Financial Times: UK owners may be forced to sell homes

free4440273

^I think the media (VI) might be 'in on it'. Now I really am getting paranoid :eek: :rolleyes: :rotfl:

WTF?_2

hgllgh wrote: »

Surely they can't get rid of food from the CPI. That would be receive massive media attention accusing the government of manipulating inflation figures?

CPI is vulnerable to all sorts of 'adjustments' in order to massage the figures.

I believe that the contribution from basic food prices to the overall figure has been revised downward in recent times on the basis that people eat out more .. so actual restaurant or takeaway prices are more relevant.

Stuff is also removed and replaced with other goods on a regular basis, for various spurious reasons.

eg. Orange juice out, champagne in...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4829024.stm

That article is a pretty interesting read. It illustrates how much of a joke the CPI figures are and you can figure out why at a time when prices of the important stuff (food, fuel) are rocketing, inflation is officially touted as being only 2.1% :mad:

jonewer

I filled my tank with 102.9p a litre petrol today.... I'm sure it was more like 89p a month or two ago.... luckt inflation is only 2% though! What might happen if inflation was like double that?

franklee

!!!!!!? wrote: »

At the end of the day, inflation is the 'easy way out' in that its effects won't be immediately obvious and it gets a lot of debtors off of the hook, to an extent.

Maybe but I think inflation does get noticed pretty quickly. It may not appear in the CPI but people still have to buy food and they are going to notice they run out of money more quickly each month. They will respond in two ways:

1. Cut back on spending including refusing to take on more debt for overpriced housing be it renting or buying.

2. Push for more pay rises which will either mean strikes or if pay rises are met even more inflation. The government is a large employer, think of all those nurses, teachers, council workers etc. etc. and they will not want wage inflation there.

So people will have less to spend due to paying more for food etc. if interest rates go down and inflation increases OR less to spend paying more on mortgages if interest rates go up again.

Dammed if they do and damed if they don't. Either way consumer spending is cut.

lypsey

!!!!!! - you say "whatever cheap Chinese-produced tat they can think of"

Don't think so , read this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7137825.stm

It says "Price pressures have continued to grow in China with consumer inflation hitting an 11-year high of 6.9% in November, official figures have shown. "

They will export inflation , there is a very interesting read on the BBC by Andrew Marr about 6 weeks ago if you have a few minutes

WTF?_2

lypsey wrote: »

!!!!!! - you say "whatever cheap Chinese-produced tat they can think of"

Don't think so , read this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7137825.stm

It says "Price pressures have continued to grow in China with consumer inflation hitting an 11-year high of 6.9% in November, official figures have shown. "

They will export inflation , there is a very interesting read on the BBC by Andrew Marr about 6 weeks ago if you have a few minutes

Yeah, I think the Chinese effect on inflation is about to switch from deflationary to inflationary. So I guess we'll see a readjustment of the CPI to suit when the trend reverses.

Maybe they'll put house prices/mortgage repayments in there ... both interest rates and prices will be heading downward shortly. It wouldn't surprise me at all if once they are going down, the govt decides to include them in CPI.

WTF?_2

jonewer wrote: »

I filled my tank with 102.9p a litre petrol today.... I'm sure it was more like 89p a month or two ago.... luckt inflation is only 2% though! What might happen if inflation was like double that?

Wait til you fill your central heating tank with heating oil :eek:

From my own experience it's risen something like 20% in less than a year. :mad:

But don't worry - the government says prices are only going up on average by 2.1% per year. Yeah, right.