of it, would the property even have to sold?
21. krustyatemyhamster said...
magnifico
"In my opinion people in Lidl and Iceland would be more likely to have money sense."
That's what I was thinking. They'd be better off targeting Waitrose or Marks and Spencer. The personal debt problem seems to me to be a mostly middle class problem imo.
22. robh said...
In these deflationary times, I would rather buy one full price bar today and a smaller one for the same price tomorrow :)
23. drewster said...
Blatant self-promotion by the please-don't-cut-our-budget civil servants at the Learning and Skills Council. Expect to see more such self-serving press releases over the next few months.
24. mr g said...
The survey was probably carried out in Basingjoke.
25. crunchy said...
Porksmouth?
26. str 2007 said...
Magnifico
Your probably right,
Krusty
Can't believe the prices they get away with in Waitrose & M&S at times.
Asda man myself, far fewer additives.
27. japanese uncle said...
Magnifico reminds me of the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, does it not?
28. mark wadsworth said...
When I first read the "Foundation" series I assumed that it had been written after the event as an allegory for the rise of Japan as an economic power from about the 1960s onwards (clever, industrious people with elevated sense of status living on a planet devoid of raw materials - what they do best is miniaturise and specialise and trade with more backward planets).
After a few re-reads, I took the trouble to look at when it was first published, which was in the 1950s sometime. Now that's what I call prescient!
PS, the subsequent prequels and sequels are rubbish. Stick to the original three books.
29. japanese uncle said...
mw
Interesting association. Asimov was one of the best-read men (ie he read tens of thousands of books himself and his works were read by millions) and history and social sciences were among his favorite desciplines. He might well have predicted the rise of the Japanese economy. Actually not a few in Japan believe it was carefully choreographed by the poweful class of the US and ultimately the UK as at the end of WWII.
Personally I prefer The Stars Like Dust written in the same period.