shops making hay while the prices go up

pumpkin89

sleepymans said:

Of course the supermarkets are profiteering…..just concentrate on the increase in prices on what an average low income household NEED to buy….pasta, washing up liquid, toilet rolls, spread, bread, cheese, laundry and cleaning products etc…..all increasing way above the average inflation figure. We are being fleeced….as ever

The average inflation figure is just a measure of how much prices have gone up.  Cheaper products will inevitably have gone up proportionally more as they have lower margins in the first place.

mac.d

Bradden said:

You are right..I was focused on the food pricing as the OP was complaining about that. I  can't argue with the fact that the margins for petrol have increased.although the reasons for this are unclear and are being investigated.

Which is fair enough considering we're in the food shopping and groceries board...

I does feel like there is an element of supermarkets sneaking in some increased profits but the fact is, the levels of inflation we've seen is pretty new to most of us, so it's no wonder we're suspicious!

A._Badger

I'm not the supermarkets' biggest fan but there is only a handful of major players and they are all publicly quoted companies so it will be easy to see if any have been profiteering. My suspicion is that they haven't and that the price increases have been mostly generated by food manufacturers. I haven't got any figures to justify it but feels to me as if certain sectors, dairy for example, set the pace and I wouldn't mind betting that the poor old dairy farmers haven't had much benefit from the price rises. If my memory is right, butter and cheese seemed to shoot up in price very early on and I've yet to see a convincing explanation why.  

EasyToAssemble01

As with everything, this is being led by our energy crisis. "But, Ukraine and Covid" is getting to be thin gruel, when wholesale global gas prices are now dropping to pre war levels. What we are partly paying for is a lax, deregulated energy supplier market, where many suppliers went bust: the chickens coming home to roost, when we did have some global crisis' occuring. That, and the energy producers essentially holding us to ransom, by refusing to keep power stations going unless the National Grid pays whatever they are asking (aka market manipulation). Bloomberg investigated all this last year.

arnoldy

EasyToAssemble01 said:

 What we are partly paying for is a lax, deregulated energy supplier market, where many suppliers went bust: the chickens coming home to roost, when we did have some global crisis' occuring. That, and the energy producers essentially holding us to ransom, by refusing to keep power stations going unless the National Grid pays whatever they are asking (aka market manipulation). Bloomberg investigated all this last year.

Yes dead right, but in a large part that's down to failings of Quango OFGEM. This is the organisation that is supposed to keep the lights on and understand the physics and engineering of the transition to net zero. But they seem to be involved in endless social experiments, and many on the board of OFGEM would struggle to work out the overall resistance of two resistors in parallel. The green and social levies are the best part of £400-500 - paid for by people who struggle to pay their bill. All a big scandal. Time to bring massive Engineering, Scientific and Industrial experience into OFGEM.

CKhalvashi

arnoldy said:

EasyToAssemble01 said:

 What we are partly paying for is a lax, deregulated energy supplier market, where many suppliers went bust: the chickens coming home to roost, when we did have some global crisis' occuring. That, and the energy producers essentially holding us to ransom, by refusing to keep power stations going unless the National Grid pays whatever they are asking (aka market manipulation). Bloomberg investigated all this last year.

Yes dead right, but in a large part that's down to failings of Quango OFGEM. This is the organisation that is supposed to keep the lights on and understand the physics and engineering of the transition to net zero. But they seem to be involved in endless social experiments, and many on the board of OFGEM would struggle to work out the overall resistance of two resistors in parallel. The green and social levies are the best part of £400-500 - paid for by people who struggle to pay their bill. All a big scandal. Time to bring massive Engineering, Scientific and Industrial experience into OFGEM.

The issue though is that the fixed costs of renewable are generally quite high.

The variables should fluctuate a lot less though than non-renewable production. 

If we can eventually get the cost of 100% renewables to £4-500 there will be a huge benefit there. The issue is that a majority of the costs, especially in the first part of this, will be interest payments. Say £10k per household by 25 million households over 25 years would be £400/year plus whatever the interest on this is, plus profit. This overall would be broadly realistic.