From the BBC's 'Have your say' on "Is the EU right to give up on 'metric Britain'?"
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"Metrication ensures prices now increase by a minimum of nine time that of sterling. If we adopt the Euro at 1.41/£ prices will increase by 35% plus 5% on food and clothing.
Robin Stowell, Bideford"
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I get the point that something that costs £1 now will cost €1.40.
Does anybody have a clue what the first sentence means?
Stormlight
24 minutes ago
5 comments:
Firstly, how does a £1/1.40EUR exchange rate result in a 35% and 5% increase in prices? Secondly, the increase will purely be mathematical as the value remains constant although the prices have changed. So i don't get the point of the post.
V, yes of course it is nonsense, but at least I can see where he went wrong.
Nominally we would have 40% inflation, in real terms it is not inflation at all (altho' a lot of people say that going decimal sparked off inflation in the 1970s and a lot of Germans say that prices went up when they joined the Euro).
Similarly, the 5% is because other EU countries do not have a VAT zero rate for food or children's clothing (so again, this is false logic, metrication and VAT-harmonisation are two different topics).
It's the "nine times" that threw me, this is clearly wrong (as are the other two statements) but I can't even see WHERE he went wrong.
According to the official figures inflation dropped in Germany after the Euro was introduced.
Now you could argue that the stats taken from a wide selection of goods are wrong and a few Germans that the media have carefully chosen to speak to, are right - it is of course possible. But personally I believe in the scientific method - which is why I believe in evolution despite the majority of the US public not doing so.
Neil, I doubt whether it made much difference either way. I wasn't saying it was true, I was saying that people say it, which is true.
But I do visit Germany fairly frequently, and the price of a take-away pizza and a couple of beers definitely doubled in the late 1990s (or whenever it was).
Even my teenage lads (who are lefties of course, being young) call it the "Teuro".
I rememebr that we were told decimilisation wouldn't affect prices but it did. Increased overnight on thousands of goods. One example: On 13th Feb 1971 butter cost 11 and 1/2d (old pennies) for a 1/2lb pack. On 14th Feb it was 1/- (one shilling the new coin equivalent being 5p)) an increase of 1/2d. [4.3% increase overnight??]All because the new coinage didn't have the equivalent to an old 1/2 penny. So goods were rounded up rather than down. I remember it well as I was a trainee hospital technician on a very tight budget.
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