Come the Festival season ~ crowds in Textile
bazaar of T Nagar – Nalli, Kumaran, Pothys, Chennai Silks, Saravana … and more
– would swell ….in every magazine you will find jokes on ‘shopping women and
poor husbands waiting (im)patiently’…… one can find allocated places for
waiting – some jokes would say that waiting hubbies would get coffee, tiffin
and more as their waiting would get extended to many hours ! By some yardstick – purchasing power of people
is increasing and people tend to buy more no. of garments (read sarees /
chudidars) than the past generation used to …. –there is a common description -
"too much money chasing too few goods".
Elsewhere in UK there is news that food price rises and
delayed summer clothes sales by high street retailers lifted Britain's
inflation rate to a five-month high in June, well above forecasts. The
bigger-than-expected rise in the consumer price index (CPI) measure of
inflation to 1.9% in June from 1.5% in May will further cloud the picture for
Bank of England policymakers as they weigh up price pressures in the economy
and decide when to raise interest rates from their record low.
There tends to price rise – people ends up spending more
than what they used to – the money value going down – the purchasing power kneels
… that is ‘Inflation” - defined as a sustained increase in the general level of
prices for goods and services. It is measured as an annual percentage increase.
As inflation rises, every Rupee you have buys a smaller percentage of a good or
service. The value of Rupee does not
stay constant when there is inflation. In India
In our Nation, the Consumer Price Index
(CPI) is calculated using :
a) Market prices for 252 items as collated by the Officials of Department of Statics and
Department of Posts.
b) The
all India weights given the
each category of
items such as
food 49.71%, housing 9.77 % ,
fuel 9.49% , footwear 0.68%
transportation 7.5 %, Medical 5.31 % Personnel care 2.92 % & Miscellaneous
26.31 % total 100% . CPI points are determined using this all India UK
The newsitems states that inflation rose sharply last
month – driven in part by a surprise hike in the price of women’s clothes. A
combination of retailers delaying summer sales thanks to the economic upturn,
and the cost of women’s clothing rising 0.6 per cent in June helped push up
inflation from 1.5 per cent to 1.9 per cent. Over there every month, 180,000
prices for 700 different items are logged by the Office For National Statistics
to work out Britain
Richard Campbell, of the ONS, said it might be linked to
the timing of summer sales. He added: ‘There may be less of an incentive to
discount. Why put things on sale when people are coming through the door
anyway?’ The ONS said there were ‘upward
contributions from nearly all items, the largest from trousers and skirts’. Its
figures show the amount of clothes being bought and the amount of money being
spent on them has been increasing in recent months. The economists warned against the rise in
inflation triggering an immediate increase in interest rates. The Bank of
England has kept the base rate frozen at 0.5 per cent since March 2009. David Kern, of the British Chambers of
Commerce, said: ‘The increase in inflation in June should not spark a knee jerk
reaction on interest rates by the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee.
So women influence more (the price rise) and
determine the inflationary trends for other goods !
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
16th July 2014.
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