Who can Mr and Mrs OAP pass their higher costs on to?

I AM reminded of the German Weimar Republic of the 1920s. People were being paid their salary every day, often in millions, because inflation was rising every day. This ‘hyperinflation’ was brought about because Germany decided to fund the cost of WW1 – which they lost – by borrowing and by the heinous levels of reparation imposed by the Allies. It was very much a German problem largely caused by the Allies.

Fast forward to 2022, and this year’s inflation has taken on a global proportion, with scarcity of supply against rising demand, and supply price and quantity often being artificially adjusted. Power above all else determines the prices of almost everything on the supermarket shelf because gas and oil make the wheels of industry go round ... everything that moves demands feeding with the stuff.

Inflation hits us all, say the newspapers. No it does not. There are those who will ride through it, not uncaring, but waterproof. Inflation will infect, by degrees, the poorest hardest and the richest not at all.

In parts of the world, people die because of their poverty – they starve to death. In many instances the food is just not there. In places where the food does exist the price can be such that for some people it might as well not exist.

Today we hear talk of the threat for some people of having to make a choice between warmth or food – either/or; you can’t have both. So it gets whittled down: a little food and a little warmth ... misery. Heaven forbid we ever get to that point.

So today I give myself a challenge. A quite painless challenge. I will save £10 every month and give it away to a food bank. Simply by eating one slice of toast for breakfast instead of two – that’s four or five loaves less a month. If just 1,000 of us do the same we can put the baker out of business. Many people are obliged to cut back in dozens of small ways so that we hold some money in reserve. It’s our way of passing on price increases – by not buying. Then it will be the small, off-high street businesses that will close and the big global multi national food halls who will be there when the inflation wave subsides, they will be that little bit richer.

I would recommend that small shop businesses don’t use the inflation mode as a reason to grab more profit. It has been announced that food prices including bread have increased almost twice as fast as the 10.1% across the board figure.

Now, as your food customer buys less, then you need to accept that you must take less and survive. And we all do so wish for our small shopkeepers to get through this stagflation.

Farmers and the NFU always tell us the climate is wrong whatever it’s doing, and that harvests are threatened.

Well, the 2022 grain harvest is all done and sold. The earliest ever.

A Berkshire farmer admitted to being “quietly pleased” and added: “But will the next field be as good?”

To which I would answer: “Why not?” I would suggest our grain harvest this year will be a ‘golden year’ – very high yields and very high prices.

And now there is some rain to soften up the soil and give it cohesion and moisture for autumn planting.

Farmers will have their share of higher costs (I have read many times about the increasing cost of fertilisers, but not shown as a percentage of the total cost of the farm business), just as Mr and Mrs Smith, old age pensioners in a small house, will have theirs, too.

But Mr and Mrs OAP have no one to pass their costs on to, not a penny of their higher costs can be charged against their tax.