Warnings about the cost of living squeeze are reaching fever pitch. Last week, an Ipsos Mori survey found that two in three people have turned off their heating, almost half are driving less, and a quarter have skipped meals.
Prices work. Who would have believed it?
There’s a shortage of the things to do those things with. Prices rise. Folk do less of those things. Prices work.
Windfall tax announced perhaps as early as today. Honest to God I almost posted yesterday “Should sell my SHEL, will regret if I don’t do it today”. I wonder if it’s too late today? Might as well sell that turd SMT while I’m at it.
Of course we’ve turned off the heating – it’s warm outside! Who are the crazy 1/3rd still heating their homes when it’s 20°C outside?
Do we have comparable stats for people turning their heating off in late Spring in other years?
almost half are driving less
So more than half are driving more.
a quarter have skipped meals
I thought we had an obesity epidemic. Or is that only on Thursdays?
I saw an interesting comment on Twatter earlier:
“ Milk price and inflation: why we often overestimate inflation
Frequently purchased goods have excessive influence. Women overestimate inflation even more than men.
Does this article in the FAZ come at the right time?”
Add that to all the other known problems with surveys.
I am not entirely convinced about the food story – when I read that someone has lost weight because of price rises – and is now heading for an unhealthy low weight I will believe it.
SHEL was double the MV of my 2nd largest equity holding so I cut it in half and took all of the P&L off the table. Looks a lot more balanced now, I’ll sleep better.
Political risk is just too high with this tax-loving socialist government which doesn’t believe in free markets.
By the way, the shooter in Texas must’ve been a Tejano becauseI haven’t seen any white supremacist headlines.
Survey questioner: Did you skip a meal yesterday?
Me: Yes, I was saving my appetite for a 4 course meal in the evening, and marvellous it was
Survey questioner adds one to the tally of people who skipped a meal.
Texas shooter was trans! This story will disappear very quickly. Sweet!
Bongo @ 8.09: Ollie “We haven’t eaten for three whole days”, Stan “Yeah, yesterday, today and tomorrow”.
It’s late May in a warm Spring. Of course they should have turned their bloody heating off.
“Skip meals”: on the women’s pages that would be hailed as a good diet.
“Driving less”: good – on yer bike, matey.
@Jussi: will it disappear as fast as the Las Vegas hotel shooter story? Place your bets!
‘Texas authorities have identified 18-year-old Salvador Ramos as the suspected shooter in the killing of at least 19 students and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde’
Doesn’t say he’s trans. But he does have a Mexican name.
@Jussi
The twitter account of Paul Gosar (Republican, Arizona 4th C.D. Congressman) claimed the shooter was a “transsexual leftist illegal alien”. Then deleted the tweet. Wonder how many of those will turn out to be true. The trans thing seems to be a case of mistaken identity fwiw.
Oh drat! Misinformation all over place, he might not be a trans – face looked very feminine though (if that was his photo). Better luck next time, we’re bound to have a first trans mass-murderer soon given how many trans freaks there are nowadays.
Who on earth turns their heating off in this day and age? My heating turns itself off, through this magic invention called a thermostat. I suppose because they’ve only been around for some six hundred years, maybe that’s why they’re not widespread.
Prices do indeed work, in the sense that on aggregate people will use less of something when prices rise. However, the left will scream that some rich people just pay the higher price and don’t cut back, which is proof that they don’t work to their satisfaction.
Yesterday I went out for a long walk and had one meal when I got home#, much later: so I didn’t drive at all, the heating has been off almost all the time for weeks (a few times had the boiler on for half-an-hour to provide hot water for the second bath in a row) because we haven’t needed it.
None, repeat *none*, of this had anything to do with my income.
So whatever Ipsos Mori has found is irrelevant.
# I usually eat two meals a day so I skipped one but Ipsos Mori would have shown me as skipping two – I suspect that they would show me as skipping one even if I didn’t.