The price of eggs might seem a strange thing for a translation company manager to write about. But bear with me, gentle reader! There is a link!
Yesterday, the BBC News website ran an article that said the price of groceries here in Britain has gone up by over 8% over the past year, and that the price of meat has increased by around 25% since January of this year - that is, 25% inflation in nine months.
I am fortunate to live in an area where we have a good local butcher. I am slightly wary of believing everything that I read in the newspaper, so I asked Andrew the butcher whether he felt this was an accurate figure. He confirmed that it was, and in fact it understates the full inflation. He told me that if you take last October as a baseline, in effect a full twelve months, then the increase in meat prices is actually around 45%. That is a big dent in a family's shopping budget. Worse, Andrew told me how the cost of eggs has gone up: Last Christmas, less than nine months ago, he could sell me six eggs for 95 pence. Today, the same eggs cost £1.50. I understand the reasons - chickens eat grain, the cost of grain has risen fast in the past year, so eggs cost more.
Interestingly, there has been a perception in the UK that there has been little or no price inflation over the past ten years. This is simply a perception, and is incorrect - the government's own Office of National Statistics have figures that show that retail inflation, including housing costs, stood at an indexed value of 170 in the year 2000, and at 206 in the year 2007 (the baseline year with a value of 100 was in 1987).
But this year, with headline inflation in the UK running at 4% (and heading towards 5%), with fuel for both transport and heating costing more, with housing (mortgage payments) costing more, and with food costing more, reality has hit home. Everyone in Britain is now aware that life costs more this year than it did last year.
Interestingly, pricing in the translation market has remained largely static over the past 7 or 8 years. That, I suspect, is about to change.
Yesterday, the BBC News website ran an article that said the price of groceries here in Britain has gone up by over 8% over the past year, and that the price of meat has increased by around 25% since January of this year - that is, 25% inflation in nine months.
I am fortunate to live in an area where we have a good local butcher. I am slightly wary of believing everything that I read in the newspaper, so I asked Andrew the butcher whether he felt this was an accurate figure. He confirmed that it was, and in fact it understates the full inflation. He told me that if you take last October as a baseline, in effect a full twelve months, then the increase in meat prices is actually around 45%. That is a big dent in a family's shopping budget. Worse, Andrew told me how the cost of eggs has gone up: Last Christmas, less than nine months ago, he could sell me six eggs for 95 pence. Today, the same eggs cost £1.50. I understand the reasons - chickens eat grain, the cost of grain has risen fast in the past year, so eggs cost more.
Interestingly, there has been a perception in the UK that there has been little or no price inflation over the past ten years. This is simply a perception, and is incorrect - the government's own Office of National Statistics have figures that show that retail inflation, including housing costs, stood at an indexed value of 170 in the year 2000, and at 206 in the year 2007 (the baseline year with a value of 100 was in 1987).
But this year, with headline inflation in the UK running at 4% (and heading towards 5%), with fuel for both transport and heating costing more, with housing (mortgage payments) costing more, and with food costing more, reality has hit home. Everyone in Britain is now aware that life costs more this year than it did last year.
Interestingly, pricing in the translation market has remained largely static over the past 7 or 8 years. That, I suspect, is about to change.
posted by Nick at 10:19 AM
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