More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
28 November
It was, apparently, some dire ill of both members of unmarried couples having tax relief on their mortgage (MIRAS), a scheme soon enough taken away, that led to the massive distortion in the house market for purchases to complete by 31 August 1988.
A policy, and a decision to have such a cut-off date, that led to house-price inflation, a doubling of mortgage interest rates, and, for many people, this thing newly popularly called negative equity.
And all for what ? A hare-brained scheme to penalize those who weren't married, whereas MIRAS for everyone just became more and more worthless until it went altogether - if taking the latter step had been envisaged first, the folly of what went before could have been avoided for many, many households.
As I recall, the ill in question was that there was only one MIRAS allowance for married couples, so, equally, rather than give them the benefit, the Thatcher government desired to squeeze everyone else.
And now this minimum price for alcohol. If it is designed to stop people drinking so much, how has that been arrived at ? Where has this been done before where it did reduce drinking ?
It will stop us all having the same amount of alcohol for the money that we used to spend, because everyone's drink will cost more (as discussed). As if the people who buy a bottle of wine for £3.49 or three bottles, individually £3.99, but priced at £10.00, will buy them less often just because they have to pay a minimum amount, or will consume their contents more slowly.
So the whole range of prices rises for all alcoholic drinks, and more revenue is paid on every can, bottle, wine-box, etc. And what happened to curbing drinking ? What lessons have we learnt - or are still to be learnt - from the era of Prohibition ?
Policy is all very well, if it relates to its objective: here, we have the belief that the availability of cheap alcohol is what leads to problems with it or for society. It ignores the fact that you don't need to drink cheap beer, wine or spirits to have a drink problem or have alcoholism, and where is the evidence that these measures will have any effect on those drinkers ?
It also ignores the fact that establishing this minimum price will not stop future nudging it up in the belief that, putting it at the right level will achieve what is wanted, and ignoring suggestions that it simply doesn't work, because this isn't the answer to achieving the desired objective:
So, if it is set at 45 pence per unit, do not reckon on it staying there, and also do not reckon, once retailers have had to price everything with respect to units (cost and effort for them), that you'll necessarily be able to buy a drink containing 2.0 units for 90 pence, when it will probably end up at £1 or more...
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Showing posts with label minimum price for alcohol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label minimum price for alcohol. Show all posts
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Tweets about alcohol prices (with guest, Julian Huppert, MP)
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
28 November
If you ever speak to anyone in the wine trade - and, yes, these people have a reason for you to believe what they say - he or she will say that the fixed costs of production and selling mean that there can be (choosing to spend one's money wisely) an appreciable difference in the quality of wines priced two pounds apart :
If the minimum price for a 12% ABV bottle were going to be around £4.50, then those once cheap wines would then be competing with the wines that would naturally be at that level of price, so the latter would inevitably go up in price, then those in the bracket above them, etc., etc. Price inflation for the sake of stopping people supposedly abusing cheap alchohol and themselves with it - as if the premum brands, in shops and in pubs, would sell for much more, if price were all that mattered to drinkers.
So, although the representatives of the drinks industry say that the minimum price will hit the poor, it will hit anyone who has a drink - and it will impact on the pubs, too, because you can't have the prices in supermarkets and in wine merchants going up, and have a reduced differential with pubs, and so the drinkers who are difficult enough to attract except by serving meals(as if anyone cared how many pubs are closing, if those people don't go to pubs !) will be yet scarcer...
Further thoughts here...
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
28 November
@alantravis40 @julianhuppert No doubt the same will apply in all the bars and restaurants of both Houses, and to Speaker's Scotch, etc. !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
@theagentapsley @alantravis40 I'd be very surprised if any prices here were lower than that anyway ...
— Julian Huppert (@julianhuppert) November 28, 2012
@julianhuppert Anecdotally, not what I heard about spirit prices. In any case, a bottle of 4% beer never sells for less than £1 retail.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
@theagentapsley there are lots of anecdotes. Not all true.
— Julian Huppert (@julianhuppert) November 28, 2012
@julianhuppert Well, depends who your sources are, e.g. a researcher for a Peer, and the public needs to be satisfied, after expenses, etc.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
It's meant to be just anecdote that drinks are cheap in bars and restaurants of the Houses of Parliament, but are they, and do we trust MPs?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
Members of both Houses can also buy special bottlings, such as House of Lords scotch, or the Speaker's Single Malt...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
Apparently - it may be untrue - you can get just as drunk on Lanson in a City wine bar as on cut-price shots or cheap supermarket cider. ->
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
@theagentapsley would you have a heart necessarily?
— ewoolerton (@ewoolerton) November 28, 2012
@ewoolerton Damn ! Thanks, I forgot that it had become obsolete in that sphere (maybe not the only sphere).:)
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
With luck, though, anyone 'priced out of' buying lower-end alcohol will not think of home brew, or even illegal distillation. All OK then.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2012
If you ever speak to anyone in the wine trade - and, yes, these people have a reason for you to believe what they say - he or she will say that the fixed costs of production and selling mean that there can be (choosing to spend one's money wisely) an appreciable difference in the quality of wines priced two pounds apart :
If the minimum price for a 12% ABV bottle were going to be around £4.50, then those once cheap wines would then be competing with the wines that would naturally be at that level of price, so the latter would inevitably go up in price, then those in the bracket above them, etc., etc. Price inflation for the sake of stopping people supposedly abusing cheap alchohol and themselves with it - as if the premum brands, in shops and in pubs, would sell for much more, if price were all that mattered to drinkers.
So, although the representatives of the drinks industry say that the minimum price will hit the poor, it will hit anyone who has a drink - and it will impact on the pubs, too, because you can't have the prices in supermarkets and in wine merchants going up, and have a reduced differential with pubs, and so the drinkers who are difficult enough to attract except by serving meals(as if anyone cared how many pubs are closing, if those people don't go to pubs !) will be yet scarcer...
Further thoughts here...
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
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