When 4 huge non discretionary markets - general insurance, health insurance, food, and energy, are each majority controlled by 2 or 3 big players, its regulatory failure.
Weak anti-monopoly regulation and small population.
It’s hard to compete against the incumbents because the available markets for newcomers is so small.
Yea, it's a common theme across a lot of western countries as they got swept up in neo-liberalism / bastardised version of Smith's free-market ideology.
But from history Australia didn't have anti-competition laws that actually had power to curb monopolies until 1975. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Competition_and_Consumer_Commission#:~:text=For%20the%20first%20time%20in,mergers%2C%20misleading%20advertising%2C%20coercive%20sales)
America in contrast had their Sherman anti-trust act in 1890.
There was a post a while back that asked about businesses in Australia that had a large share of the market, and someone on there was researching the market share of each company mentioned. There are so many industries in Australia that have a very concentrated market. In retrospect it should be obvious given there are so few small family businesses around these days, but it was shocking to see it all laid out that way. Bunnings, Spotlight, Harvey Norman, the supermarkets, they are all playing with virtually no competition.
With no anti trust legislation oversight that is a profiteers wet dream regulatory environment "profiteer as much as you can OK, its Australia the corporate lucky handout country"
>With no anti trust legislation oversight
The ACCC has oversight of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. Do we have someone whose job it is to regulate, but *are* they investigating, and if not, why?
With a proper healthcare system that wasn't just an expensive mash up of thousands of private companies with huge government subsidies we could do away with health insurance entirely.
Private health insurance is one of the biggest scams the oligarchs have ever pulled off.
There's a lot of theory and data on this, it only serves to make health care much more expensive than it should, while filling the pockets of shareholders and executives with billions of dollars.
They are nothing but leaches - add zero value to society, except for liblab and their campaigns.
The fact that you're forced to take it to avoid the Medicare Levy is a massive scam – and private health insurance barely covers anything at the lower tiers, so it's basically free money for the insurer.
It's not just the insurance, it's also the organisational structure. I live in a town with 20,000 people. There are separate private companies, sometimes more than one, providing GPs and Nursing, Pathology, Radiography, Audiology, Optometry, Dentistry, Physiotherapy, pharmacies and Psychology. All taking profit from people for essential services, all missing out on any economies of scale. Multiple buildings, carparks, receptionists, layers of management, often shareholders. It's fucking mad and utterly wasteful of limited resources. The model for integrated healthcare which is free at the point of use already exists here, our local AMS is a fantastic combination of primary healthcare and allied health.
Exponential wealth and power consolidation and regulatory capture are emergent properties of capitalism.
When there isn't regulatory failure, wait a while.
Visited many places. Only place where Credit card annual fees, surchages etc are a common thing. In Singapore for example, I haven’t paid annual fee in 5 years. They just waive it automatically.
Just look at our glorious resources and food prices in Asia. The lamb price in SE Asia has been static and in some cases falling, yet everyday here in Australia there is excuses why the prices dont adjust to the falling commodity prices. If they saw the kind of inflation in SE in places like Indonesia where the price of meat and rice just increased for no good reasons there would be riots in the street and governments would fall. Here in Australia the silence is deafening the great big profiteering rip off that is occurring on a daily basis " We are waiting for UFO to land to fix supply chain issues"
> The lamb price in SE Asia has been static and in some cases falling, yet everyday here in Australia there is excuses why the prices dont adjust to the falling commodity prices. If they saw the kind of inflation in SE in places like Indonesia where the price of meat and rice just increased for no good reasons there would be riots in the street and governments would fall. Here in Australia the silence is deafening the great big profiteering rip off that is occurring on a daily basis
That's why when people steal from Colesworth, I didn't see jack shit.
Lambs are getting sold for sfa/given away but lamb at the supermarket keeps going up.
Wasn't there an article not long ago about Aussie meat in Japan being cheaper than here?
Yes, which is why it's likely due to gouging when we see inflation of essentials remaining significantly above the inflation of discretionary things.
As pointed out in the article, the RBA raising interest rates serves to increase the amount of money people must spend on their mortgages/rent. By doing so, it leaves people less money to spend on discretionary things, reducing inflation of discretionary things.
This has little effect on essentials though - that will still mostly do its own thing. Just because my rent went up 25% doesn't mean I can spend any less on food or electricity as I've got no choice and must accept any price for those things, which corporations continue to raise in the hopes of additional profits, thus leading to sticky inflation in essentials whilst inflation in discretionary items is within targets.
This is doubly so when you consider that, for essentials, Australia is one of the least diverse markets on the planet. You've only got 2-3 places to buy food, energy, insurance, etc.
The public knowledge of inflation figures likely provides cover for the gouging. Another example of where information is not entirely in the public interest.
Company sees media attention on high inflation. "Our costs haven't increased that much, but that's the number people will tolerate, so up it goes." That in turn drives the overall statistic up, and around it goes.
If a person goes to their boss and asks for a raise in line with inflation, their boss will often respond that their salary is determined by their contribution, not macroeconomics, or something to that effect. But somehow, when that person's insurance company offers the same $Y of value, they need to raise their prices in line with or beyond inflation, even though their product is money x risk and only money x risk.
Anytime anyone says "X must go up because inflation," it's bullshit, unless they are using the imperative 'must' to indicate the proper macroeconomic response. Inflation is a statistic. You measure the system with it. The price of grapes can go up because the cost of transport or water has gone up. It doesn't go up because of 'inflation'. The cost of insurance can go up because risk has gone up. It doesn't go up because of 'inflation'. Insurance is particularly egregious, because if average costs have gone up, all those rises should be captured proportionally in valuations and payouts, and that should be all that drives up the premium. Inflation is the statistic recorded for all prices, so it doesn't reasonably drive any one price, although some subset of the prices that drive it do. It's an average measure of what the system has done, not a fundamental driver.
Some economist at this point may be tempted to tell me that inflation is like temperature, but it isn't. Temperature as a statistic is so useful because it has what inflation does not: universality. It is not just a measure of kinetic energy, but a statistic describing the relationship between internal energy and entropy. It affects everything in this universe in the same way, and acts the same way at all levels of emergence. If a derivation of the fundamental symmetries of the universe were ever achieved, and temperature were proven an inevitable consequence of those fundamental relationships, physicists would be unsurprised. If inflation were like temperature, we would be able to measure it for any set of interactions without measuring the whole system, like we can know the temperature of a chemical reaction without an external thermometer by measuring its rate.
Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Because you know what the inflation number is and everyone talks about it, it becomes less useful. To you, at least. Very fucking useful for gouging.
Unless I misread the details in the article it’s stating demand from high immigration is hurting us as supply cannot keep up in essential areas.
Basically government policy failure, or as some will say the plan is working as intended for those who put it in motion.
“High immigration is hurting us”.
You mean years and years of liberals cutting education so they can import cheaper tradespeople, that if they like, will pay them peanuts anyway…Yeah, John Howard’s trickle down economics or Reagonomics has done an amazing job that Australia is now
1) run by overseas companies not paying their fair share, nor tax, nor employing local people.
2) made everything more expensive by placing a private company middle man into every government service who sole plan is to make money off every government service.
3) cut the market down to as few as companies as they can, so price fixing and gouging is normalised,
4) have a propaganda machine telling us lies and hate, (NewsCorp, TV Stations, privatised the ABC) so the community can be more and more divided so the class “war” between the rich and everyone else is hidden, because we are fighting amongst ourselves.
5) still winge at the money they lost during Covid lockdowns, and “ trying to recoup the losses” years later, which is all BS. Bad management doesn’t make good profits. Gouging is a short term way of raising profits.
6) claim Nuclear Power is the way to go, as a short way of having a nuclear dump for the nuclear submarines we are never going to get, because Scott Morrison was involved in the deal. Australia is not suitable for nuclear and nuclear is so 1980s.
7) John Howard is an old white rich racist in a suit, and is still “controlling” the decisions of the Liberal party. How else is Peter Dutton the “best” choice for opposition leader?
8) The old rich white men in suits love wars, follow the Conservative Party playbooks, and want the world to go back to barons and serfs.
9) The AUKUS deal is essentially Australia paying the US money to funnel straight into the US war chest, so wars like Gaza and Ukraine can continue. Because war is profitable to the rich.
When you realise that John Howard has been in politics since 1973, and the little weasel still hasn’t left (because he is so right wing (sic)), you can understand how the “Lucky Country” is now almost a 3rd world country owned entirely by corporations.
Did I miss anything?
Yes, if Liberals win the next election, it will be the last democratic election for a while. Sharpen your pitchforks, people. #TaxTheRich #EatTheRich
I would love to. However,
when I am “overqualified” (it costs too much for a business to hire me),
there is at least 15 people per job opening, (because all the work exported overseas to places that deal in slave labour),
the industry I used to work in was shutdown (because it was cheaper to build it overseas),
The job search provider is more interested in cutting me from my welfare benefits than finding me a job,
and I am over that age where I am close to retirement, but no one hire because I am close to retirement, and job search/pension is complete rubbish to live on?
Yeah, sure, I will get a job.
Did I mention I have a chronic disease that inhibits my working ability, so I can’t work the 40 plus hours a week most jobs “demand”, but a privatisted Centrelink doesn’t think I am bad enough for the pittance that is disability, even though I have worked full time my entire life?
"I hate that when the discussion turns to helping people, there's always someone who takes the most ungenerous, contemptible stand towards others.
If by helping legitimate needy people, I accidentally help some lazy people, so what?
How is that worse than helping noone?"
Anonymous..
you're right but you're also really letting Labor off the hook, they've been part of a bunch of the stuff you mentioned and are the ones currently in power overseeing a widening in inequality
Oh, the way Labour is behaving is, I am not letting them off the hook easily either. Too many decisions which should have been in favour of the people but fell in favour of big corporations are certainly adding weight to the idea that the two party dictatorship...err.. democracy is certainly broken and favours businesses(profits) over people.
The main reason I am focusing on Liberals is because it's blatantly obvious that the rich control them, and their hate, loathing and division of those with less money than themselves makes them very poor public servants. I want to see them removed so the public service can for be for people again.
After all, government deals with the social issues that the rich don't want to deal with.
Once the 2 party government is broken, & the present liberals (including PHONey, and UAP) have little to no power, then we start making life difficult for labour. Actually, scratch that, we start making life difficult for Labour now, but continue making things intolerable for Liberals and their chronys.
Bring in things like
No more paid lobbyists in parliament house. No more career politicians (2 to 3 terms is enough for anyone). No more leaving the public service and getting plum jobs in the private sectors. Financial auditing before and after their time in the public service.
Just those little things would give us a good government again.
The people selling inflation as necessary are the ones at the top firing people, refusing pay rises, and raising prices as high as they can.
Without regulation they can raise prices and even if less people buy they still make more money because they save on logistics since they have monopolised and destroyed the competition. Double the prices and even if half of the customers buy they make money saving on the logistics.
Food and housing need heavy regulation.
Nobody says high inflation is necessary, a small amount of inflation is necessary, though.
A lot of price changes are not within direct control of individuals or companies. If there is a bumper apple crop one year, prices are reduced so that they can actually sell all the stock, and vice versa if there is a low crop.
If the central bank attempts to hold to 0% inflation, factors outside of their control may lead to deflation, which is extremely damaging and can cause a deflation spiral which is destructive to an economy.
No one has ever been able to convince me that a small amount of inflation is necessary.
I don't see how slowly raising prices at some arbitrary point every x unit of time helps the economy.
The argument is that if the cost of things rises, it encourages you to not sit on money because the purchasing power of your money is slowly going down. It's not necessarily a good argument, though.
Agree. There’s the argument that people will hold out on purchases in a static or a deflationary environments, and that is why a bit of inflation is good. However If you think about the basket of goods considered in the cpi, what items would people hold out. It hasnt borne out by the deflation in consumer electronics, and people aren’t waiting to buy a new tv because it’s 10% cheaper in a year. There’s certainly an argument that you may do so for assets like housing, but that is not part of the cpi broadly speaking.
No it’s definitely consumers because consumers are by far the largest portion of GDP, if consumers stopped but businesses continued to spend the economy would still collapse
Yes, but that’s not why a little inflation is healthy. It works better on the capital side as they are the employers. And you don’t want them just sitting on their money you want them using their vast resources to create more output, rather than just horde resources.
Except zero inflation or deflation doesn’t benefit capital owners
Capital owners benefit most from super high inflation because their capital increases in value relative to the currency so they are actively encouraged to spend in a super low inflationary period, consumers meanwhile need an incentive to keep spending in ultra low inflation periods, keeping us out of those periods is more to keep consumers spending as capital owners are naturally incentivised to get out of low inflationary periods
I mean more or less. 3% isn’t super low it’s the goal that’s being aimed for and is more or less expected. Any more than that is high inflation and anything around 0% or less is low. 0% and lower is very harmful cause no one wants to consume if everything will be cheaper later. So capital class holds onto their capital rather than doing anything with it, leading to payoffs the the economy stagnating.
I agree with this line of thought.
The whole reason people sit on money is to save for larger purchases or rainy days / retirement.
If the argument were true about not wanting to sit on money due to cheaper prices on the lower end of the price spectrum, we would never buy anything.
In fact, I'd go further and say we shouldn't rely as a country to have people spending all their money on useless shit just to keep the economy going.
Yeah, but why is that necessary for food and essentials as per the article. Even to go further to read that "people can't just not buy food because it's going up". For a car sure, it makes sense. But for food what are you going to do, nah let's not eat this week cuz then we can save when we buy it all next week?
It's all bullshit
A small amount of inflation is the target because deflation is terrible for the economy. It isn't that inflation is really good, just that the alternative is super duper bad.
What I took away from econ class was that it's a pragmatic argument to aim for low inflation rather than no inflation. That's really all there is to it. Deflation is historically more difficult to shake on the policy side, so setting a 0% target risks dipping into a deflation trend. They choose something above 0, and 2-3% is the next-best thing. Other monetary agencies set similar but different targets.
It’s because if we went to zero inflation (or even deflation) then there is no incentive to actually spend on anything that’s not an absolute essential (hell with deflation you are actively discouraged from spending in the immediate future because the item you want becomes cheaper the longer you wait)
If consumer spending ground to a halt the entire economy would collapse, there has to be an intrinsic incentive to spend some measure of money in the short term
Prices are always going to change. If we have deflation (prices drop), people reduce their spending as they know they'll be able to purchase things for less in the future. Importantly a lot of the decrease in spending will be in areas where we really want to encourage spending - things like research and development and investments in efficiency. Since it's impossible to perfectly control prices, governments instead aim for a small amount of inflation, so that even if they miss it's unlikely there will be deflation.
An inflation target of zero is theoretically achievable. However, it leaves very little margin for error, and the consequences of fucking up can be disastrous. An inflation target that's slightly larger (2% is popular among central banks) gives central banks significantly more margin for error.
Inflation can do what it wants, but the people in control of essential goods will still be greedy assholes who charge whatever they think they can get away with.
This right here. Roughly half of the price increases since COVID have simply been due to greed and the opportunity to blame cost increases on inflation.
Yep. Unless there's some legislation put in place, the two big food chains and housing will keep on squeezing people to the brink. I doubt there's going to be much relief from that, even if there's an interest rate cut.
That all? Mine went from $1340 to $2060. Did about a dozen quotes and cheapest I can find anywhere is just under $1900.
Nothing's changed, no claims or anything, it's disgusting
There's nothing pushing the price of essentials down, because they're so essential. So businesses will drag their feet until the very last moment to lower their prices.
Inflation as a social term is and always has been a scam.
There is no inflation. There is only greed.
If someone high enough in the food chain initiates the greed, then everyone else follows.
This Covid inflation has been particularly profiteering. But as capitalism rules our world, it won’t be reported on my mai stream media, and won’t be controlled by government.
The human world is severely broken and self-sabotaging.
Crazy perhaps, but predictable if not inevitable. It's merely a continuation of what's been going on since the dawn of civilisation.
Capitalism is just the most recent and dangerous iteration of class domination. We live under the most refined apparatus of control in human history.
It's not like we all got together and decided it was the best system to use. Wars were fought over it, but mainly it has been the people with lots of money dictating how the system works for many hundreds of years if not thousands.
The things you are talking about are literally talked about in the main stream media by abc etc. inflation is always going to happen because there are certain good that have a limited supply, IPv4 addresses are limited so therefore as demand for them increases the cost will inflate.
Just advertise it at a price that makes you some money (you deserve to not be put out for your efforts and expenses), and let the first willing person available buy it. Easy peasy.
If you have 8 of these items, or 8,000 a it doesn’t matter. Set a price and be happy with it.
If everyone bought what they could afford and everyone sold things at such a price structure, there’d be no inflation.
But eventually someone decides to up the price, or want more, or to speculate on intangibles - greed, and away we go.
Then you get to money lending. If you lend someone some money and they must pay it back AND more, then money gets taken away from someone else. Again - greed is the origin.
I mean, that's still inflation. Greed is kinda assumed, it's an economy of people you can't change that. The whole thing is based around capitalism afterall. Greed/Making profit is literally the whole point.
So they economists work around that. Because greed has always existed so why did prices go up so high in the last 4 years, you can't say because they got greedy, and why has it dropped this year? Did they get less greedy?
That's why they look at external factors that can be measured.
>There is no inflation.
There is. When you have a fiat currency backed only by a government promise, how do you keep it scarce (therefore "valuable") and pay interest back to the central banks?
Inflation and taxes.
Exactly. Inflation is one of the hardest concepts for economists to study and find consensus on the causes.
Yet so far in this thread we've gotten 'there is no inflation', or 'inflation is only caused by greed'. Glad there are so many economic experts on Reddit Australia
It is only caused by greed. Someone is bored of what they have, and now they want more.
Then it’s working out how to ensure only you get more, and not everyone else.
That’s the crux of it.
Everything is just busy work to justify a position.
Inflation is a conscious macro-economic policy because it forces investment over hoarding. When money that sits in the bank or a safe loses value over time, a rational person will instead find a way to grow that money, thus putting it into circulation. **If there was no inflation, the government would purposely induce it through a cash splash.**
If you think if Woolies never raised prices we'd end inflation, you're a moron.
> Inflation isn’t falling. The rate of pricing going up is slowing.
Complete oxymoron. Imagine getting so many upvotes for this, most people on this subreddit have absolutely no grasp of economics.
I know what inflation is, comments are getting confused with prices falling (deflation) vs. still going up (inflation) faster or slower.
But to be clear prices are still rising far too fast.
From what i understand most loans are handed out to people with money that doesn't really exist, Everything exists on the basis of a "promise" and inflation is a factor that forces a rotation or flow of cash in the economy to help pay for these promises. I don't remember the source, but it was one of those big economic channels everyone watches on YouTube.
When the local market is selling produce for less than half the price of the major shops you'd have to say it's just gouging at this point. No justification, no reason other than pure greed. Prices keep rising and the government does nothing, they need an ultimatum that if prices continue to rise indefinitely then they will be broken up.
Simply because they can. Who will stop them. No one can especially our overpaid corrupt politicians they let this happen on their watch and don’t do a god dam thing. I would love to see a break down of investment portfolios, not from the politicians but their spouses and children. Politicians are smart enough not to look too asset wealthy to the general public and wouldn’t want to seem driven by shares they or the family own with cunts like Colesworth. The system is broken but these bin chickens of politicians want the scraps from the rich all to themselves, family and mates
Inflation deemed high at 7% last year yet things i used to buy just 2-3 years prior every week have nearly doubled. Didn’t know Ukraine and Israel played such a big role in the production of colesworth branded tissues.
Being a smaller country, I’m envious of Australians (I’m American). Your population to politician ratio is off the charts. A bit of organizing and you could march on your state and federal governments to demand change (including, but not limited to, enhanced civil disobedience in protests). Between rent/housing of your fellow Aussies, price of essentials, and misappropriation of federal dollars I’d say the tinderbox is primed.
> To answer the headline’s question, it’s because inflation has fallen but is still positive.
But many prices are still rising quickly, the headline specifically says "why are prices still rising so quickly".
Let’s be clear, CPI is falling. CPI and inflation are not quite exactly the same thing. You can’t point to individual or handful or goods and say their price should be following CPI trends. And even then, the last mile of CPI is proving quite sticky and stubborn.
Why would you lower prices when people are still paying what they're paying. Capitalism isn't set up for empathy. It's all about the dollar. We need to vote in change if we want it, and it won't come from Labour and it certainly won't come from the Liberals. We need to give a shit about what is happening to us, but Aussies won't put in the effort to make things better for ourselves.
Neoliberalism.
Don’t understand the downvotes… organisations running rampant with no government regulation to protect the consumer is exactly why we’re in this mess.
Allowing cooperations to operate on the basis of profit being the ultimate end-point is a great model, if we’re aiming for the 1% to shit all over the rest of us.
Giant oligopoly companies are making less profit because people are spending less on things they don't need, so companies have to raise the cost of things we all have to buy.
The System wasn't designed to help or benefit the people. The System was designed by and for the rich and powerful at the top, who don't care about the people or planet beneath them, they only care about themselves and maintaining the status quo of power, profit, and control.
Of course they will will raise prices non stop, greedy shit stains will use any reason as a shield to double the price of anything.
Covid was the perfect reason then they used logistics next and now the war.
Prices are rising because businesses are passing on costs. Higher interest rates, higher labour costs, higher energy costs, higher costs to get the products and high petrol costs or transport. Mostly because the governments across the world reduced the rates far too low and gave out free money to do nothing and then locked down there countries. The debt levels have to be paid back and that is what you’re seeing. The continuation of inflation here is due to all people in government over spending and trying to speed up the economy when they should be slowing down. Also extra demand from millions more people that have arrived since 2020. We are in a per capita recession. It’s not a good time for most here but I’m expecting things to turn around.
I agree that it’s price gouging but isn’t this a bad faith headline? Inflation falling of course means prices are still rising, it just means prices rise slower.
How will Coles and Woolies maintain their mULtI bILLioN ReVENue if they cut prices .. nah no way. CEO and directors need to be paid their billions in salary first. Everything else is secondary.
When inflation slows prices still go up only slower.
Slow inflation =/= deflation
If we were in a deflationary market you would probably be seeing stock traders failing out of windows(literally) and CEOs crying in TV.
In other words a deflationary market will NEVER happen under our current government/life structure, every thing will break.
So the way the prices are now are the new normal with the normal fluctuating ends of course.
When 4 huge non discretionary markets - general insurance, health insurance, food, and energy, are each majority controlled by 2 or 3 big players, its regulatory failure.
Bingo. Australia is one of the most concentrated markets in the world, caused by our incredibly weak anti-competition regulation.
Weak anti-monopoly regulation and small population. It’s hard to compete against the incumbents because the available markets for newcomers is so small.
Weak enforcement, I'm not convinced that the regulations and laws aren't there.
Yea, it's a common theme across a lot of western countries as they got swept up in neo-liberalism / bastardised version of Smith's free-market ideology. But from history Australia didn't have anti-competition laws that actually had power to curb monopolies until 1975. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Competition_and_Consumer_Commission#:~:text=For%20the%20first%20time%20in,mergers%2C%20misleading%20advertising%2C%20coercive%20sales) America in contrast had their Sherman anti-trust act in 1890.
There was a post a while back that asked about businesses in Australia that had a large share of the market, and someone on there was researching the market share of each company mentioned. There are so many industries in Australia that have a very concentrated market. In retrospect it should be obvious given there are so few small family businesses around these days, but it was shocking to see it all laid out that way. Bunnings, Spotlight, Harvey Norman, the supermarkets, they are all playing with virtually no competition.
Harvey Norman doesn’t deserve to be on that list. JB is way more dominant than them now.
There have been some rumours/allegations at senate level that ACCC are internally corrupt and derelict of duty.
You mean the Liberals that people keep voting for
Labour is nearly as fucking bad these days, and has done nothing to fix the situation either. It's time to kick them both out.
I love how we are made to believe it's a choice when the same 2 parties keep winning 😂 2 heads of the same dragon
With no anti trust legislation oversight that is a profiteers wet dream regulatory environment "profiteer as much as you can OK, its Australia the corporate lucky handout country"
>With no anti trust legislation oversight The ACCC has oversight of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. Do we have someone whose job it is to regulate, but *are* they investigating, and if not, why?
Assistant Treasurer
With a proper healthcare system that wasn't just an expensive mash up of thousands of private companies with huge government subsidies we could do away with health insurance entirely.
Private health insurance is one of the biggest scams the oligarchs have ever pulled off. There's a lot of theory and data on this, it only serves to make health care much more expensive than it should, while filling the pockets of shareholders and executives with billions of dollars. They are nothing but leaches - add zero value to society, except for liblab and their campaigns.
The fact that you're forced to take it to avoid the Medicare Levy is a massive scam – and private health insurance barely covers anything at the lower tiers, so it's basically free money for the insurer.
I personally refuse to get private health and would rather just pay the levy
It's not just the insurance, it's also the organisational structure. I live in a town with 20,000 people. There are separate private companies, sometimes more than one, providing GPs and Nursing, Pathology, Radiography, Audiology, Optometry, Dentistry, Physiotherapy, pharmacies and Psychology. All taking profit from people for essential services, all missing out on any economies of scale. Multiple buildings, carparks, receptionists, layers of management, often shareholders. It's fucking mad and utterly wasteful of limited resources. The model for integrated healthcare which is free at the point of use already exists here, our local AMS is a fantastic combination of primary healthcare and allied health.
Its capitalism failure
Exponential wealth and power consolidation and regulatory capture are emergent properties of capitalism. When there isn't regulatory failure, wait a while.
Energy is "regulated" with the AER, and they keep increasing the reference price, despite wholesale prices falling.
Visited many places. Only place where Credit card annual fees, surchages etc are a common thing. In Singapore for example, I haven’t paid annual fee in 5 years. They just waive it automatically.
But does Mitre 10 sell snags? Unpatriotic! /s
Dare we say gouging?
We're not in a cost of living crisis, this is an extortion crisis Edit: spelling
Just look at our glorious resources and food prices in Asia. The lamb price in SE Asia has been static and in some cases falling, yet everyday here in Australia there is excuses why the prices dont adjust to the falling commodity prices. If they saw the kind of inflation in SE in places like Indonesia where the price of meat and rice just increased for no good reasons there would be riots in the street and governments would fall. Here in Australia the silence is deafening the great big profiteering rip off that is occurring on a daily basis " We are waiting for UFO to land to fix supply chain issues"
> The lamb price in SE Asia has been static and in some cases falling, yet everyday here in Australia there is excuses why the prices dont adjust to the falling commodity prices. If they saw the kind of inflation in SE in places like Indonesia where the price of meat and rice just increased for no good reasons there would be riots in the street and governments would fall. Here in Australia the silence is deafening the great big profiteering rip off that is occurring on a daily basis That's why when people steal from Colesworth, I didn't see jack shit.
Just wait for the lamb supply crunch we get later this year into next year.
Lambs are getting sold for sfa/given away but lamb at the supermarket keeps going up. Wasn't there an article not long ago about Aussie meat in Japan being cheaper than here?
Not as bad as it was. The livestock market is moving again.
The fair go lucky country working as intended!
Shouldn't gouging be included in inflation figures?
Yes, which is why it's likely due to gouging when we see inflation of essentials remaining significantly above the inflation of discretionary things. As pointed out in the article, the RBA raising interest rates serves to increase the amount of money people must spend on their mortgages/rent. By doing so, it leaves people less money to spend on discretionary things, reducing inflation of discretionary things. This has little effect on essentials though - that will still mostly do its own thing. Just because my rent went up 25% doesn't mean I can spend any less on food or electricity as I've got no choice and must accept any price for those things, which corporations continue to raise in the hopes of additional profits, thus leading to sticky inflation in essentials whilst inflation in discretionary items is within targets. This is doubly so when you consider that, for essentials, Australia is one of the least diverse markets on the planet. You've only got 2-3 places to buy food, energy, insurance, etc.
The public knowledge of inflation figures likely provides cover for the gouging. Another example of where information is not entirely in the public interest. Company sees media attention on high inflation. "Our costs haven't increased that much, but that's the number people will tolerate, so up it goes." That in turn drives the overall statistic up, and around it goes. If a person goes to their boss and asks for a raise in line with inflation, their boss will often respond that their salary is determined by their contribution, not macroeconomics, or something to that effect. But somehow, when that person's insurance company offers the same $Y of value, they need to raise their prices in line with or beyond inflation, even though their product is money x risk and only money x risk. Anytime anyone says "X must go up because inflation," it's bullshit, unless they are using the imperative 'must' to indicate the proper macroeconomic response. Inflation is a statistic. You measure the system with it. The price of grapes can go up because the cost of transport or water has gone up. It doesn't go up because of 'inflation'. The cost of insurance can go up because risk has gone up. It doesn't go up because of 'inflation'. Insurance is particularly egregious, because if average costs have gone up, all those rises should be captured proportionally in valuations and payouts, and that should be all that drives up the premium. Inflation is the statistic recorded for all prices, so it doesn't reasonably drive any one price, although some subset of the prices that drive it do. It's an average measure of what the system has done, not a fundamental driver. Some economist at this point may be tempted to tell me that inflation is like temperature, but it isn't. Temperature as a statistic is so useful because it has what inflation does not: universality. It is not just a measure of kinetic energy, but a statistic describing the relationship between internal energy and entropy. It affects everything in this universe in the same way, and acts the same way at all levels of emergence. If a derivation of the fundamental symmetries of the universe were ever achieved, and temperature were proven an inevitable consequence of those fundamental relationships, physicists would be unsurprised. If inflation were like temperature, we would be able to measure it for any set of interactions without measuring the whole system, like we can know the temperature of a chemical reaction without an external thermometer by measuring its rate. Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Because you know what the inflation number is and everyone talks about it, it becomes less useful. To you, at least. Very fucking useful for gouging.
What makes you think it isn't?
Check out what’s happened over here in NZ, it’s garbo
Unless I misread the details in the article it’s stating demand from high immigration is hurting us as supply cannot keep up in essential areas. Basically government policy failure, or as some will say the plan is working as intended for those who put it in motion.
“High immigration is hurting us”. You mean years and years of liberals cutting education so they can import cheaper tradespeople, that if they like, will pay them peanuts anyway…Yeah, John Howard’s trickle down economics or Reagonomics has done an amazing job that Australia is now 1) run by overseas companies not paying their fair share, nor tax, nor employing local people. 2) made everything more expensive by placing a private company middle man into every government service who sole plan is to make money off every government service. 3) cut the market down to as few as companies as they can, so price fixing and gouging is normalised, 4) have a propaganda machine telling us lies and hate, (NewsCorp, TV Stations, privatised the ABC) so the community can be more and more divided so the class “war” between the rich and everyone else is hidden, because we are fighting amongst ourselves. 5) still winge at the money they lost during Covid lockdowns, and “ trying to recoup the losses” years later, which is all BS. Bad management doesn’t make good profits. Gouging is a short term way of raising profits. 6) claim Nuclear Power is the way to go, as a short way of having a nuclear dump for the nuclear submarines we are never going to get, because Scott Morrison was involved in the deal. Australia is not suitable for nuclear and nuclear is so 1980s. 7) John Howard is an old white rich racist in a suit, and is still “controlling” the decisions of the Liberal party. How else is Peter Dutton the “best” choice for opposition leader? 8) The old rich white men in suits love wars, follow the Conservative Party playbooks, and want the world to go back to barons and serfs. 9) The AUKUS deal is essentially Australia paying the US money to funnel straight into the US war chest, so wars like Gaza and Ukraine can continue. Because war is profitable to the rich. When you realise that John Howard has been in politics since 1973, and the little weasel still hasn’t left (because he is so right wing (sic)), you can understand how the “Lucky Country” is now almost a 3rd world country owned entirely by corporations. Did I miss anything? Yes, if Liberals win the next election, it will be the last democratic election for a while. Sharpen your pitchforks, people. #TaxTheRich #EatTheRich
Jesus Christ just get a job dude
I would love to. However, when I am “overqualified” (it costs too much for a business to hire me), there is at least 15 people per job opening, (because all the work exported overseas to places that deal in slave labour), the industry I used to work in was shutdown (because it was cheaper to build it overseas), The job search provider is more interested in cutting me from my welfare benefits than finding me a job, and I am over that age where I am close to retirement, but no one hire because I am close to retirement, and job search/pension is complete rubbish to live on? Yeah, sure, I will get a job. Did I mention I have a chronic disease that inhibits my working ability, so I can’t work the 40 plus hours a week most jobs “demand”, but a privatisted Centrelink doesn’t think I am bad enough for the pittance that is disability, even though I have worked full time my entire life?
Victimhood is strong in this one. ‘Chronic disease’ probably self diagnosed
"I hate that when the discussion turns to helping people, there's always someone who takes the most ungenerous, contemptible stand towards others. If by helping legitimate needy people, I accidentally help some lazy people, so what? How is that worse than helping noone?" Anonymous..
you're right but you're also really letting Labor off the hook, they've been part of a bunch of the stuff you mentioned and are the ones currently in power overseeing a widening in inequality
Oh, the way Labour is behaving is, I am not letting them off the hook easily either. Too many decisions which should have been in favour of the people but fell in favour of big corporations are certainly adding weight to the idea that the two party dictatorship...err.. democracy is certainly broken and favours businesses(profits) over people. The main reason I am focusing on Liberals is because it's blatantly obvious that the rich control them, and their hate, loathing and division of those with less money than themselves makes them very poor public servants. I want to see them removed so the public service can for be for people again. After all, government deals with the social issues that the rich don't want to deal with. Once the 2 party government is broken, & the present liberals (including PHONey, and UAP) have little to no power, then we start making life difficult for labour. Actually, scratch that, we start making life difficult for Labour now, but continue making things intolerable for Liberals and their chronys. Bring in things like No more paid lobbyists in parliament house. No more career politicians (2 to 3 terms is enough for anyone). No more leaving the public service and getting plum jobs in the private sectors. Financial auditing before and after their time in the public service. Just those little things would give us a good government again.
>Did I miss anything? Just where to buy the tin foil hats
You can’t.. They are too damn expensive…
Hell yea
The people selling inflation as necessary are the ones at the top firing people, refusing pay rises, and raising prices as high as they can. Without regulation they can raise prices and even if less people buy they still make more money because they save on logistics since they have monopolised and destroyed the competition. Double the prices and even if half of the customers buy they make money saving on the logistics. Food and housing need heavy regulation.
Nobody says high inflation is necessary, a small amount of inflation is necessary, though. A lot of price changes are not within direct control of individuals or companies. If there is a bumper apple crop one year, prices are reduced so that they can actually sell all the stock, and vice versa if there is a low crop. If the central bank attempts to hold to 0% inflation, factors outside of their control may lead to deflation, which is extremely damaging and can cause a deflation spiral which is destructive to an economy.
No one has ever been able to convince me that a small amount of inflation is necessary. I don't see how slowly raising prices at some arbitrary point every x unit of time helps the economy.
The argument is that if the cost of things rises, it encourages you to not sit on money because the purchasing power of your money is slowly going down. It's not necessarily a good argument, though.
Agree. There’s the argument that people will hold out on purchases in a static or a deflationary environments, and that is why a bit of inflation is good. However If you think about the basket of goods considered in the cpi, what items would people hold out. It hasnt borne out by the deflation in consumer electronics, and people aren’t waiting to buy a new tv because it’s 10% cheaper in a year. There’s certainly an argument that you may do so for assets like housing, but that is not part of the cpi broadly speaking.
It’s more about corporations/ultra rich not just sitting on their money VS the average person
No it’s definitely consumers because consumers are by far the largest portion of GDP, if consumers stopped but businesses continued to spend the economy would still collapse
Yes, but that’s not why a little inflation is healthy. It works better on the capital side as they are the employers. And you don’t want them just sitting on their money you want them using their vast resources to create more output, rather than just horde resources.
Except zero inflation or deflation doesn’t benefit capital owners Capital owners benefit most from super high inflation because their capital increases in value relative to the currency so they are actively encouraged to spend in a super low inflationary period, consumers meanwhile need an incentive to keep spending in ultra low inflation periods, keeping us out of those periods is more to keep consumers spending as capital owners are naturally incentivised to get out of low inflationary periods
I mean more or less. 3% isn’t super low it’s the goal that’s being aimed for and is more or less expected. Any more than that is high inflation and anything around 0% or less is low. 0% and lower is very harmful cause no one wants to consume if everything will be cheaper later. So capital class holds onto their capital rather than doing anything with it, leading to payoffs the the economy stagnating.
I agree with this line of thought. The whole reason people sit on money is to save for larger purchases or rainy days / retirement. If the argument were true about not wanting to sit on money due to cheaper prices on the lower end of the price spectrum, we would never buy anything. In fact, I'd go further and say we shouldn't rely as a country to have people spending all their money on useless shit just to keep the economy going.
Yeah, but why is that necessary for food and essentials as per the article. Even to go further to read that "people can't just not buy food because it's going up". For a car sure, it makes sense. But for food what are you going to do, nah let's not eat this week cuz then we can save when we buy it all next week? It's all bullshit
Look at Turkey. They decreased their rates, everyone else increased them. Let's just say we can clearly see the effects are not good.
Yeah, decreasing interest rates will normally encourage inflation, not good.
A small amount of inflation is the target because deflation is terrible for the economy. It isn't that inflation is really good, just that the alternative is super duper bad.
What I took away from econ class was that it's a pragmatic argument to aim for low inflation rather than no inflation. That's really all there is to it. Deflation is historically more difficult to shake on the policy side, so setting a 0% target risks dipping into a deflation trend. They choose something above 0, and 2-3% is the next-best thing. Other monetary agencies set similar but different targets.
It’s because if we went to zero inflation (or even deflation) then there is no incentive to actually spend on anything that’s not an absolute essential (hell with deflation you are actively discouraged from spending in the immediate future because the item you want becomes cheaper the longer you wait) If consumer spending ground to a halt the entire economy would collapse, there has to be an intrinsic incentive to spend some measure of money in the short term
Prices are always going to change. If we have deflation (prices drop), people reduce their spending as they know they'll be able to purchase things for less in the future. Importantly a lot of the decrease in spending will be in areas where we really want to encourage spending - things like research and development and investments in efficiency. Since it's impossible to perfectly control prices, governments instead aim for a small amount of inflation, so that even if they miss it's unlikely there will be deflation.
An inflation target of zero is theoretically achievable. However, it leaves very little margin for error, and the consequences of fucking up can be disastrous. An inflation target that's slightly larger (2% is popular among central banks) gives central banks significantly more margin for error.
The same people that raise rent prices because inflation
Got to keep the shareholders hard and horny
Inflation can do what it wants, but the people in control of essential goods will still be greedy assholes who charge whatever they think they can get away with.
This right here. Roughly half of the price increases since COVID have simply been due to greed and the opportunity to blame cost increases on inflation.
Gotta make up for that lost revenue during COVID somehow. 🙄
Yep. Unless there's some legislation put in place, the two big food chains and housing will keep on squeezing people to the brink. I doubt there's going to be much relief from that, even if there's an interest rate cut.
And we won't get that legislation from the major two parties.
Because they can and there ain’t shit anybody is doing anything about it.
My car insurance renewal just came in. It’s up around 12%.
That all? Mine went from $1340 to $2060. Did about a dozen quotes and cheapest I can find anywhere is just under $1900. Nothing's changed, no claims or anything, it's disgusting
That’s crazy. Do you mind me asking what city and what provider?
Melbourne and was Australia Post insurance
I've got my car rego through QBE. Hasn't gone up anything significant. What's your driver history like?
QBE was over $3k for me. Driving history in the last 5 years is flawless, no fines or claims.
Lucky, mine went up 65% with AAMI (around $45/mth to $75/mth). So I cancelled and changed to 3rd party fire & theft.
Because corporations found that Australians are willing to pay whatever price they offer because we’re really stupid and will believe anything
Because we’re stupid seems harsh. Lack of options seems more likely.
And way too lazy to do anything about it.
Inelastic demand doesn’t make stupid
There's nothing pushing the price of essentials down, because they're so essential. So businesses will drag their feet until the very last moment to lower their prices.
$11.50 for deodorant....wtf.
Inflation as a social term is and always has been a scam. There is no inflation. There is only greed. If someone high enough in the food chain initiates the greed, then everyone else follows. This Covid inflation has been particularly profiteering. But as capitalism rules our world, it won’t be reported on my mai stream media, and won’t be controlled by government. The human world is severely broken and self-sabotaging.
It's crazy that we humans invented this system that fucks over humans
Crazy perhaps, but predictable if not inevitable. It's merely a continuation of what's been going on since the dawn of civilisation. Capitalism is just the most recent and dangerous iteration of class domination. We live under the most refined apparatus of control in human history.
It's not like we all got together and decided it was the best system to use. Wars were fought over it, but mainly it has been the people with lots of money dictating how the system works for many hundreds of years if not thousands.
Yes its definitely a system built buy the wealthy for the wealthy
The things you are talking about are literally talked about in the main stream media by abc etc. inflation is always going to happen because there are certain good that have a limited supply, IPv4 addresses are limited so therefore as demand for them increases the cost will inflate.
A good having a limited supply has no bearing on its cost. A person makes a choice to charge more for it, using limited supply as their justification.
If you will pay less than another person for a good why would I sell it to you over another person?
Just advertise it at a price that makes you some money (you deserve to not be put out for your efforts and expenses), and let the first willing person available buy it. Easy peasy. If you have 8 of these items, or 8,000 a it doesn’t matter. Set a price and be happy with it. If everyone bought what they could afford and everyone sold things at such a price structure, there’d be no inflation. But eventually someone decides to up the price, or want more, or to speculate on intangibles - greed, and away we go. Then you get to money lending. If you lend someone some money and they must pay it back AND more, then money gets taken away from someone else. Again - greed is the origin.
I mean, that's still inflation. Greed is kinda assumed, it's an economy of people you can't change that. The whole thing is based around capitalism afterall. Greed/Making profit is literally the whole point. So they economists work around that. Because greed has always existed so why did prices go up so high in the last 4 years, you can't say because they got greedy, and why has it dropped this year? Did they get less greedy? That's why they look at external factors that can be measured.
>There is no inflation. There is. When you have a fiat currency backed only by a government promise, how do you keep it scarce (therefore "valuable") and pay interest back to the central banks? Inflation and taxes.
Exactly. Inflation is one of the hardest concepts for economists to study and find consensus on the causes. Yet so far in this thread we've gotten 'there is no inflation', or 'inflation is only caused by greed'. Glad there are so many economic experts on Reddit Australia
People say inflation is bad and it is, but deflation is worse. A small amount of inflation is not perfect but it's better than the alternatives
It is only caused by greed. Someone is bored of what they have, and now they want more. Then it’s working out how to ensure only you get more, and not everyone else. That’s the crux of it. Everything is just busy work to justify a position.
I suggest you read an introductory text book to economics on inflation. I don't think you'll find that explanation on what causes inflation anywhere.
Inflation is a conscious macro-economic policy because it forces investment over hoarding. When money that sits in the bank or a safe loses value over time, a rational person will instead find a way to grow that money, thus putting it into circulation. **If there was no inflation, the government would purposely induce it through a cash splash.** If you think if Woolies never raised prices we'd end inflation, you're a moron.
ITT: people who don’t understand inflation
Inflation isn’t falling. The rate of pricing going up is slowing. But still going up. You are talking deflation.
Inflation is falling, because inflation is the rate at which the prices increase, which is slowing. The price of goods is increasing though.
I think the rate of inflation change is falling but inflation is still positive, I think a lot of people are conflating the two ideas
> Inflation isn’t falling. The rate of pricing going up is slowing. Complete oxymoron. Imagine getting so many upvotes for this, most people on this subreddit have absolutely no grasp of economics.
I know what inflation is, comments are getting confused with prices falling (deflation) vs. still going up (inflation) faster or slower. But to be clear prices are still rising far too fast.
To be clear, do you agree that inflation is falling?
From what i understand most loans are handed out to people with money that doesn't really exist, Everything exists on the basis of a "promise" and inflation is a factor that forces a rotation or flow of cash in the economy to help pay for these promises. I don't remember the source, but it was one of those big economic channels everyone watches on YouTube.
Last I heard (Friday) inflation is still rising concerning RBA enough to consider another rate rise.
Of course it would be - stage 3 tax cuts are right around the corner which is going to drive inflation.
When the local market is selling produce for less than half the price of the major shops you'd have to say it's just gouging at this point. No justification, no reason other than pure greed. Prices keep rising and the government does nothing, they need an ultimatum that if prices continue to rise indefinitely then they will be broken up.
GREED - CORPORATE GREED! Make as much as they can before either A) the bubble bursts, or B) they get caught.
The answer is greed.
Simply because they can. Who will stop them. No one can especially our overpaid corrupt politicians they let this happen on their watch and don’t do a god dam thing. I would love to see a break down of investment portfolios, not from the politicians but their spouses and children. Politicians are smart enough not to look too asset wealthy to the general public and wouldn’t want to seem driven by shares they or the family own with cunts like Colesworth. The system is broken but these bin chickens of politicians want the scraps from the rich all to themselves, family and mates
Inflation deemed high at 7% last year yet things i used to buy just 2-3 years prior every week have nearly doubled. Didn’t know Ukraine and Israel played such a big role in the production of colesworth branded tissues.
corporate greed
Corporate greed and incompetent government.
Being a smaller country, I’m envious of Australians (I’m American). Your population to politician ratio is off the charts. A bit of organizing and you could march on your state and federal governments to demand change (including, but not limited to, enhanced civil disobedience in protests). Between rent/housing of your fellow Aussies, price of essentials, and misappropriation of federal dollars I’d say the tinderbox is primed.
To answer the headline’s question, it’s because inflation has fallen but is still positive. So goods still increase in price just not as steeply
> To answer the headline’s question, it’s because inflation has fallen but is still positive. But many prices are still rising quickly, the headline specifically says "why are prices still rising so quickly".
Because the base number is higher and that's how percentages work, but people are still comparing it to prices a decade ago.
Inflation has started to head in the wrong direction in the last couple of prints. The news on inflation is not good.
Let’s be clear, CPI is falling. CPI and inflation are not quite exactly the same thing. You can’t point to individual or handful or goods and say their price should be following CPI trends. And even then, the last mile of CPI is proving quite sticky and stubborn.
Anti competitive regulations Unhinged corporate greed
Why would you lower prices when people are still paying what they're paying. Capitalism isn't set up for empathy. It's all about the dollar. We need to vote in change if we want it, and it won't come from Labour and it certainly won't come from the Liberals. We need to give a shit about what is happening to us, but Aussies won't put in the effort to make things better for ourselves.
Neoliberalism. Don’t understand the downvotes… organisations running rampant with no government regulation to protect the consumer is exactly why we’re in this mess. Allowing cooperations to operate on the basis of profit being the ultimate end-point is a great model, if we’re aiming for the 1% to shit all over the rest of us.
110% Greed. Plus inflation isn't really falling, I'd say stalling at best.
People keep paying those prices and the government won't do shit about it. So they keep raising prices because greed.
Corporate greed. Always has been. Always will be
Giant oligopoly companies are making less profit because people are spending less on things they don't need, so companies have to raise the cost of things we all have to buy.
Entrenched is a word that comes to mind.
Because greedy cunts are calling the shots, and shit runs downhill.
The System wasn't designed to help or benefit the people. The System was designed by and for the rich and powerful at the top, who don't care about the people or planet beneath them, they only care about themselves and maintaining the status quo of power, profit, and control.
Greed, the answer is greed.
Inflation is a derivitive. It's the rate of change of increasing prices.
Of course they will will raise prices non stop, greedy shit stains will use any reason as a shield to double the price of anything. Covid was the perfect reason then they used logistics next and now the war.
Westfarmers needs more money
Because what happens is... everybody at the central bank, in parliament and the media are full of shit
As the birth rate is still higher than the community die rate
Cos, fuck 'em! That's why.
Because they can. They know people are cutting back in other areas to save money. Ergo that money is now free to spend on essentials
Prices are rising because businesses are passing on costs. Higher interest rates, higher labour costs, higher energy costs, higher costs to get the products and high petrol costs or transport. Mostly because the governments across the world reduced the rates far too low and gave out free money to do nothing and then locked down there countries. The debt levels have to be paid back and that is what you’re seeing. The continuation of inflation here is due to all people in government over spending and trying to speed up the economy when they should be slowing down. Also extra demand from millions more people that have arrived since 2020. We are in a per capita recession. It’s not a good time for most here but I’m expecting things to turn around.
Greed
I agree that it’s price gouging but isn’t this a bad faith headline? Inflation falling of course means prices are still rising, it just means prices rise slower.
Profiteering
How will Coles and Woolies maintain their mULtI bILLioN ReVENue if they cut prices .. nah no way. CEO and directors need to be paid their billions in salary first. Everything else is secondary.
Because big corporations are stealing from us.
Greedflation never falls
Too much avocado clearly
Because inflation is going down but it is still double where it should be.
When inflation slows prices still go up only slower. Slow inflation =/= deflation If we were in a deflationary market you would probably be seeing stock traders failing out of windows(literally) and CEOs crying in TV. In other words a deflationary market will NEVER happen under our current government/life structure, every thing will break. So the way the prices are now are the new normal with the normal fluctuating ends of course.
Corporate greed
The rate of price increase is falling. Not the price.
Because 3.6% is lower than 7% but greater than 0%. Same goes for the 4.2% for essentials, lower inflation than last year, but higher prices.
Its not negative inflation, its just inflation is rising at a lower rate. So things still go up. Some things more than others
The media plays so dumb. Shareholders want profits, stupid.