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stain/inflation.tsv

Last active July 30, 2019 10:34
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inflation.tsv
year inflation from prev Y inflated price value chf uk cpi inflated price value gbp
1969 CHF 0.50 CHF 1.52 4.67 £0.05 £5.43
1970 5.44 CHF 0.53 CHF 1.44 7.89 £0.05 £5.19
1971 6.62 CHF 0.56 CHF 1.35 9.03 £0.06 £4.81
1972 6.86 CHF 0.60 CHF 1.26 7.65 £0.06 £4.41
1973 11.92 CHF 0.67 CHF 1.13 10.58 £0.07 £4.10
1974 7.55 CHF 0.72 CHF 1.05 19.14 £0.08 £3.71
1975 3.45 CHF 0.75 CHF 1.01 24.89 £0.10 £3.11
1976 1.27 CHF 0.76 CHF 1.00 15.07 £0.12 £2.49
1977 1.2 CHF 0.77 CHF 0.99 12.14 £0.13 £2.16
1978 0.7 CHF 0.77 CHF 0.98 8.39 £0.15 £1.93
1979 5.15 CHF 0.81 CHF 0.93 17.24 £0.17 £1.78
1980 4.43 CHF 0.85 CHF 0.89 15.12 £0.20 £1.52
1981 6.58 CHF 0.90 CHF 0.84 12.05 £0.22 £1.32
1982 5.5 CHF 0.95 CHF 0.80 5.41 £0.23 £1.18
1983 2.14 CHF 0.97 CHF 0.78 5.31 £0.24 £1.12
1984 2.9 CHF 1.00 CHF 0.76 4.58 £0.26 £1.06
1985 3.24 CHF 1.03 CHF 0.73 5.64 £0.27 £1.01
1986 0.04 CHF 1.03 CHF 0.73 3.78 £0.28 £0.96
1987 1.89 CHF 1.05 CHF 0.72 3.71 £0.29 £0.93
1988 1.95 CHF 1.07 CHF 0.71 4.55 £0.30 £0.89
1989 5.02 CHF 1.13 CHF 0.67 5.53 £0.32 £0.85
1990 5.28 CHF 1.19 CHF 0.64 7.49 £0.34 £0.81
1991 5.23 CHF 1.25 CHF 0.61 7.32 £0.37 £0.75
1992 3.42 CHF 1.29 CHF 0.59 2.6 £0.38 £0.70
1993 2.48 CHF 1.33 CHF 0.57 2.37 £0.39 £0.68
1994 0.42 CHF 1.33 CHF 0.57 2.01 £0.40 £0.67
1995 1.95 CHF 1.36 CHF 0.56 3.03 £0.41 £0.65
1996 0.78 CHF 1.37 CHF 0.55 2.21 £0.42 £0.64
1997 0.39 CHF 1.37 CHF 0.55 1.73 £0.42 £0.62
1998 -0.17 CHF 1.37 CHF 0.55 1.56 £0.43 £0.61
1999 1.67 CHF 1.39 CHF 0.54 1.11 £0.44 £0.60
2000 1.49 CHF 1.41 CHF 0.54 0.83 £0.44 £0.59
2001 0.33 CHF 1.42 CHF 0.53 1.09 £0.44 £0.59
2002 0.89 CHF 1.43 CHF 0.53 1.62 £0.45 £0.58
2003 0.59 CHF 1.44 CHF 0.53 1.33 £0.46 £0.57
2004 1.33 CHF 1.46 CHF 0.52 1.57 £0.47 £0.57
2005 1.01 CHF 1.47 CHF 0.51 2.02 £0.47 £0.56
2006 0.62 CHF 1.48 CHF 0.51 2.86 £0.49 £0.55
2007 2 CHF 1.51 CHF 0.50 2.3 £0.50 £0.53
2008 0.7 CHF 1.52 CHF 0.50 3.08 £0.51 £0.52
2009 0.28 CHF 1.53 CHF 0.50 2.07 £0.53 £0.50
2010 0.52 CHF 1.54 CHF 0.49 3.15 £0.54 £0.49
2011 -0.71 CHF 1.52 CHF 0.50 3.6 £0.56 £0.48
2012 -0.43 CHF 1.52 CHF 0.50 2.42 £0.58 £0.46
2013 0.07 CHF 1.52 CHF 0.50 1.95 £0.59 £0.45
2014 -0.33 CHF 1.51 CHF 0.50 0.71 £0.59 £0.44
2015 -1.31 CHF 1.49 CHF 0.51 0.5 £0.59 £0.44
2016 -0.01 CHF 1.49 CHF 0.51 1.79 £0.60 £0.44
2017 0.84 CHF 1.51 CHF 0.50 2.74 £0.62 £0.43
2018 0.69 CHF 1.52 CHF 0.50 2 £0.63 £0.42
2019 CHF 1.52 CHF 0.50 £0.63 £0.41
2020 CHF 1.52 £0.63
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stain commented Jul 30, 2019 •
edited

They say Swiss currency is very strong, even so that this coin from 1969 is still in regular use. After muttering about the prices in Switzerland I was naively thinking that they must have had quite some inflation since 1969; turns out it was the other way around.

0.5 CHF 1969

So consider Swiss CPI inflation since 1969). Except for a couple of massive bumps in the 1970s it has been very moderate.

Swiss inflation table

Compare to the British inflation, which extended the fun of the 70s into the 80s, then continued at a moderately high rate through 1990s and 2000s.

British inflation table

So if in 1969 my parents' generation (who would have been teenagers) had this Swiss half-franc and back then changed it into GBP, they would have got about 5p

What could you have bought in 1969 UK back then with 5p? Let's add up - something about 63p worth in 2018 (column G) - In other words, British prices has increased 12 times since 1969.

But let's say instead we instead kept it in CHF, then we see this half a franc did not get you that much more in the 60s, about 1.52 CHF worth in today's Switzerland. So that is just a 3-fold inflation. I checked my 2019 receipts and found that is enough for a bread roll at coop.

Let's turn it upside down - the 0.50 CHF (now enough for a carrier bag) had the value of a nice bread roll in 1969. But if we exchange in 2019 to GBP we get only 41p - which in 1969 UK would buy you 2019-£5.43 worth of "stuff", e.g. a pasta salad.
(See Value columns in CSV)

Now ignoring that UK probably did not have pasta salads in 1969, and that I probably got my formulas wrong; this shows that it's not the Swiss who have inflated away from the rest, it's the British who have deflated their currency's worth. And it's only going to get worse..

(Transcribed from https://twitter.com/soilandreyes/status/1156148684708634624)

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