UKC

Reading the recent post about the Rab Latok bibs got me thinking of the massively increased cost of what is deemed to be premium kit. My two brands of choice, Mountain Equipment and Montane, have pushed prices up recently - 25% price rise of almost £100 on the Tupilak Jacket even though it's the same version as before and Montane with their new Phase waterproof - £475 for a hillwalking jacket! And myriad versions of mid layer jackets and pullovers at way above inflation price rises.

What gives? Is it the Arcteryx effect - has to expensive to be premium? Price gouging?  Or has Gore got them by the balls? Given they are all made in the far East I'd say it's not down to huge wage increases. I know roughly what trade prices are so can't help feeling like I'm being ripped off. Am I missing something?

Aye,

Davie

Ps. I never buy at full price anyway.

In reply to DR:

Um... I don't want to shock you, but have you been to a supermarket recently? That'll really freak you out!

Causes, roughly:

- war in Ukraine

- increased energy prices

- Brexit causing labour and materials shortages, as well as import costs

- climate change induced crop failures

- to a relatively minor extent, labour costs increasing (but wages almost flatlining/decreasing in real terms)

- high property/rental costs because wealthy people have bought up assets during the last 14 years of a  flatlining economy with an underinvestment crisis

- high business rates because local councils are underfunded and are having to raise revenue somehow

- higher cost of borrowing due to interest rates being repeatedly raised by the Bank of England, in a failed and economically illiterate attempt at curbing inflation

- "defensive" price increases by companies who are seeing increased costs and trying to avoid future losses

- profiteering (esp. by fuel companies... and supermarkets!)

I think that roughly covers it.

In reply to DR:

I think anyone who spend £500 on a jacket either:

1) Has so much money that it is small change to them

2) Decides that the brand name is worth paying for

or

3) Knows what they are getting and that they can get something at least 90% as good for a quater of the price but decides that the £350 extra is worth paying for the extra 10% performance. (lower weight, better durability, whatever)

I don't see anyone getting ripped off.

Sounds like you know what you are doing and you are not going to get ripped off.

I've never felt a need to spend more than £150 on a jacket

In reply to DR:

Brand makes good outdoor kit with features outdoor people want

Brand sells lots of stuff to outdoorsy people

Brand gets noticed by famous/popular/trendy people with adventurous image

Demand for brand's stuff from city folk who find long backs inconvenient and hard wearing fabrics unnecessary but want to look like famous/popular/trendy people overtakes demand from outdoorsy people 

Brand scales up manufacturing and value engineers product to meet new demand and/or sells out to Adidas with same result

Brand's product goes to shit

Outdoorsy people move on to next brand

Repeat

In reply to DR:

I’ve spent roughly the same amount on a GoreTex jacket every 5 years since the mid 90s. With massively improved performance and fit I’d say some gear was cheaper.

In reply to C Witter:

It's a bit of a tangent but I'm tickled by the idea that you're confident enough to call the entire economist staff at the BofE economically illiterate. Do you actually have the solution to inflation? If so, I was going to say write it down (possibly in green ink to get noticed) and post it off to Threadneedle Street, but better still register yourself as company and "consult" with them at massive daily rates until they solve inflation and you're rolling in it.

In reply to TobyA:

I would think most people who have been to a supermarket recently have the confidence to call both the Bank of England and our major political parties economically illiterate... We can feel their failures in our pockets.

The idea behind increasing interest rates is to curb demand in the economy, by making it more expensive to borrow. But, interest rates are not being driven by high wages: they're being driven mostly be high energy costs and high property costs.

So, counter to a lot of classical economics, government needs to borrow money and invest it in (renewable) energy, transport and housing. These sectors will all be sound investments, so borrowing is not a problem at all. This will give the government (albeit in a decade or so) more latitude to deal with these causes. Besides borrowing, they could also generate revenue by going after hoards of pointless wealth that have been building for some time, but particularly since the pandemic, which would allow them spare cash to take measures to alleviate the cost of living crisis.

Instead, we are in the shitty position that a lot of capital is simply unproductive: we're becoming a rentier economy with little to no growth, collapsing small businesses and steadily declining public services and incomes. Not only the Tories, but also Labour, are failing to make concrete proposals to really deal with this situation.

In reply to DR:

You have to also factor in that us climbers are a tight bunch. We all know someone with 20 year old Ron Hills or a smelly Helly, that still see regular service. Whilst there are people who buy new kit regularly, there are those who buy once, buy wisely and keep hold of it as it still performs. 

We're a manufacturers bad dream, as we don't spend each season. And retailers know we wont buy something unless it on sale. Then we lament that good shops are closing down and good brands are being bought out by lesser owners. But, hey, there's a closing down sale with 50% off...

In reply to DR:

We all come on here and smile at the new NF Goretex jacket review at £600 because we all know that this stuff will be up on sportpursuit and the other clearance outlets for half that, admittedly in a nice shade of tangerine. I'll happily spend my saved £300 on something much more exciting than a plastic jacket.

Just got the £300 Osprey Nimsdai 90l backpack at £120 to replace my 25 year old 85l Lowealpine pack that literally biodegraded into various parts. It's not that bad.

In reply to C Witter:

I never studied economics beyond A level, so you're going to have explain that one out to me.

Back on thread - it's interesting that in the discussion yesterday about the very expensive TNF shell just reviewed we were talking about price rises, but I remember when TNF about maybe 15 years ago had annoyed loads of other firms by selling a load of GTX jackets at much lower prices than they had been in previous years. I can't remember all the details now, but a mate who worked in the outdoor industry explained it all to me back then. But it does suggest price is what the market can bear. But other stuff has become ridiculously cheap through mass production. I haven't looked recently but I'm sure you can get a sub tenner micro fleece from Decathlon that works just as adequately as my Patagonia one which was 7 times the price when I bought it well over a decade ago. 

In reply to TobyA:

So confident that he doesn't need to check the actual data, which suggests that inflation is indeed coming down...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/306648/inflation-rate-consumer-price-in...

And quicker than in his ten year timeframe! Maybe the BoE types know a thing or two about economics.

In reply to seankenny:

Yep, some inflation is falling on a chart. Go tell that to people trying to buy food or pay for heating or buy a first house and you'll be as popular as Jeremy *Hunt. House prices will keep going up. Likely fuel. Likely quite a bit of food. And yet wages still stagnant...

p.s. or pay their rail fares! Classic example showing that underinvestment and basically the politics of distribution can lead to price inflation...

In reply to C Witter:

You making two basic errors here. First, forgetting that the chart is comprised of prices, ie what people are actually spending on actual stuff. Secondly, inflation going down doesn’t mean prices will go down, just that they’ll stop increasing quite so quickly.

Can you explain why it was that although underinvestment in rail is quite a long term thing, inflation only spiked when obviously inflationary shocks like covid and the Ukraine war occurred? And why inflation is going down even though we continue to underinvest in transport.
 

It’s quite possible to believe that we’ve done a reasonable if not great job of tackling inflation whilst also thinking there are big structural issues around investment along the lines you’ve described. Yes, those impact inflation, making it harder to grow the economy before prices start rising too much, but that doesn’t invalidate the basic approach to monetary policy. 
 

In reply to seankenny:

Many prices that spiked due to Ukraine/energy have come back down, though (this ought to be reflected in negative inflation, but that doesn't seem to have happened). Butter is a good example; about £1.45/250g pre Ukraine, spiked to around £2.15, now back down to about £1.70. Not really sure why butter reacted quite so strongly, but it did...

In reply to seankenny:

Inflation came down naturally because the prices shocks from energy bills and mortgage rate rises (thanks Truss) hitting people's pockets worked their way through tbr economy, and prices stabilised at the new, significantly higher levels.

It had precisely bugger all to do with Sunak or Hunt, despite their pathetic beatings about having delivered this 'tax cut'.

But it's all fine anyway because we're going to be a high wage, high skill economy apparently, but without investing in skills, and definitely not by paying people any more... Hmm. 

In reply to DR:

Does anyone have any non-annocdotal data on this? What I mean is, does anyone know how much the price of ‘kit’ has increased by and how that compares to inflation?

CPI, RPI, KPI? (Kit price index)

In reply to DR:

Very interesting discussion on macro economics. 

The price increase of outdoor gear over the last couple of seasons is mainly a price correction for inflation rise over the last two years. Remember that a lot of stuff is 25 percent more expensive now than it was two-three years ago. 

Just like we all have to pay more for our beverage of choice the outdoor industry has seen a couple of big cost increases (rent, storage, materials, labour, etc) and they are now passing on those increases to customers. Some brands have increased prices steadily over the last two years, others have chosen to wait a bit and are now aggressively hiking prices to meet their margins.

Choose your poison.

Edit: also, brands are switching to slightly less wasteful materials and production processes. The end product is the same, the cost of production is significantly higher. 

In reply to seankenny:

You're also making the basic error of presuming that overall inflation going down means that inflation is decreasing tout court, rather than being in fact much more uneven and remaining a deep problem for people's lived realities.

Energy prices are clearly the key driver of the recent shock, but not of longer term trends (e.g. problems of rental market/property). And either way, this brings into question the monetarist approach of trying to dampen demand so as to reduce inflation. All you are doing is effectively making it harder for ordinary people and small/medium businesses to weather that shock, whilst creating a recession - which is what we have seen. Given that energy prices were likely to decline, doing more to help people weather the shock could have been advantageous. They did more in other countries. The least of it would be attacking fuel companies mega profits... "the windfall tax" barely did anything meaningful here. Investing in insulation and green energy will ultimately be the only way of avoiding the continuing high prices and likely future shocks to energy prices...

Inflation of train prices is a longer-term trend, like you say, and is occuring semi-autonomously of covid, fuel costs, etc. What is clear is that the politics of privatisation combined with underinvestment has led to a very poor service that is phenomenally expensive at the same time as enormous private profits are being made... and at the same time as public money continues to be poured into the industry and straight into shareholder pockets! As a case study it shows that, whilst shocks occur and raising interest rates will indeed violently pull the brakes on inflation (to the detriment of society), the problems persist (low productivity, high costs) because they are fundamentally political. The only solution is to renationalise trains and invest as a cooridinated strategy toward having a better service that costs everyone less.

I hope that answers your question. But, of course, economics is a debate and a matter of political struggle, not a maths equation that can simply be solved in a universal manner.

In reply to C Witter:

p.s. putting it all more simply, with growing global political instabilty, growing inequality, an aging population and a deep climate crisis... we will see many more shocks that will create inflation. You can't expect to solve real problems just by squeezing everyone's ability to spend. That is the basic contradiction of applying monetarist policies to our current conjuncture.

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

Between the Rab shop (Mountain Outfitters) in Alfreton, Sports pursuit and the Montane shop in Ashington (used when visiting family in the NE as the Rab shop rarely has large trousers sizes) I very infrequently buy outdoor clothing at full price, it normally gets worn until the repairs get ludicrous (I think I had 4 patches on a pair of BD trousers which were beloved!).

In reply to dread-i:

That'll be me.😀

In reply to seankenny:

I suspect there are plenty of people who are feeling much greater inflation due to the interest rate. I came to the end of a 5 year fix in August last year and my mortgage went up by more than 50%, prudently I don't have a huge mortgage so it's manageable, but the effect on my living costs has been fairly significant. Every time someone reaches the end of a fixed term deal while we have high interest rates their costs are going to spike.

I know that increasing the cost of borrowing is the point of increasing interest rates, but my desire for a pay rise (contributing to inflation) would be no different if my food bill went up by £200, or my mortgage went up the same. The loss of spending power associated with inflation is still very much affecting some people, and contributing to social issues like young people being stuck in rented properties run by cowboys, regardless of what the data shows.

In reply to DR:

I pick up all my gear on sale, and schedule my buying so it's 'off season', buying winter gear in spring, trad gear in winter etc. 

I also want my crumpled corpse to be visible to S&R so I buy the garish colourways no-one else wants, also saves pennies.

In reply to dread-i:

"You have to also factor in that us climbers are a tight bunch. We all know someone with 20 year old Ron Hills or a smelly Helly, that still see regular service."

These people who dont climb chimneys - you don't know what your missing.  The ronnies were chewed to bits, but the Smelly Hellys are still going.  (See also Rohan clothes for everyday wear - last forever).  When it falls off replace it.  

In reply to captain paranoia:

 

Because inflation is a measure of the overall price level, measured using a “consumption basket” of goods purchased by the typical household. Some prices have indeed come down, but that’s not what inflation measures - it is a measure of average prices. 

In reply to midgen:

Economists have spent quite a lot of time looking at the after effect of  shocks on the economy and the consensus is that once they occur, inflation can become entrenched if something isn’t down about it. Basically workers and firms expect high inflation in the future and set future prices accordingly. The classic case of this is the oil shock of the early 1970s which didn’t unwind until the early 1980s.

That’s because monetary policy is the responsibility of the Bank of England. 

Well yes. 

In reply to DR:

You can currently get a goretex jacket for £125 ish. That's probably a similar price to when they were too expensive for me in the late 80's.

In reply to DR:

I'd think it's a combination of all the above, plus a few other factors. Although Far East wages may not have risen (I've no knowledge whether that's the case or not) the shipping from there certainly has. Added to that are the increased energy and lease/rental costs of the retailers.

Market-wise, I'd imagine that the Covid boom in people getting outdoors may have brought new users into scope, so the manufacturers and retailers are chancing their arm and seeing how far they can push their prices. For some of the major brands it'd be interesting to know what proportion of their user-base is "proper outdoorsy" - I'd speculate around 35%, with the rest being "general public" for whom the outdoor-look is attractive. 

In reply to C Witter:

See my reply above. 

Can you show me where these “longer term trends” in inflation occurred using the inflation data I posted earlier? Because I can’t see any, except a very long term trend towards lower inflation. I think what’s happened here is that you’ve confused inflation with the general lack of growth and very poor productivity increases that the U.K. economy has seen since 2007/8. These are very serious and big problems, and overall they make it harder to avoid inflation and probably make any inflation we do experience a bit more persistent, but they are not driving the current spike in prices. 

 

Why does it? We have been relatively successful in dealing with inflation and the same approach in the US has been amazingly successful. Of course that’s helped by their much stronger economy but they’ve used the same basic method.

A basic input into life has become more expensive, which means one can afford less of it, so there is a drop in the standard of living. That is what the shock means. Trying to absorb that shock by a short period of inflation means that the impact is spread across more people. We should of course be then using other policies to reduce the suffering of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, but the brutal truth of a spike in oil and food prices is that we’re all a bit worse off. 

Yes we can make ourselves more resilient and that’s a good idea. But if there is another period of inflation then we will still deal with it via monetary policy.

In reply to spenser:

Yes for sure. The way monetary policy is transmitted across the economy is pretty uneven. 

The thing is inflation isn’t just about food prices, it’s the average increase of prices of things that most people buy. It’s broad based. So dealing with it involves an equally broad based reduction in economic activity. Making borrowing more expensive does that today but it’s also forward looking, as it affects spending decisions tomorrow, by both households and by firms. 

There is more than one data set! Yes, looking at other measures such as wage growth and GDP per capita, we are in the toilet. Inflation is just one measure of the state of the economy.

In reply to seankenny:

Well, duh...

In reply to captain paranoia:

Which is why “many” prices falling doesn’t result in deflation… which you said it “ought” to do. 

In reply to DR:

The Tupilak jacket is made in Ukraine, which is to the east of us but not too far.

In reply to seankenny:

I thought it was obvious enough that there hadn't been sufficient deflation across the entire basket to cause a negative inflation measure.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Judging by some posts on here, that’s not obvious at all… (I agree that it should be obvious.)

In reply to seankenny:

I haven't even looked at the link you posted, because it doesn't show anything unexpected. Certain ways of generating data disguise the issues we face. Look at house prices, rents, train fares... utility bills... Look at the crop failures that have led to things like rice prices spiking...

Monetarist policy has an effect at dealing with various symptoms, but it doesn't addrsss the underlying causes. Most of these causes are likely to continue happening or are set to get worse (e.g. housing crisis, fuel price volatility, crop failures). You can't solve these problems by raising interest rates. You can't make rice grow or CO2 levels decrease or care for an aging and sick population or have more housing built simply by making it harder to borrow money. These realities are what are excluded by the centrist economic dogma that has created a recession supposedly in order to deal with a  massive decline in the standard of living underpinned by falling incomes and underinvestment in services. The theory and the shuffling around of some spreadsheet numbers obfuscates this much more simple truth.

In reply to C Witter:

As we used to say at work: Never confuse 'confidence' with 'competence'...

In reply to C Witter:

Reminds me of that old Guinness advert: "I haven't tried Guinness 'cos I don't like it".

In reply to Marek:

Conversely, never confuse being designated an "expert" with an understanding of what is occuring, nor with a will to change that situation. People do have a real knowledge of how this situation is affecting them, their children, their communities, which the BoE is just not interested in. This was admirably called out by Jack Monroe, for example, when they critised inflation metrics. But, the more basic fact is that the BoE is trying to deal with inflation whilst maintaining the political status quo. Before the centrist technocrats jump down my throat, I know that their remit is limited blah blah. My point is, we have a system that is designed to create inequality, and the solutions that are put forward for things like inflation (e.g. not only interest rate rises but wage restraint!!) are designed to protect capital whilst attacking labour, not to "make life better for everyone". Fine: interest rate rises are one temporary way of dealing with inflationary shocks. So what? What real problem has that solved? Inequality is still growing, incomes are decreasing and capital is being hoarded as the economy continues to stagnate. How long can you continue raising interest rates? How long can you continue redistributing wealth from labour to capital in the hope that it magically solves the actual problems we face (inequality, underinvestment, climate crisis)?

In reply to Marek:

In the case, it's "I haven't started the pint of Guinness you've offered me, because I've already drunk 10 pints of it..."

In reply to DR:

It may surprise you to know that ME's entire staff - marketing, designers, garment technologists and more - complement is not based in the far east. Or Rab, Montane or any of the other major UK brands. Where do you suppose that their wages come from?

In reply to DR:

In a word, retailer/distribution inflation plus all the marketing and branding expense.  You're paying for the name because the companies are paying to get their name out there and be noticed.  And all those hands between the factory and your possession need a cut as well.

Some brands are starting to buck the trend of retailer/middleman inflation, at least in the surfing wetsuit world.  I can imagine a (new) outdoor manufacturer coming along and doing the same for kit.

Premium retail wetsuits have probably doubled and almost tripled in the past 15 years.  Used to be able to buy a v good one for under £200, now they are more like £500, sometimes £600.

I'm now buying from a direct-to-consumer wetsuit manufacturer, and get suits with all bells-and-whistles for about £250.  The suits don't have logos/branding and the company doesn't engage in very much marketing, so that keeps costs down as well.

I really like this model as a consumer, but can imagine if I were a gear store owner/worker, not so much.

In reply to elsewhere:

Paclite presumably? Modern paclite is not nearly as bad as I thought it might still be going on what was available 15-20 years ago, but it is a bit confusing that GTX Pro and GTX paclite can all be described as "goretex jackets".

In reply to C Witter:

There is in this a good sociological point: We all live in "our own little world" and have very little experience outside of that. We rely on the reports, statement and opinions of trusted others to give us more of a 'world view'. The problem arises with the definition of 'trusted' - all to often is actually means 'people whose opinion I like and value' (because it meshes well with mine) rather than 'people who give me verifiable data'. This is likely true of you and me just as much as any PM or chairman of the BoE.

As another tangential point: It does seem odd that whereas in engineering (my field) or many other professions there is both extensive training and verifiable expertise required before you get to do your job, when it come to running a country - arguable something that we'd all benefit from having done competently - it's left to complete amateurs blessed with a modicum of acting skills or even worse "passion" (aka confidence that they are right and the facts are irrelevant). Where did we go wrong?

Oh, and as for kit prices: Yes, there is expensive kit, but you can also buy perfectly serviceable kit at quite reasonable prices too. I know which I'm more interested in. 

In reply to grectangle:

Well, Alpkit have been doing that for, what, 20 years now?

In reply to C Witter:

It's one thing to suggest there are shortfalls in the data, or that there are good reasons why certain trends are under- or over-emphasised. But to claim that the data is wrong just because it doesn't show what you want, and to not provide a good reason - well that's just angry populism, the old "can't trust the elites" type stuff of every rabble rouser from Trump to Corbyn.

Well, yes and no. The problem is money becoming worth less at a rate that is higher than we, as a society, have decided is sensible, and the way to deal with that is using monetary policy via an independent central bank. We have tried other methods and they really don't work as well.

If you believe that what caused our current bout of inflation is primarily the after effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, then I'm afraid that the best way to deal with the symptoms is indeed monetary policy. The problem isn't that it is either/or, it is both. We can solve the issues with the value of our money more quickly and easily than some of the structural problems that might affect inflation, but we need to do both. I think all of the things you highlight are serious issues that need addressing, but also that they did not cause the current high inflation (even though they might have exacerbated it). In essence, you have seen one problem and rolled all the others up into it.

That is because monetary policy isn't designed to care for the sick, it's designed to reduce inflation. If there's one thing that really screws over the elderly, it's unchecked inflation. So we need to do something about it. But - we need to do something about the other things you mention, but we will use different policy levers to do so. Government does lots of things, it has lots of ways to affect our behaviour and choices and to provide the services we need. Again, you've confused the issues of falling standards of living and fighting inflation. It's worth pointing out that the US has just used pretty much the same economic tools as we have to curb inflation, but at the same time their living standards are very high and rapidly improving, particularly for poorer Americans. So perhaps, just perhaps, it's something to do with weaknesses in the UK economy and very little to do with how we've dealt with inflation?

You're back to shouting. About the truth.

This is incoherent stuff. For a start, the official inflation statistics are collected by the ONS and Monroe's complaint was towards them (and to their credit they replied, it's worth reading the response: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2022/01/26/measuring-the-changing-prices-and-costs-...) Funnily enough, getting the details right does matter if one is making a serious political point. As for the BoE, they are an unelected group of technocrats, they absolutely should be maintaining the political status quo. That's because those sorts of changes should be made by our elected representatives who are in power on the basis of a manifesto and campaign promises that we, the British people, voted upon.

This kind of stuff is more populist nonsense I'm afraid.

In reply to captain paranoia:

I didn't realize that, thanks.  

In reply to seankenny:

I don't massively disagree with you, apart for your mindless centrist smugness, which is your own blindspot because you just say: "we know other methods don't work", rather than engage with my substantive point which is that the extent to which inflation has become a problem is not inseparable from us being a stagnant economy with declining incomes and an underinvestment crisis. 2% inflation would not matter if incomes were rising by 5% year.

As for the Bank of England, it has a political role and as such it is a fair target for criticism. It has been encouraging wage restraint and arguing that ordinary people need to bear the squeeze in living standards, whilst being extremely militant about getting inflation below 2% and holding interest rates up longer than is arguably necessary. It is mobilising narratives about how bad inflation is for everyone, whilst obfuscating the fact that tackling inflation is not going to reduce inequality or solve the cost of living crisis. Of course, unchecked inflation is not great. But, it is only a part of the picture. Inequality is arguably a big part of inflation: lots of money was printed during the pandemic and basically given to the wealthiest in society, who have not reinvested it in ways that increase productivity, but rather have invested it in assets or simply hoarded it. That is a problem that is not solved by interest rate rises. And asset price inflation (property, particularly) has been a deliberate political strategy since Thatcher. That is also not solved, but actually worsened by interest rate rises, because people struggle to afford the houses they need.

So...

Anyway, I'm done. You're right: I made a few small errors and a few rhetorical flourishes. But, you have failed to address the meat of my argument, instead dismissing it as "a separate issue". But, they're not separate: the attempt to keep separate these issues is ideological.

In reply to DR:

It costs between £50 and £60 to manufacture and export a Goretex jacket. If some companies can persuade people to part with £500 for said jacket, good for them. Not for me though.

In reply to twentytwoangrymen:

How do you work that out ?

In reply to DR:

Never mind kit.

I bought this week's copy of 2000ad today, it cost £3.50. Issue 1 cost me 8p in 1977.

If the price had followed inflation, it would cost 50p in today's money.

In reply to Ennerdaleblonde:

Yeah, but it was sci-fi in 1977 and now it's history, a pricier genre.

In reply to felt:

It's current affairs, robo stogies, ugly surgery and the mega city fats on every high street.

In reply to DR:

'Cost of living get so high, rich and poor they start to cry' Bob Marley.

Life has been getting markedly more expensive for the past 4ish years especially, I think, from my perspective of being a student, and on benefits before that, plus help from the bank of Dad.

Looking critically at what kit one 'needs' can be helpful, I've been using my £75 Decathlon waterproof I bought for my uni-work placement regularly for cycling to and from uni and out to the Peak, and while it doesn't bead in the same way it did, it's still waterproof and windproof, and compared to gear from the 90's which we were all happy enough with, it's great, just not as great as Polartec's most breathable fabrics, it can still create a warm and windproof microclimate with the right clothing worn underneath it. It 'does' feel damp within after exertion, but that would only be an issue with bare skin underneath it. Though my Dad was conerned I'd be warm enough, I was fine up Wetherlam(sp) in the Lake District with my Mountain Equipment waterproof which was a Paclite none membrane waterproof in 2010 with the right layers underneath, when it was cold enough for ice to form in my friend's clear bottle of mineral water she had in an outside rucksack pocket and it was icy and windy (I possibly needed an extra/thicker layer of warmth compared to something more robust and more thermally efficient). 

Not being sucked in by consumerism is definitely a help I think...

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

Hah...that wasn't the Alpamayo by any chance?..........
I gave mine up about 18months ago... Certainly got my pennies worth out of that one!! Must have been nearly 30yrs old! 

In reply to GrahamD:

I didn't work it out. A friend designs outdoor clothing and she told me.

In reply to Spready:

Nah, it was an old 65l Hyperlite, the outer was literally biodegrading. Nice when kit falls to bits after 30 years of heavy use. I wonder if this generation of gear will last as long? I got 3 trips out of a Big Agnes backpack last month before sending it back after the back support snapped.

In reply to dread-i:

Don't knock the smelly helly, i still have and use two of them, one is at least 30 years old.

In reply to twentytwoangrymen:

Did that include her costs?

£500 is quite a lot for a jacket, but another way to look at these things is to figure out how much it would cost if you made it yourself, in both material and time. I'm pretty sure I'd struggle to end up with anything with the refinement and detail of something I could buy (and that's for someone on a pretty low wage. If my time were more valuable it definitely would make more sense to buy someone else's efforts)

In reply to nufkin:

Perhaps, but do you actually need that 'refinement and detail'? I used to make my own kit, mainly because I wanted something simple and specific rather than over-designed, over-accessorised and over-priced for my needs. Yes, I've always enjoys the making of stuff too.

In reply to Marek:

I think a part of the appeal of more top end waterproofs is the peace of mind which they can bring (which might be tied up with marketing). I was definitely fine in my Paclite on Wetherlam during the awsome snows of Xmas 2010 thanks to my layers underneath, but the 'indestructible shell' like feel of my ME Goretx XCR (pre greener version) can be a good thing, sometimes it all helps when trudging along in the wind and the snow. 

Pretty awesome for cycling through wind blown hail coming sideways at you too, the way it bounces off the hood on turning away from it. A milder form of suffering isn't so bad for type 2 fun. On a side note, I miss aspect of winter in the Peak.

I can see both perspectives, it is good to think critically about one needs, but the higher end kit can be nice to use.

In reply to twentytwoangrymen:

What does that include? Materials, cost of unit manufacture, shipping to europe?

In reply to wbo2:

I'm sure there are added costs which can vary depending on where the jacket eventually ends up being sold, but when shops can knock a hundred or two off a £500 and still make a profit themselves, I think it starts to make sense that both the manufacturer and the shop are making a healthy amount of profit (in how the costs tally on manufactuer websites and shop websites).

In reply to Timmd:

Depends on the economies of scale for the shop though. If they are only selling one or two of those a month, that doesn't exactly pay the electricity bills and rent.
As a retail shop, the occasional sale of high ticket high profit items is what helps being able to keep them in a state where people can come in and try them on. It is the hidden costs of rent, space, employees, and so on that need to be included in the 'cost' of a jacket, rather than just what they are sold to shops for.

In reply to Schmiken:

That's a very valid point.

In reply to C Witter:

Well, advanced economies have been dealing with inflation for over 100 years now, in Europe, the US and Japan, so we have had some collective experience at doing so and there is a lot of literature on the subject. You appear to believe that is all irrelevant, but I don't. Sorry if that's smug, I prefer to think of it as acknowledging that a lot of people much smarter than me have devoted a lot of time and energy to the problem.

As for your point that inflation is an issue because we are a stagnant economy, I'm not sure that is right. Americans haven't got a stagnant ecomomy, far from it, but surveys show most people there have been troubled by inflation and the authorities (ie the Federal Reserve) have put a lot of time and effort into reducing inflation.

This is from Ian Stewart, Deloitte's Chief Economist in the UK, writing in his weekly briefing: "Inflation, the UK’s central problem for the last two years, is in retreat. In the coming months the OBR sees inflation dropping below the Bank of England’s target of 2.0% and staying around this level for the next three years. On this view inflation is beaten and interest rates and mortgage rates should decline this year."

He then goes on to list all the other problems we have.

The 2% target is its democratically created mandate, the Bank would be remiss if it went off piste of its own accord. What target do you want instead? I'm confused by what you write, are you suggesting that 2% inflation is still too high, or too low?

Okay, let's tackle this assertion with some data. This is totally back of the envelope stuff, but it should suffice to illustrate my main point. Thinking about what we know about inequality in the developed world, I can't think of two countries taking such different paths on income inequality as the US and the Netherlands. Both are rich (the Dutch are considerably richer than we are), but inequality has soared in the US but barely shifted in the Netherlands. See here (I've included the UK just to give you a sense of scale):

https://shorturl.at/gDFMP

This shows the Gini coefficient, the higher it is, the more unequal the income distribution.

Here's the inflation rate since 1980 of the US and the Netherlands:

https://shorturl.at/gqBO4

As you can see, a very similar trend (barely above 5% in the last 40 years) and almost in lockstep since around 2010. And yet a very differnt picture in terms of inequality. This is only brought into sharper relief when you consider long term inflation and inequality. The former is pretty volatile, check out the figures for the US for yourself, look at 1920 (15.6%) and then 1921 (-10.9%), what a rollercoaster! Sorry to use American data but they were collecting much better statistics earlier than we were:

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculato...

And here's some long run data on inequality which shows three clear periods, ie 1910 - WW2, post WW2- late 70s, late 70s - now:

https://lasttechagedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/top-10-us-income-shar...

Again, we see the period of low inequality ended with high inflation, and the era of high US inequality was also the period of generally low and stable inflation. Is this your point, that you would like to live in a high inflation, low inequality world? Because the evidence we have is that most people did not like that set up.

Note that I'm not saying there is never any interplay with inequality and inflation. Naturally attempts to reduce spending power will hit the poorest unless we make efforts to ameleriorate that (which we did). But in a year or two we will almost certainly not have a problem with inflation, but we will have a problem with inequality.

Sure, but inflation doesn't measure asset price rises, it's strictly covering consumer goods in the so called "real economy" rather than the financial economy. Yes, we have a huge issue with house building and house prices, and also with inequality. But these are long term issues that are very difficult to solve, rather than inflation, which is a somewhat transitory phenomena that we can - and have - got a handle on. (Obviously it wouldn't have been transitory had we not got it under control.) Of course people are now more highly indebted and that makes interest rates more powerful than during the last period of high inflation in the early 1980s. But unfortuately a decrease in spending power is exactly the way we reduce inflation.

You write as if anyone who disagrees with your slightly incoherent and populist screed has some ideological reason for doing so. This is just pig headed nonsense. I'm deeply in favour of reducing inequality, but I also appreciate that it is an extremely difficult problem to solve and that your conflating inequality and inflation isn't particularly helpful.

In reply to DR:

Sheesh, a big old pot you stirred there.

Just wait a few months, high ticket price items rarely stay at RRP for very long. When next year's colours are released expect the price to drop by 30 to 50%.

Alternatively go to decathlon and get something 90% of the quality for 30% of the price.

But you have been around the block enough times to know this already.

In reply to seankenny:

Thanks for your considered and detailed answer, I appreciate it, even though I don't agree with all of it.

I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about this issue, in the last few days.

Your main point seems to me to be that the way of dealing with inflation is raising interest rates. That this is the classic and best way, tried and tested.

My main point is that I do not think inflation is the real problem but a symptom of a problem; consequently, that it cannot be dealt with properly if it is separated from broader economic issues; that simply increasing interest rates, whilst it may have anti-inflationary effects, does not solve these issues, but it does drive inequality up.

I agree with you that raising interest rates is a lever - and, perhaps I've shifted my position in recent days to agree that it was even a lever that needed to be pulled, given the situation we have been in. I'm even willing to suggest that interest rates probably need to be a bit higher than they have been at points in the past: because, ultimately, cheap credit benefits capital more than anyone, especially when the public purse is ready to bail out banks if it all goes tits up. Though, saying this, it needs to go hand in hand with other levers being pulled to bring down the cost of housing and rents, and with incomes increasing for low and middle earners.

But, I think the root cause of inflation is the obscene hoardes of unproductive capital that the wealthiest have been able to accumulate - much of this directly or indirectly from government. From Thatcher to 2008, and certainly more recently with the pandemic, we've given so much public wealth and government cash to capital and they have generally speaking done nothing with it but push up asset prices whilst the real economy stagnates. So: capital has accumulated loads of cash whilst failing to do anything productive... is that not precisely the essence of inflation?

I think the best longterm way to deal with the causes of inflation would be to aggressively tax the wealthiest, claw back in all their cash, and to use this to fund things we need, e.g. housing, healthcare, transport and energy, which will increase productivity and reduce inequality whilst also tackling inflation. The crucial thing is for government to start taking back that obscene wealth from the wealthiest and putting it to work.

As for the future, I see that inflation is currently coming down. But, I don't think this will last for long, because infrastructure is crumbling, the workforce is sick and aging, climate change is creating crop failures and other challenges, and fuel prices are extremely volatile (and subject to sickening profiteering). In short, governments will need to spend money, or all hell will break loose. But, they keep promising tax breaks and refusing to tax the wealthiest, who in turn are failing to invest in anything but driving up housing. Instead of taking money off the wealthiest, government are cutting public services to the bone in all sorts of covert and not-so-covert ways, which drives inequality up even further, deepens the economic stagnation, but fundamentally fails to deal with hoarded cash.

Cheers for the craic.

In reply to C Witter:

Thank you (and Sean) for some thoughtful posts. Seriously - you obviously know/think about this more than I do!

One thing I'd thought to mention though - and I don't know if this is ever factored into the concept of 'inflation' - is the 'inflation of expectations', i.e., the increase in what is considered to be an acceptable quality of life over time. At the risk of sounding like a Monty Python episode, when I left uni and got a good job (~40 years ago) my first house had no central heating, I could afford an old car but had to service it myself, colour television was too expensive as was a telephone. 30 years on, my kids post-uni would have considered my post-uni conditions unacceptable (or even unbelievable). This might suggest that the root cause of continual inflation may be - at least partly - to do with rising expectations. A loaf of bread today cost more than a loaf of bread 40 years ago, but it's also a much better loaf than it was (and so with most things, including outdoor kit to return to the OP's point).

In reply to Marek:

How long after you left university was that and did you have a student loan to pay off? 

Similar for me although  I had no car but a colour TV 

When I think of how my grandparents lived I don't think this is restricted to younger people. Although I'm not as confident the retirement of my nieces kids will be as comfortable as mine. 

Again a biased opinion, as my grandparents were tenant farmers, but I find it difficult to find food of the quality that I remember as a child, an I'm prepared to pay a premium. 

In reply to twentytwoangrymen:

Just curious whether that is just material and direct costs, or whether development, marketing, factory set up etc. Are amortised into that cost.

In reply to RobAJones: 

Do you buy organic? I've found that organic bread is lovely, and the organic fruit and veg box my parents got was as well. I only currently buy organic bread due to the Glyphosate use with wheat, it's used to kill any weeds around the wheat just before it's harvested, and having seen what it does to Japanese knotweed after I've injected it with the stuff (the Knotweed goes crispy and dead), I'm buying organic bread.

It's great for treating knotweed with though...

In reply to Timmd:

Since we've retired fruit and veg. wise we would be close to being self sufficient, if I was prepared to only eat fresh fruit/veg seasonally. I'm not, and for example the day in December when I buy a tomato from the greengrocer is always a bit depressing 

At home I rarely eat any Mrs J hasn't made. On our travels we've found it can be a bit hit and miss and not cheap, Switzerland!!! 

Meat/Fish wise we try to buy directly, even when abroad part of the holiday is about finding local producers. I'm more concerned about animal welfare than if they are certified organic.

I appreciate all this is a bit weird/very privileged. It's a combination of having a comfortable retirement. Spending week in an abortoir being well paid during the holidays as a student and working on farms as a kid. 

In reply to RobAJones:

There's nothing to feel awkward about in wanting quality food I dare say, essentially it should be available to all. There's a list of none organic food called 'the dirty dozen' and 'the clean sixteen', being foods to avoid and foods which are okay, fruit and veg wise, they could be worth a google. That's probably as far as I can afford to go in the near future, but it's a good step to make. I reckon organic bread is a wise move too, given the Knotweed killing Glysophate mentioned above, it's all kinds of noxious. In the UK Muntjac deer are unhelpful for biodiversity, so I'm going to start buying carcasses and cutting them up into the greenest source of protien I can think off (compared to monocrops and farmed meat, but this is is a weird tangent for a gear thread).

I'd defo recomend Decathlon for budget gear which perfoms decently. My waterproof for £75 even has a zip flap, and venting pockets, and decent hood, it's only got elastic cuffs rather than velcro which isn't so good, but for general UK hills outside of the harsher conditions, I can't really fault it. Some time spent with a needle and thread, some 3mm cord and some small toggles might produce results on the cuffs. 

In reply to Marek:

Thanks for the kind words. From the number of dislikes my posts get, I think you may be in a minority in appreciating them, but I'm like a dog with a bone sometimes - I think because I am still trying to learn and work these things out. Even without full knowledge, I think most of us can see that things can't be right when they feel so wrong.

I think that greater expectation is economically related to the increase in our ability to produce things and the increase in our collective social wealth. Everyone born in, say, 1950 or 1960, has been working their asses off for 40 years or so. And you would naturally expect that all that hard work would improve things: better roads, better education, better healthcare, better access to housing, etc. In a very real way, the work someone did was meant to create wealth for them as a family and for society as a whole: if I spent my life developing cancer drugs, I would expect to be fairly comfortable generally, to be able to see my children into a good career, and to have benefitted society by allowing them to access better cancer care. If I spent my life working in water utilities, I would expect to have been rewarded with a comfortable existence for my work, to be able to look after my family and see them into a life that was more comfortable than my own childhood, and I would expect that I would have contributed to a system that allows everyone access to clean water.

The problem is, that everyone's now realising that, although they may have an asset that they can't sell that is worth a lot more than they ever imagined (i.e. their house), everything else is not quite what they were promised: pensions are not as good as hoped; healthcare outcomes have improved, but are now getting worse; roads are cracked and the rivers are full of s**t. Your children have enormous debts, found it hard to build a career, or cannot afford a home. If you had one child who went to university in 2005, one in 2008 and one in 2011, then the first has a student debt of perhaps £12,000, the second £18,000 and the third £36,000 despite the fact that you had to do more to subsidise their rent.

And in that moment the news comes through that you worked your ass off for 40 years to send Jeff Bezos to the moon.

In reply to planetmarshall:

I know they are UK based companies - but the products are not made in the UK which is what I said.

In reply to Ennerdaleblonde:

Ha you're right, way too many times around the block! I use a well known online discounter for pretty much all my gear now, from winter climbing to hillwalking and mountain biking. Throw in sales advertised on here and a handful of online shops and I tend to get the kit I want at a price that suits.

I just feel ripped off with some of the recent price rises, and that is partly down to my own circumstances with 14 years of wage stagnation meaning I'm at least £10k down on where I should be. 

Davie

In reply to DR:

Lhotse when I bought one was 300 pounds RRP now it's nearing 550 quid RRP.

Tupilak was 330 pound RRP, now nearing 475 pounds RRP.

So the RRPs have definitely increased, I had a post about this a while back but alot of people seemed to think that the price increases are reasonable. One very important thing to note is that ME manufacture in Ukraine thats probably a big reason for the price increases. 

In reply to C Witter:

We are being hammered from all directions - see my car insurance moan on another thread. I have just had a snoop at costs as I may be in need of replacing my Meindl Burma MFS (now Bhutan) boots soon. I paid £150 and the best I can see is £225, precisely 50% increase.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

If it's useful, I've just replaced mine with the Army surplus version after balking at the cost of new ones. They are one eyelet higher than the non army version but in absolutely excellent condition and soooo comfy. I got mine from a  shop up my way so I could try them on etc (https://www.highlandarmysurplus.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&...) but guessing other places will stock them as they seem to be a standard surplus item.

In reply to wbo2:

Yes. All of the above and design etc. Sorry for the late reply but I was waiting for an answer from my friend.

In reply to Ennerdaleblonde:

like you, I bought 2000 AD from the first edition, but 8p? I was surprised by that! My favourite artist was Charles Esquerra for Strontium Dog, and then obvs Pat Mills for Nemesis the Warlock and ABC Warriors.  Next first edition was Kerrang magazine sometime around ‘81 for Motörhead and then NWOBHM

In reply to DR:

My problem with expensive kit is that I often don't want to use it because I know it's going to get trashed. Walking isn't so bad (though I had a pair of shoes which lasted one ten-day walk) but anything involving climbing ruins stuff instantly. I was up a mobile phone mast watching somebody practise a rescue, literally just sat it the structure watching, yet when I got down there were feathers escaping from a rip in the back of my jacket. The scree in the dolomites gets everywhere, salt water climbing on Welsh sea cliffs, mud everywhere this winter. When I spend megabucks on a jacket I don't want to put it on. 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

It's the predictions of the future that tickle me.

Robostogies, Megacity Fats, Otto Sump's ugly clinics. Just a few off the top of my head that have come true.

Yes, 8p, I was shocked when I did the inflationary calcs.

In reply to DR:

What do you think is a fair price for a high end goretex jacket?

In reply to DR:

Somebody mentioned Decathlon above but interestingly Decathlon prices have gone up significantly in recent years too.

Their £20ish great small packs/ rucksacks have at least doubled since about 2018 ish. And so has most of their good budget clothing.

Of course they are still lower cost than most other brands.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

What is "fair" depends on whether its from the perspective of everyone in the supply chain making an income or from the perspective of the purchaser.

In reply to GrahamD:

Surely "fair" means both.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Only if the purchaser has the full supply chain cost model, which they don't of course.  Their perception of '"fair" are likely be based on prices of non sustainable, exploitive or different volume products with which they are comparing their desired jacket.

In reply to DR:

So you're mostly just mad at your employer for not increasing your wages? (rightly so) But if you had that extra 10k would the cost of the kit seem reasonable? Maybe look at the reason you are worse off rather than lamenting that prices have gone up over time.

In reply to Marek:

In short, no. What you're seeing there is economic growth. We got richer since the early 1980s, quite a lot richer, just in the same way that we got an awful lot richer from the 1940s/50s to the 1980s. I mean, you would have considered post-war conditions unacceptable: far fewer people went to university then (the rate was about a third of what it was in the 1980s), so you probably wouldn't have been particularly well educated, you would be lucky to afford a motorbike never mind a car, you might have been living next to a bomb site, etc etc. I think for a lot of people it's very easy to see that economic growth works across space - we are richer than India, for example. But to get that it operates across time also often seems a bit harder to grasp. We have been getting richer most of the time for a long, long time, which is why Britain in the 2020s doesn't look much like Britain in the 1920s, even though many aspects of the modern world, like cars and phones, certainly existed back then. Your kids are enjoying nothing more than a rise in living standards over time, which you yourself enjoyed and thought was natural. There's a horrible tendency of older people in the UK to hate the fact of economic growth, and to want to regard their upbringing as the standard by which all others' should be measured, but it's sour, in my view. I'm glad that young people today have some better things than I had growing up. This is progress!

Also, when you want to tell yourself a story like this, ask yourself: does it fit with the facts? The current bout of inflation only started in 2021 when the conditions you describe have held for the last ten or fifteen years, if not more. So why now? And how does this story account for the fact that inflation is going down, whereas people still have cnetral heating, phones, etc?

Inflation is nothing more than a rise in the average of a bunch of prices picked by statisticians to reflect the things we normally buy.