Wednesday 31 January 2018

It is the cost of living that matters to us plebs

The cost of living is a phrase that has fallen into disuse these last 20 years. The politicians don't want to talk about it a as a general concept and today, Carney in the Daily Telegraph calls for 'meritless' RPI measure to be axed and only the CPI published. The RPI is a much closer measure of the cost of living  and as arithmetic mean, is for the same set of constituents,  always higher than the CPI which is a  geometric mean/ That is why our very political BoE Governor likes it. It makes his performance on controlling inflation look better. CPI is  also the measure the EU uses but  conveniently does not include housing costs which are important to us plebs.

All this waffly talk of the economy of course suits politicians very well. The economy is a vague concept that can mean anything. Note how often politicians use it.Cost of living is much harder edged and people clearly understand it. Trade Unionists used to use it a lot in the days when they represented ordinary people Sadly now they are more concerned with gender equality, gay rights and other facets of political correctness and virtue signaling.

Better we returned to simple words and concepts. It is as Orwell wrote destroy the meanng of language and words then mean what the political elite say they mean.

The ONS now favour CPIH which is CPI with housing costs included.KISS is best

Was I the only one who found the HoL display of arrogance and £300 per day privilege during the Brexit debate nauseating?

As a Lord put it,  You pay each of them £300 a day to luxuriate in what Lord Ridley called “the gilded, crimson echo-chamber for Remain”…,


3 comments:

Stephen Harness said...

If the Lords do sabotage Brexit, it will signal the end of the Lords as the second chamber. Arrogant they may be but are they stupid enough to take their arrogance too far.
Sadly I have watched some of the highlights but turned away at the sight of Lord Mandleson indeed displaying his own brand of arrogance. EU pension and all.

Stephen Harness said...

EU Pensions - estimate
Kinnock @ £90,000
Mandleson @ £35,000
Patten @ £40,000
They probably have sleepless nights worrying about Brexit.

Stephen Harness said...

The Sun newspaper (must be right) suggests the EU forks out £500,000 a year to pay the pensions of 30 former MEPs and officials who sit in the House of Lords. Obviously these individuals have an 'interest' and should not have taken part in any EU debate.