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By late August 2023 mainstream media was reporting that in the 2022-23 financial year supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths recorded profits in excess of $1 billion representing around a 5% increase on the previous year - withy Woolworth’s recording a nearly 20% rise in grocery sector earnings while Coles recorded a 2.9% rise.
These grocery earnings being an almost direct cash transfer from dwindling household piggy banks to supermarket chain bank accounts.
In August the major banks were also reporting fat financial year profits, with the Commonwealth Bank coming in with a personal record breaking best of $10.2 billion in 2022-23.
None of the big banks being slow in coming forward to pass on increasing Reserve Bank of Australia cash rates onto customers, including those with home mortgages.
According to the ABS latest monthly consumer price index indicator, rent prices increased 7.6% in the twelve months to July 2023, up from 7.3% in June, reflecting strong demand for rental properties and tight rental markets.
Electricity prices rose 15.7% in the twelve months to July 2023, reflecting annual price reviews in July.
Annual prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages rose 5.6%, down from the rise of 7.0% in June, with dairy and related products rising12.7% and bread & cereal products rising 9.9% even if fruit & vegetables fell by -2.9%.
The actual pain of cost of living pressures are of course rarely mentioned by the Reserve Bank of Australia or the statisticians.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), media release, 4 September 2023:
Household spending was 0.7 per cent lower when compared to July last year, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Robert Ewing, ABS head of business statistics, said households have curbed their spending over the past 12 months amid higher interest rates and inflation.
“This is the first time since February 2021 that the spending indicator has fallen.
“Spending on discretionary goods and services was down for the fourth straight month. It fell 3.3 per cent over the year, as households adapt to cost of living pressures.
“Non-discretionary spending rose 1.7 per cent, which is the lowest growth rate since early 2021.”
The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 2023:
The largest fall in spending on goods including clothing, footwear and home furnishings since the start of the Delta wave of the pandemic has bolstered the case for the Reserve Bank to hold interest rates steady for a third consecutive month.
Outgoing RBA governor Philip Lowe will on Tuesday helm his last meeting of the board, which is widely expected by economists to keep the official cash rate at 4.1 per cent as the economy continues to show signs of slowing and inflation pressures ease.
Because someone has to say it: By Dec 2023 it's likely converging & merging weather and climatic conditions will see not only cost of fruit, vege, eggs, dairy products, meat & basic foodstuffs rising - it will see availability & supply become issue to varying degrees across Oz.
— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) September 1, 2023
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