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17/05/2008, 8:27 ams Joined on 07/08/2007 Posts 275 Re: Cost of living Great site, stuck into fav's.   ams    Report

17/05/2008, 9:54 ErnieY Joined on 05/12/2006 Nr Prayssac (Lot) Posts 3,035 Re: Cost of living  billyo wrote: by 2012 (london olympics) oil will be at 750$ a barrel I've heard some outlandish claims in my time but that has to be one of the most prepostorous It implies a 6 fold increase over a 4 year period and at that rate of escalation the economies of the developed nations would have long since ground to a complete standstill and be in a complete recessionary crisis if not terminal meltdown. I'm not saying that things won't get worse, much worse even, because I believe that they will, but the laws of supply and demand will act as a natural check and prevent the situation getting to that stage - I hope ! For instance, the emerging countries such as China and India, who's demands are commonly held largely responsible for the massive rises in the costs of oil and raw materials, can only thrive and continue to grow when they have markets to sell to i.e. the developed nations, and if those markets are moribund then the demand falls and along with it the cost of raw materials.     My doctor said one drink per day, I can live with that !    Report

17/05/2008, 9:56 J.R's gone native Joined on 16/07/2006 Picardie, Sussex Posts 1,728 Re: Cost of living Powderesal The first link, the Economist one seemed to make total sense, it appears to be basic supply and demand economics aggravated by the manipulation of global oil prices. Put simply too many of us have switched to diesel fuelled cars and the percentage manufacturing capacity compared with petrol is insufficient for the current demand, there is a shortage in Europe which commodity speculators love and the forward trading drives the price up, the same thing is happening with all basic foodstuffs and manufacturing materials. It is aggravated by the fact that as fuel price rises more of us switch to diesel but supply and demand economics say that the oil companies will switch more production to the higher demand/higher price product, the price stabilising and in the long run falling. If this were a crop shortage due to a bad harvest, the rapid rise in price followed by a switch to the higher margin crop and then oversupply and falling price is exactly what happens "in a perfect market", sadly commodity speculation creates artificial sustained high prices as we are seeing. The part about food oil prices rising at a rate higher than fuel oil was spot on, I saw a report on Thalassa last night showing that the Marshall group of Pacific islands in Micronesia were self sufficient in bio-diesel made from copra but now that the global price of palm oil for cooking was so high they have stopped producing bio-diesel. Looks like I wont be able to continue filling my tank with Lidl huil de friture As an aside has anyone else been getting wafts of  a friterie type smell whilst driving? My stomach and nose usually work together when I am hungry and I can often smell a "barack à frites" before it comes into view but I am getting more and more rogue indications especially on the autoroutes as the locals are switching to the own "low taxation eco-diesel". If you are considering this yourself be warned, the smell of merguez is a dead give away,  they wont need sniffer dogs    Report

17/05/2008, 10:46 billyo Joined on 15/11/2005 Posts 81 Re: Cost of living Sorry Ernie, I was in a hurry to get to the market and put that a bit bluntly... It was from an economic review magazine I borrowed from a US economics student on a flight, written by a group of economic lecturers, unfortunatly I cant remember the name. Basically from what I can remeber, it based its conclusion on the following (in a perfect storm kind of way) Increasing demand: see India and China the biofuel situation, either people eat or people drive, world food reserves are the lowest for thirty years governments are going to realise, hopefully sooner rather than later, that people need food more than fuel and cut back on the production of biofuels in favour of food production which will increase the pressure on oil production (see malaysia, they built three new biofuel plants and have never used them because the population decided that they would rather cook with the palm oil.) Throw in a failed harvest and it will speed the whole process up. Supply issues: Iran cant increase supply, the goverment takes so much of the revenue that there is no investment in production infrastructure, to the point that the system is becoming overload and unsafe; a small accident.... Saudi Arabia, said that they wont increase supply because the market demand isnt increasing. Current price hikes are driven by speculators profiting, however, the authors thought that Saudi is very near maximum supply anyway and have little wiggle room, they have also claimed the same amount of reserves in the ground for the last 20 years despite all that has been taken out, so they might have already reached peak production. North Sea, enough said... Exploration, there is still oil out there, but the cost of getting out of the ground is increasing exponentially, see North pole, the new apperent reserves off Australia. The article compared the net energy from one litre of oil from the canadian tar sands to a backed potato with butter (made me laugh) Throw into all that some decent supply problems, eg the pipeline in Nigeria catching fire again or trouble in a major oil produceing country...  As late as last year a number of economists were laughed at when they predicted 100$ a barrel. As I said, its a bit of a perfect storm situation, and Im not taking all that the article said a gospel, but a couple of things happen at the same time and who knows where the price will go, gulp.      Report

17/05/2008, 12:20 Val_2 Joined on 23/08/2004 Posts 3,071 Re: Cost of living Going backtothe original thread title, yes the cost of living has increased here and is still increasing as we speak. Petrol/Diesel is going up every couple of days by one or two centimes which although tiny,soon add up. Yesterday we filled up the Berlingo vanwith 60€worth of diesel and it came to just over half a tank whereas this time last year you would have filled it and some change. Food items have increased and not by a centime either which makes going to Lidl more expensive too as I see some regular items I have bought for years have started to increase weekly. I now only shop once per week minimum, do not go out in the car unless it is absolutely necessary and we have stopped buying luxuries like chocolate and alcohol which actually has made us lose weight and feel better. Luckily veggies are usually given freely around here and we grow our own but you cannot live on those alone. Anyone seriously thinking its cheaper to live here now should think hard before they jump out of the frying pan into the fire. I also noticed that F.Telecom now only give you five working day to pay your phone bill and EDF not a lot more - another sign of the changing economic times perhaps?    Report

17/05/2008, 12:51 Clair Joined on 23/08/2004 ------- Forum Moderator ------- Lot (46) Posts 6,408 Re: Cost of living I go to a big supermarket every 4 weeks and stock up on items I cannot find a cheaper equivalent for. A year ago, I would spent around €60-70 at Géant. Last Saturday, I spent €130 and did not buy anything extravagant or unusual. A return shopping trip to Lidl and Aldi is 70km and has to be worth the time and the diesel , so I go once a fortnight. Looking back at receipts from May last year, I filled the car with €40. Yesterday, it cost €55. Clair, a Real Virtual French Person La vérité est si obscurcie en ce temps et le mensonge si établi, qu'à moins d'aimer la vérité, on ne saurait la reconnaître. (Blaise Pascal)    Report

17/05/2008, 14:33 ams Joined on 07/08/2007 Posts 275 Re: Cost of living The better half just came back from shopping, in the boot she had a years supply of washing machine liquid, apparantly Lidl has them on special offer at a reduction of €0.70 per bottle.   Looks like if  prices continue to rise we will be good for taking in clothes as another form of income. !!!!!   ams    Report

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