Just in case you've seen headlines about 'surging' retail sales, as you will see while the 'value' (price) index has risen & continues to do so, the volume of retail sales has remained essentially static (with a slight uptick in January)
So growing retail sales are essentially a figment of inflation & not the ability of consumers to actually buy more... yet more evidence of the stagnations of the UK's economy should you need it.
@ChrisMayLA6 the rich can keep buying
@ChrisMayLA6 Every time I go to a retail shop to try to buy clothes, they almost never have my size (S or XS). If they can't be bothered to stock what I want, why should I bother to try.
@ChrisMayLA6 In your opinion, how likely is that to be a positive or negative - not in terms of numerical +/-, but in terms of the economy delivering real benefit to people?
Buying less overall, providing needs are being met, would be a worthy goal - would you think basic needs are being met more or met less over the past 12 months? That is, have the things people are buying changed or is that relatively the same and it's just price inflation that's being reflected?
My position on degrowth (as I have set out before) is that degrowth (or a reduction in consumption) is a good idea if it is managed through a fair process of economic reformation... but when it is a chaotic result of a badly managed economy (as in the UK) then I see no real positive political or social aspects to this stagnation.
@ChrisMayLA6 I agree - so much of the economy is about confidence. Would it be fair to say the the mix of goods being bought isn't really changing?
That I'm less sure of; given food inflation there may be a rebalancing towards food?
@ChrisMayLA6 That's what I'm wondering, if there is a shift away from inessentials or not.
I also wonder if there is a shift within essentials away from higher-cost-by-weight goods. That would be a rational response, all things being equal and from a certain point of view, which of course they never are.
well given static volumes & the higher food inflation, your suspicion might well be correct, but such fine-grained retail data is not widely available, as afar as I am aware
