euro daze part d'OH

[Testin da Cable]

Ewo lads and lasses, TdC here with the latest information from Euroland.

Normally, I'm the type to let minor irritants fester away until I suddenly come to myself, breathing deeply with a blood smeared steel pipe in my hand, with said irritant dead on the floor before me. Though I can do a lot of things, I (sadly) can't kill the shocking price boosts us peeps here in the realm of the Euro have been undergoing. First it was "the pricing of products has been pushed up to cover guilder-to-euro conversion costs", that got seriously bitched at...but did the prices go down? Hell no they didn't!

To get to the point: yesterday my gf and I went out for a yummy steak dinner. I'm quite partial to a good steak tbh, and for some strange reason when I'm going to have a steak I like a shrimp cocktail as a starter dish. The one I had cost 8.50 euros. "So?" I hear you ask? Well, allow me to explain: Back in the days when the guilder was Holland's currency (two years ago iirc) a shrimp cocktail would cost something between 8 and 10 guilders. A loaf of bread would cost anything from around 1 to 3 guilders. A Euro is, or rather was (rounded) 2.2 guilders. Ergo the shrimp cocktail I had last night cost nearly 19 guilders! Was it huge? No! Was it super-yummy? No, it was a fucking standard shrimp cocktail thank you very much. The only thing that it had going for it is that it was twice as expensive as the one I had in the same eatery two years ago! Jeebus! A couple of days ago I bought a loaf of bread at my usual supermarket for a smidgen over 2 euros. That's nearly 5 guilders! I could have had 5 loaves for that two years ago! Hello?

Me being the person I am, I slowly come to suspect that someone is getting royally screwed. Pricing has skyrocketed, my salary has remained exactly the same. In fact, the unions have agreed to a salary freeze to soften the impact of government's cutting costs by fiddling with the pension funds. Something is going very wrong imo. Any economic types out there willing to comment?

 

[~Lazarus~]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
Any economic types out there willing to comment?

No.

 

[Testin da Cable]

yeah? well I hope you get severe premature baldness!

 

[xane]

I'd be cautious is blaming the government directly.

I had a similar experience with books recently, now that the Net Book Agreement is effectively abolished you'd expect prices to generally go down as competition sets in, particularly with the growth in internet book shopping.

In Books Etc I can see hundreds of book with "£3 off" and £4 off" stickers everywhere, problem is the "Publisher Recommended Price" has coincidently gone up by the same amount, most typical hardbacks would cost around £12-14 a few years ago, now they are all £17-20, result is the books are being sold at exactly the same price with additional profit being made on those not having the money-off stickers.

Commercial concerns always jump on any opportunity.

 

[~Lazarus~]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
yeah? well I hope you get severe premature baldness!

too late

and how can you get SEVERE baldness. You are either BALD or not (or phasing between the two)

severity just doesnt enter into it!

 

[Testin da Cable]

I wasn't blaming the government directly, I only mentioned them because it's partly because of them that my salary is frozen "until further notice". Nothing, nothing at all, has happened to my salary to compensate the vastly inflated prices. The way things are progressing my purchassing power will go down the drain :/


edit: dammit Lazman, you know what I mean beware lest I infiltrate your house and shave off one of your eyebrows whilst you're dreaming pretty dreams of powning at CS

 

[~Lazarus~]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
edit: dammit Lazman, you know what I mean beware lest I infiltrate your house and shave off one of your eyebrows whilst you're dreaming pretty dreams of powning at CS

[scared]

ok

[/scared]

And ive kind "given up" on CS for the mo.

 

[DaGaffer]

Originally posted by xane
I'd be cautious is blaming the government directly.

I had a similar experience with books recently, now that the Net Book Agreement is effectively abolished you'd expect prices to generally go down as competition sets in, particularly with the growth in internet book shopping.

In Books Etc I can see hundreds of book with "£3 off" and £4 off" stickers everywhere, problem is the "Publisher Recommended Price" has coincidently gone up by the same amount, most typical hardbacks would cost around £12-14 a few years ago, now they are all £17-20, result is the books are being sold at exactly the same price with additional profit being made on those not having the money-off stickers.

Commercial concerns always jump on any opportunity.

Yes and no. I used to work in the books business and had a direct comparison between the UK (no net book agreement) and France & Germany (book agreements) - in the UK, book 'rrp' prices went up as you said, but price competition brought them back down again - in Germany, they went up and stayed up. Given the rise in average disposable income between now and a few years ago, the cost of a book is cheaper in real terms in the UK than it was; in Germany and other regulated markets, its substantially more expensive.

This is part of the Eurozone's problem - overregulated, over controlled markets. The bigger problem is that the Euro is trying to shoehorn wildly different economic states and productivity into one system, which is why its architects, the French and Germans, are breaking their own fiscal rules to make it work. This is the thing we Brits have never understood about Europe; the rules are there to be broken when it suits; we've always laboured under the misapprehension that there's not much point in having a rule if you're going to ignore it, but that's because we're silly

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
not much point in having a rule if you're going to ignore it

exactly. the dutch own at making rules, then "tolerating" discrepancies :/

 

[Sir Frizz]

And when are PS2 games going to only cost £30 eh? PS1 games only cost £30, except on a few titles.

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
This is the thing we Brits have never understood about Europe; the rules are there to be broken when it suits; we've always laboured under the misapprehension that there's not much point in having a rule if you're going to ignore it, but that's because we're silly

This I reckon is more to do with the fact they get away with it and some how they know the Brits wouldn't

Sadly TDC this problem is common to all countries who are in the eurozone, it seems many people inside these countries are now bitching

 

[Wij]

I've still got some gilders somewhere. Would they help ?

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by Embattle
Sadly TDC this problem is common to all countries who are in the eurozone, it seems many people inside these countries are now bitching

oh, yeah, I'm well aware. I recall that the orginal intent (in holland) was to set pricing schemes that a euro would equate a guilder in the way of things. I had my doubts in as much as a euro is worth more than twice a guilder, thus if I'm going to pay a euro for a loaf of bread, where I used to pay a guilder my baker is going to be very happy. Unless he has to pay extra for his grain etc. etc. etc. but then....since there is no extra cost other than the conversion to the euro....where is the money going? I certainly haven't got it...the government says they don't have it....so where is it?

 

[ECA]

Being spent on prostitutes and booze.

 

[Will]

Eire had similar problems when the € came in. Retailers took the chance to raise prices hoping people wouldn't really notice, or would just blame the Euro for the problem.

But how is that the Euro's fact? I'd blame greedy retailers myself.

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by Will
I'd blame greedy retailers myself.

I do (partially) blame them, but consider my baker anology for a minute. My baker charges me double for bread, the miller charges the baker double for grain, the farmer...etc.etc. Where's all the cash gone?

 

[DaGaffer]

Originally posted by Will
Eire had similar problems when the € came in. Retailers took the chance to raise prices hoping people wouldn't really notice, or would just blame the Euro for the problem.

But how is that the Euro's fact? I'd blame greedy retailers myself.

Not true. Ireland actually had inspectors checking prices to make sure the rules weren't abused when the changeover happened, and this was all planned and communicated to retailers before the changeover, to the extent that rounding down rather than rounding up occured.

 

[Testin da Cable]

lucky them. that didn't happen here in holland :/

 

[Damini]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
Not true. Ireland actually had inspectors checking prices to make sure the rules weren't abused when the changeover happened, and this was all planned and communicated to retailers before the changeover, to the extent that rounding down rather than rounding up occured.

However, when I went out there all the irish people were complaining about prices going up, and I don't know whether they actually had or not, all I can say is that Ireland is damned hard on the wallet.

 

[Will]

Originally posted by DaGaffer
Not true. Ireland actually had inspectors checking prices to make sure the rules weren't abused when the changeover happened, and this was all planned and communicated to retailers before the changeover, to the extent that rounding down rather than rounding up occured.

I judged it on anecdotal evidence. People in Dublin do feel everything was rounded up.

 

[L_Plates]

TBH that sounds like the UK but hey we have always had stupid prices over here so we are use to it.


Welcome to our world !!

 

[Testin da Cable]

I don't think that the UK enjoy 100% markup in two year periods matey

 

[L_Plates]

No i agree, but we are definately one of the most expensive places to live already.

So they would not dare.

 

[DaGaffer]

Originally posted by Will
I judged it on anecdotal evidence. People in Dublin do feel everything was rounded up.

One of those classic fuelled by rumour situations; everyone expected prices to go up, including the Irish government, which is why they went to such lengths to make sure it didn't happen, but of course because the expectation was there and it gets increasingly difficult over time to do the (punt>euro) calculation in your head, everyone thinks that prices have rocketed. Ireland's also in a strange situation because its always been pegged in people's minds roughly to the Pound and that's no longer the case which affects people's perceptions even more.

 

[Tom]

TDC, did you complain at the restaurant?

 

[Testin da Cable]

it's the same all over matey the only place that I know of where I've eaten lately that hasn't driven it's pricing up is my "greasy spoon" thai cafeteria

 

[dysfunction]

As you have said previously The Dutch Guilder Conversion rate to Euro was 2.2

So if you had 100 guilders then you would end up with 45 Euro's

My guess is that everyone in the retail chain have added a bit of extra fat to their prices...to become a bit more profitable in the tough Euro market

So that at the end of the line when the consumer goes to buy something its going to cost them a lot more than before...

 

[L_Plates]

I think it would be best if we all kept our own currency.




POUND all the way

 

[Testin da Cable]

don't get me wrong though, for I am not against Europe/the Euro. I think the concept is wonderful, and once hte kinks are ironed out the benefits should be nice too.
It's just that costs have skyrocketed in certain areas, and nobody seems to be doing anything about it :/

 

[L_Plates]

And i would be surprised if they ever do


Thats what usually happens. They say prices will fall but they dont.