fake boom...

Wilkins

JohnRo wrote: »

Not one for doing the shopping then.. or just too wealthy to care?http://www.tullettprebon.com/announcements/strategyinsights/notes/2010/SIN20130220.pdf

An index of the cost of essentials is a very useful measure but it only approximates a measure overall inflation for people below median income.

I'd like to know what evidence there is for CPI or RPI being a misleading inflation measure for the whole population.

jimjames

lvader wrote: »

3 of the world top ten universities.
London IS booming and the Olympics was a great advert for it,
I"m not a great Obama fan, but i don't hold the rest of the US to account.

I really don't see it as a fake boom either. Unemployment dropping and things are picking up. Growth could be as high as 4% this year and with a buzz around with low interest rates and house prices rising it may well happen.

Having said that an economist seems to be a similar job to a weather forecaster - great at saying what happened yesterday but not so accurate for tomorrow. I liked the observation some time ago that moving interest rates was like pulling a brick with a piece of elastic that you never know when something will happen.

lvader

I do expect problems ahead by the way and also expect inflation to pick up again, it's just a question of when and how bad. Currently as things stand things are OK, the government is by in large doing the right things.

BillJones

The figures have been positive for a fair while now, we are experiencing a pretty broad-based and pretty rapid recovery. It's simply perverse to look at the data and then write them off as being fiddled.

Of course, these same data were bang on in the downturn I suppose...

Thrugelmir

lvader wrote: »

I do expect problems ahead by the way and also expect inflation to pick up again, it's just a question of when and how bad. Currently as things stand things are OK, the government is by in large doing the right things.

I'm still waiting for alternative policies. Which in reality there aren't. As the sheer scale of the problem has no easy answers. No politician has the answer. Well at least they won't say. Until we're the other side of the election.

lvader

it's not easy, while long term inflation risks seem obvious it's hard to do anything about it when the immediate risk is deflation.

jimjames

beancurd wrote: »

I bought a new car in 2013 on PCP despite having enough cash for a fleet of them. 0% for a few years allows me to make money off that cash in the meantime.

I'm sure I read somewhere that a large proportion of new cars were being paid for with PPI payouts and that it equated to a big chunk of increased personal spending.

racing_blue

beancurd wrote: »

I bought a new car in 2013 on PCP despite having enough cash for a fleet of them. 0% for a few years allows me to make money off that cash in the meantime.

That is an intriguing thing to say, and I wish you would post more often

grizzly1911

lvader wrote: »

I do, the price of bread is the same now as in 2010.

Not where we buy the bread from a popular German supermarket.

grizzly1911

beancurd wrote: »

I bought a new car in 2013 on PCP despite having enough cash for a fleet of them. 0% for a few years allows me to make money off that cash in the meantime.

Did you buy there car or are you really renting it, simply paying the depreciation from a high purchase price with a high final payment (if you choose to keep it)? What is the total cost of ownership and what discount would have been available for a cash purchase?