Ireland has the highest consumer prices in the EU

[Purple]

It's the same for other countries but they have decided not to go with ridiculously high wind energy rates. We have made it too attractive for wind energy companies to profiteer but have loaded all the costs of the associated infrastructure onto the consumer via standing charges and high unit rates. Much more of the costs need to be borne by the wind energy companies themselves, they are the ones that are reaping the windfall energy prices without bearing any of the realistic costs associated with the grid and producing electricity when no wind is blowing.

Yep, while I accept the science around climate change I dislike the was in which the discussion around the solution is polluted by ideology. I've no problem subsidising green energy, I'm just not sure we are doing it right.

Eamon Ryan ruled out windfall taxes on energy companies because they would hit the wind energy providers the most .

There's that ideology again.

As for the scattered nature of our population those costs have already been borne as that infrastructure is long in place just like the gas piplelines.

No, that's not true. Maintaining an electricity grid is expensive.

The scattered windfarms needing to be connected by high voltage lines to the grid is a separate issue and a separate cost and has nothing to do with where people live as they are separate lines.

Yes, that's a separate issue.

Because we have decided to go all in with wind rather than conventional power stations like nuclear means we have to install many more high voltage lines to connect all these windfarms and now solar to the grid. The consumer is paying for all this much more than on the continent

The issue is energy loss through the transmission grid when the generation points are dispersed and the population is far way from the generation points and is also dispersed. 8% to 15% of all the power we generate is lost between step up and step down transformers, transmission lines and distribution lines.

 

[joe sod]

Exorbitant cost of over-the-counter drugs is a good example. Gov. could very easily fix this but instead keeps caving in to vested interests linked to cartel-like structures. Same for energy, insurance, GP costs, interest rates, etc. etc. Deep ideological hostility to any kind of consumer protection.

I heard a guy on newstalk this morning wanting the age to buy cigarettes raised to 21 , nothing significant there that's what you would expect from a health advocate and that has been the thrust of government policy anyway for 2 decades now. Unofficially there is opposition from government to this because now they raise too much money from tobacco taxes over 1 billion euros in 2021. They don't want to hit that cash cow. Also tobacco taxes will be there when corporation tax falls away . It could now be the case that the government knows they have reached the limit on tobacco taxes as they have just diverted too much trade to the black market

 

[Purple]

the government knows they have reached the limit on tobacco taxes as they have just diverted too much trade to the black market

That's the main reason.

 

[Purple]

The El Niño weather event is expected this year and will push global food prices up even more. We can expect more famine, far more migration, more geopolitical instability and more inflation.

 

[T McGibney]

The El Niño weather event is expected this year and will push global food prices up even more. We can expect more famine, far more migration, more geopolitical instability and more inflation.

Why? Hasn't global poverty shrunk dramatically in recent decades, meaning people are generally far more resilient to extreme weather events than they were a generation ago?

 

[Purple]

Why? Hasn't global poverty shrunk dramatically in recent decades, meaning people are generally far more resilient to extreme weather events than they were a generation ago?

Global poverty as a proportion of total population has shrunk dramatically and absolute poverty has also shrunk but the Ukraine war has massively disrupted grain supplies and caused a big increase in prices. There are 26 countries in the world which get more than half their grain from Russia and Ukraine, many of them being in Northern Africa. Global food prices have increased by more than 65% since the start of the Covid Pandemic. It's extremely difficult for countries which are net importers of food and fuel which also have to deal with increased interest payments on their debt, to withstand those kinds of shocks.
Wars are about resources and revolutions, from Masada to America, are caused by food prices prices and taxes.

 

[Laughahalla]

I heard a guy on newstalk this morning wanting the age to buy cigarettes raised to 21 , nothing significant there that's what you would expect from a health advocate and that has been the thrust of government policy anyway for 2 decades now. Unofficially there is opposition from government to this because now they raise too much money from tobacco taxes over 1 billion euros in 2021. They don't want to hit that cash cow. Also tobacco taxes will be there when corporation tax falls away . It could now be the case that the government knows they have reached the limit on tobacco taxes as they have just diverted too much trade to the black market

1 billion euro is a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of treating people that have health issues caused by smoking. The hospitals are full with people with COPD, Emphysema, pulmonary oedema, heart issues , strokes and the nursing homes full with people with vascular dementia etc caused by smoking.
That's before you factor in the cost spent of family members having to give up work or take time off work to care for people with smoking related illness.

sooner that plague is consigned to history the better. Death from smoking can be very slow and take years. The cost of treatment over those years is massive.

 

[Purple]

1 billion euro is a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of treating people that have health issues caused by smoking. The hospitals are full with people with COPD, Emphysema, pulmonary oedema, heart issues , strokes and the nursing homes full with people with vascular dementia etc caused by smoking.
That's before you factor in the cost spent of family members having to give up work or take time off work to care for people with smoking related illness.

sooner that plague is consigned to history the better. Death from smoking can be very slow and take years. The cost of treatment over those years is massive.

Smokers die younger so that saved the State money. Treating Obesity is far more expensive. From a purely economic perspective we should encourage fat people to smoke.

 

[joe sod]

Global poverty as a proportion of total population has shrunk dramatically and absolute poverty has also shrunk but the Ukraine war has massively disrupted grain supplies and caused a big increase in prices. There are 26 countries in the world which get more than half their grain from Russia and Ukraine, many of them being in Northern Africa. Global food prices have increased by more than 65% since the start of the Covid Pandemic. It's extremely difficult for countries which are net importers of food and fuel which also have to deal with increased interest payments on their debt, to withstand those kinds of shocks.
Wars are about resources and revolutions, from Masada to America, are caused by food prices prices and taxes.

If ukraine was supplying much of North Africa's grain supplies and feeding a vastly bigger population than within its borders it calls into question the whole carbon counting system. Of course Ukraine is not a signatory to this as far as I know. But if it was then all of the carbon released in producing and moving this grain would be on Ukraine's carbon balance sheet and not the consumer countries balance sheet. This is a fundamental flaw in the whole carbon counting system. Ireland has a similar although not as strong argument against the current system in that we are producing meat and dairy products which by and large are consumed in other countries and not in Ireland yet we are being debited with the carbon costs and not the UK Germany and other European countries

 

[joe sod]

Not much coverage of this in the media but Ireland unexpectedly had zero growth in the last quarter. Obviously retrenchment in the multinational sector is now showing up in the statistics but the domestic economy is still growing but for how long.
Costs are simply too high in Ireland and the government is directly to blame. One measure they could take is to reduce the MUP price for alcohol this would immediately reduce the inflation rate in Ireland. They are going to have to grasp the nettle of getting prices down in Ireland when the recession hits anyway

 

[arbitron]

Costs are simply too high in Ireland and the government is directly to blame. One measure they could take is to reduce the MUP price for alcohol this would immediately reduce the inflation rate in Ireland.

How would reducing the price of a non-essential item which makes up a very small portion of average household spending make any significant difference to inflation?

 

[Purple]

Costs are simply too high in Ireland and the government is directly to blame.

We have high wages, high social transfers and low levels of inequality. That's a big part of why costs are so high. If we were like many parts of the US where there was a very poor under-class to do low skilled jobs then middle income people would feel better off.

 

[Leo]

One measure they could take is to reduce the MUP price for alcohol this would immediately reduce the inflation rate in Ireland.

I've yet to see the mix of products that go to make up the inflation calculations but I can't imagine they are so dominated by the cheapest possible options that MUP is that significant a factor. MUP payed no part in the two price hikes Diageo imposed this year and with the majority of alcohol spend on-premise surely that's a lot more impactful on inflation figures than the cheapest options in the offie.

 

[odyssey06]

I've yet to see the mix of products that go to make up the inflation calculations but I can't imagine they are so dominated by the cheapest possible options that MUP is that significant a factor. MUP payed no part in the two price hikes Diageo imposed this year and with the majority of alcohol spend on-premise surely that's a lot more impactful on inflation figures than the cheapest options in the offie.

This suggests it was a factor

• The largest monthly increase was seen in Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco (+9.9%). Minimum unit pricing for alcohol came into effect in January 2022 and Alcoholic Beverage prices on average were up 17.4% from December 2021 and were up by 8.7% from January 2021.”

Press Statement Consumer Price Index January 2022 - CSO - Central Statistics Office

www.cso.ie

 

[Leo]

This suggests it was a factor

Yeah, I've seen lots of things that suggest it was a factor, but nothing to say how much of a factor. Last stat I could find said only ~30% of alcohol sales were off-premises. How much of that 30% is made up of the cheapest options? From what I can see the premium brands still do pretty well, so if the cheapest options that were affected by MUP are a significant factor in the alcohol and tobacco metric, something is wrong with the CSO methodology.

You then also have the CSO saying alcohol off-sales are now 70% more affordable than they were 20 years ago.

 

[thedaddyman]

I've yet to see the mix of products that go to make up the inflation calculations but I can't imagine they are so dominated by the cheapest possible options that MUP is that significant a factor. MUP payed no part in the two price hikes Diageo imposed this year and with the majority of alcohol spend on-premise surely that's a lot more impactful on inflation figures than the cheapest options in the offie.

Link to it in the page below

Consumer Price Index October 2022 - CSO - Central Statistics Office

www.cso.ie

 

[Leo]

Link to it in the page below

Consumer Price Index October 2022 - CSO - Central Statistics Office

www.cso.ie

Spent a bit of time looking through the links there but I don't see the methodology or share of lowest cost alcohol has in the overall calculations?

It does show that alcoholic drink prices in off-licenses have risen 4.8% in the 12 months to July (I don't believe MUP has changed in that time) but if I'm reading the indices correctly they say they've only risen by 13% since 2016.

 

[Purple]

Spent a bit of time looking through the links there but I don't see the methodology or share of lowest cost alcohol has in the overall calculations?

It does show that alcoholic drink prices in off-licenses have risen 4.8% in the 12 months to July (I don't believe MUP has changed in that time) but if I'm reading the indices correctly they say they've only risen by 13% since 2016.

The price of grain, hops and electricity may have some influence on the price of beer.

I have some vague recollection that there's a relationship between input costs and output costs in manufactured goods...

Diageo's net profit is nearly 20% and has doubled since last year... maybe that's got something to do it as well.

 

[Leo]

I have some vague recollection that there's a relationship between input costs and output costs in manufactured goods...

Precisely, and during a period where there have been no changes to MUP, it makes no sense to focus on MUP as a cause of inflation or have any expectation that scrapping MUP will see alcohol price inflation reverse let alone have any meaningful impact on the overall inflation rate.

 

[Marsupial]

At the same time, we have one of the lowest water charges in Europe.

Only if you're among the 90% who have access to mains water supply!

As one of the 180,000 Irish householders (about 10% of the total) with no access to mains water, it costs me quite a lot annually to produce potable water - and we'd better not discuss what happens to my foul water in case we upset sensitive readers!