FAZ.net writes that, for the first time in 22 years, prices – measured by the previous standards – decreased by 0.5 % in July. The expected decrease had been even higher at 0.6 %.
Isn’t that nice. But now comes the downer: the (statistical) decrease was caused by a special development in the energy sector:
Crude oil prices plummeted by 45 % and fuel by 20 %.
End-users have to pay 44.7 percent less for crude oil and 20.0 percent less for fuel than in July 2008.
Today, I heard in the news that all-inclusive trips cost 14.8 percent more than last year. What do I deduce from this? That you need no crude oil for all-inclusive trips? Or that our currency advantage over the most favoured holiday destinations melts down.
In the same article, I also read:
With the exception of energy and victuals, prices increased by about 1.4 percent in July.
That fits a little better with what I perceive, because in my world, I constantly experience profound increase of costs. Not just when I buy lemonade in the forest restaurant. The latest surprise came when I bought a pair of men’s shoes. Those that were of fine quality all cost around 200 Euros when I last went shoe shopping. I had hoped to find them between 100 and 150 Euros. In former times, only really exclusive shoes used to cost 400 DM.
Now I wonder a) how high our inflation rate actually is (I have lost faith in the official numbers a long time ago) and b) what would happen if oil prices had not plummeted so significantly (everything is influenced by energy costs in the form of production, package or transport)? And what will happen when the price for crude oil gets into its next upward spin? There is a fair chance that this might happen even this year.
🙂 But if I were able to see into the future, I would not be sitting here and writing my blog. Instead, I would be yachting in the South Sea, surrounded by a bottle of Champaign and (at least) two beautiful blondes …
RMD
P.S.
The sentence:
“With the exception of energy and victuals, prices increased by about 1.4 percent in July.”
continues like this:
“Experts, therefore, do not consider it a deflation”.
To me, that is pretty close to cynical.
(Translated by EG)
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