Category Archives: Inflation

Eight more Australians leave West Bank – as it happened

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Military deployment to Middle East will be for evacuation of Australians

Defence minister Richard Marles was asked on Today what the role of the aircraft and troops sent to the Middle East would be.

We’ve made our position really clear.

Israel has a right to defend itself and to move against Hamas. What is absolutely essential in doing that is that the protection from the centre and and all the steps that Israel takes, and that the rules of war are adhered to and we’ve been making that very clear, as well.

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Petrol prices spiked 7% in September quarter and there’s more pain to come, Australian treasurer suggests

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Costs could rise as conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East worsens, Jim Chalmers warns

Australians are feeling the impact of inflation at the petrol pump with the latest data expected to show fuel prices rose by more than 7% in the three months to the end of September.

Treasury estimates the latest consumer price index data for the September quarter, to be released on Wednesday, will reveal the soaring cost of petrol brought on by global factors including the war in Ukraine, supply constraints and the weaker Australian dollar.

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Portugal to scrap ‘unjust’ tax breaks for foreign residents

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Low-tax scheme launched during financial crisis has stoked housing inflation that has drawn protests across country

Tax breaks for foreign residents in Portugal are “no longer justified”, the prime minister, Antonio Costa, has declared, promising to close the scheme for new applicants in 2024 after it stoked housing prices in one of western Europe’s poorest nations.

Launched in 2009, the scheme allows people who become residents by spending more than 183 days a year in the country to benefit from a special 20% tax rate on Portuguese-sourced income derived from “high value-added activities“”, such as doctors and university teachers.

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Greggs keeps prices on hold as sales leap and it opens new shops

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Britain’s biggest bakery chain says cost inflation is easing, although staff costs are rising

Greggs, Britain’s biggest bakery chain, said it had no plans to raise its prices before Christmas after its cost inflation eased, as sales soared over the last three months.

The retailer raised its prices in June, when some products went up by 5-10p.

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UK economy makes stronger recovery from pandemic than first thought

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Revisions to figures show stronger performance than Germany and France but momentum starts to stall

The UK economy made a faster recovery from the Covid pandemic than previously estimated, according to revisions to official figures revealing a stronger performance than Germany and France.

In a boost for Rishi Sunak before the Conservative party conference in Manchester beginning this weekend, revised figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed gross domestic product was 1.8% above pre-pandemic levels at the end of the second quarter this year.

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UK manufacturers cut hiring plans amid ‘sharp slowdown’, survey finds

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Firms preparing for difficult year as ‘potent cocktail’ of difficulties takes hold, says industry lobby group

UK manufacturers are cutting their recruitment plans after being hit by a slowdown in orders as a downturn looms, a new survey shows.

Britain’s manufacturers are “battening down the hatches” amid a sharp drop in activity, according to the latest quarterly data from Make UK, which represents manufacturers, and the business advisory firm BDO.

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Sluggish eurozone economies will not welcome ECB’s interest rate rise

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Weak consumer spending as, people – especially in Germany, the EU’s largest economy – put more into savings

Interest rates went up again across the eurozone on Thursday – probably for the last time during this cycle of hikes that has become a familiar story in the single currency bloc, as it has in the UK and US.

The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its main deposit rate by a quarter of one per cent to 4% – the highest level in the euro’s history.

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Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

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French supermarket chain labels products that have shrunk in size but cost more before contract talks with suppliers

The French supermarket chain Carrefour has put labels on its shelves this week warning shoppers of “shrinkflation”, the phenomenon where manufacturers reduce pack sizes rather than increase prices.

It has slapped price warnings on products from Lindt chocolates to Lipton iced tea to pressure top consumer goods suppliers Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever to tackle the issue in advance of much-anticipated contract talks.

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US inflation in August rose to 3.7% amid sharp increase in energy prices

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Growth in prices still remains far below the decades-high inflation rates that were seen last summer, when rate peaked at 9.1% in June

US inflation in August rose for the first time since June 2022, rising to 3.7% as a sharp increase in energy prices pushed prices up toward the end of the summer.

Growth in prices still remains far below the decades-high inflation rates that were seen last summer, when the rate peaked at 9.1% in June. Still, an increase in inflation means the US economy is further from the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2% and will likely make officials consider pushing interest rates up later this year.

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UK ‘mortgage meltdown’ looms amid ‘terrifying’ growth in arrears

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Jump in borrowers unable to make payments with landlords particularly hit and ‘worse to come’

Mortgage arrears jumped by 13% in the second quarter of the year to the highest level since 2016, according to Bank of England figures that underscore the stress in the UK mortgage market.

Rising interest rates and unemployment over recent months have put pressure on household disposable incomes, forcing some families to cut or suspend their monthly mortgage payments.

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Number of Britons facing significant internet outages doubles in a year

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Two-fifths of UK adults disconnected for three hours or more with one in four left without service for nearly a week

The number of Britons who have experienced their internet connection failing for at least three hours has almost doubled in the last year, with irate consumers now ranking broadband outages as a bigger frustration than roadworks or public transport delays.

In the past year, two-fifths (41%) of all UK adults – 22 million consumers – have had their internet disconnected for three or more hours, a significant increase on the 12 million who reported disruption the previous year, according to a report by the price comparison website Uswitch.

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Mountain view: Bank top economist offers two routes to beating inflation

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Huw Pill says he prefers longer, more steady use of interest rates of Table Mountain model over sharp rise and fall of Matterhorn approach

Tourist attraction, backdrop to millions of selfies and one of the world’s most easily identifiable landmarks. Cape Town’s Table Mountain is all of these things, but now it has found a new role: as a guide to what will happen to UK interest rates.

For Huw Pill the opportunity was too good to pass up. Invited by South Africa’s central bank to speak at a high-level conference, the Bank of England’s chief economist said there were two ways for Threadneedle Street to bring UK inflation back to the government’s 2% target.

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Fed chair warns US inflation battle not over and hints at further rate rises

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Jay Powell tells symposium in Wyoming that inflation is still too high but that US central bank will ‘keep at it until the job is done’

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell used a closely watched speech on Friday to warn that the fight against inflation in the US is not over.

Speaking at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell said inflation was still too high and that interest rates may have to rise further to tamp it down.

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Homebuilder shares tumble as UK housing market weakens – business live

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A profit warning from housebuilder Crest Nicholson has compounded fears of a housing market slowdown, as Rightmove data reveals a further drop in asking prices

AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said that while weak house price data (as was “hardly a surprise”, Crest Nicholson’s profit warning has “laid bare the the scale of the impact of a housing slowdown on the housebuilding sector.”

Sales of new homes have plunged alarmingly and, while not all developers in the space are created equal, the news, allied to Rightmove’s latest reading on the property market, has had a knock-on effect on share prices in the rest of the sector this morning.

The £7,000 drop in the average asking price observed by Rightmove in the last month, allied to a big drop in transaction volumes, is the kind of statistic to make estate agents distinctly uneasy.

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Sunak suggests plan to stop small boats won’t fully succeed before general election but claims it is working – politics live updates

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Prime minister says he is ‘not complacent’ and figures showing fall in crossings compared with 2022 show his approach is working

Rishi Sunak and Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, were both given a chance to show off their painting skills when they visited a nursery in Harrogate this morning. According to PA Media, they were both painting bees. Keegan’s bee would merit a gold star. Sunak’s looks more like a parrot with a squint.

In his pooled TV interview, Rishi Sunak also stressed the government’s commitment to extending access to free childcare. He said:

It is really important to me that young families have access to high quality affordably childcare. That is why the government is expanding its offer of free childcare.

Currently working families can access 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds. As part of our big reforms we are extending that all the way down to little ones as young as nine months.

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Inflation spiral: food prices could yet rise higher and may never come down

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Concerns are growing over the effects of a warming climate on production and the danger of high grocery prices getting embedded into Australia’s economy

Food prices have been rising rapidly and there are reasons to fear they will push even higher. Economists warn some prices might never come down.

The ominous outlook is linked to drought conditions wilting crops in major grain-producing nations, disrupted grain deliveries out of Ukraine and moves by governments to ban food exports to protect their own supplies.

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Rishi Sunak accused of being ‘out of touch’ over energy bill support comments – UK politics live

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The Lib Dems criticise the PM after he suggested some people did not realise the government was still providing bill support

John McTernan writes for the Guardian today, calling for Labour to stop being so cautious and make the election a referendum on net zero:

Or nearly everything. Labour currently lacks one vital quality: confidence. While heading for a victory bigger than Tony Blair’s landslide of 1997, the party appears to be too frightened to fight. Whenever the Tories do something profoundly amoral or un-British – such as telling refugees to “fuck off”, as their vice-chair, Lee Anderson, recently did – Labour seems scared of going on the attack.

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Sharp rise in cost of food basics forces UK families ‘to make desperate choices’

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Which? research finds cheese, butter and bread are up by more than 30% in the past two years, hitting the poor hardest

The cost of some basic food items such as cheese, butter and bread has soared by more than 30% in the last two years, forcing poorer households to “make desperate choices between keeping up with their bill payments or putting food on the table,” campaigners have said.

Food price inflation has slowed in recent months, but costs remain much higher than they were two years ago, disproportionally affecting low-income households, according to research by consumer body Which? shared exclusively with the Guardian.

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Nomad Foods sees sharp rise in sales after increasing prices

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Firm says profitability suffered due to post-pandemic inflation and Ukraine war

Nomad Foods, the owner of Birds Eye, Findus and Goodfella’s pizzas, has seen a sharp rise in sales after it increased prices by 18%, amid political scrutiny over food pricing.

The business, which supplies the UK’s major supermarkets, said sales had risen by 8.6% in the three months to the end of June. The number of items sold dropped by 9.4%, but profits rose by 6.8% to €210m.

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China’s economy is struggling but fears of sustained deflation are premature

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Trade with rest of world is shrinking and youth unemployment is at 20% but state interventions are expected

China’s economy is struggling. The recovery after the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions is faltering. Its trade with the rest of the world is shrinking. A decade-long boom in house prices has come to an end.

The most obvious manifestation of the troubles besetting the world’s second biggest economy is that China is now officially in deflation. In the US, the UK and the eurozone, prices are rising – albeit not quite as fast as they were a few months ago – but in China they are actually falling.

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