Monday 23 May 2016

Deflation? Zun bo?


18 straight month of negative inflation.


Aiyoh. Deflation say deflation. What negative inflation?

Reminds me of the joke I used to play on customers when I was selling sofas at IMM.

"Yes Sir! Its made of 100% genuine synthetic leather."

It will take a while before some customers wise up to the joke! It's PVC lah! LOL!



Deflation?

I recently renewed my fibre broadband at lower prices.

The new notebook I bought November last year was cheaper than my previous notebook; yet more powerful.

Got myself a Xiaomi and ditched my hand-me-down iPhone first generation. Not expensive for a smartphone. It cost the same as what I paid for my Nokia dumb phone 10 years ago!?

Airfares cheaper.

Idiot Sing dollar also cheaper too.

Utilities bill cheaper.

STI ETF is "cheaper" than 18 months ago.

Property prices and rents not exactly going up is it? Slow downward spiral by thousand cuts...

Mom's medical bills for her hospital appointments every 6 month have come down by a huge amount - thank you SG Pioneer Generation Card!



Inflation?

Is it just me or do you find hawker food and/or eating out at restaurants cost more?

Supermarket grocery prices have gone up.

My weekend job got pay increase. Thank goodness for inflation here! I not complaining.

Bus and MRT reasonable and got fare reductions last year; taxi fares no deflation despite new competition from Uber and Grab?

Banks finally got increase the interest rates for savings; although instead of giving you outright, makes you jump through hoops...  Maybe I've become too weather-beaten or something... When people treat us like monkeys, the last I would do is to bite the carrot.



How?

From my personal experience, for the last 18 months, I did experience inflation for food and grocery prices.

But for big ticket consumer items and most investment asset classes, there's deflation.

So, if you see inflation, what would you be doing?

How about deflation? Should we accumulate more cash?



17 comments:

  1. "Got myself a Xiami"

    hmm, is that a 100% authentic replica of the Xiaomi?
    =)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We will always have something to worry. :-(

      Delete
    2. foolish chameleon,

      LOL! Thanks for the heads-up!

      It's my typo. I did get myself a "little rice"; not a "small fry". Ha ha!


      The quality surprisingly good for its price!

      Screen no need extra protective plastic sticker - its already scratch resistant!

      White back cover also stain resistant - no need buy cover!

      The only trouble is its battery life very much shorter than dumb phones :(

      Now I understand why my colleagues always asking for charger...


      Delete
    3. CW,

      It's like Goldilocks and the 3 bears - too hot complain; too cold whine and whine...

      I wish I were smarter so I can profit from policy mistakes by big daddy and central bankers overseas
      :(

      Delete
  2. Hi SMOL,

    I'm also using a xiaomi mi5. Trying to 'downgrade' my data and hp, so as to simplify my life. Seeing how my students are all using big rose gold apple and samsung phone makes me realise how silly all these gadgets are, so I'm purposely going the other direction haha

    Maybe I'll be using nokia soon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LP,

      Yup, I got it after you showed me yours ;)

      Anything bigger won't fit the front pocket. And I definitely not going to put my phone in my back pocket like Ah Lian...


      I got "scolded" into using WhatsApp... Which is useful when communicating with my sibling overseas.

      Other than that, I turned off the data mode.

      The most popular app is still the calculator :)

      I'm horrible with mental arithmetic :(



      Delete
    2. Here's one more to join the xiaomi group. Holding on to a Redmi Note 3, though. From Blackberry donkey years ago, to Samsung and now, Xiaomi. Xiaomi is exceptional value for money it's unbelievable!

      Delete
    3. Kevin,

      You index investor so this will waste on you.

      But for Peter Lynch acolytes, it would interesting to research who are the major suppliers to Xiaomi ;)

      Then again, only the younger investors are open to buying stocks outside of SGX - which I am quite impressed!

      Delete
    4. Still interesting to know, nevertheless! If I were to make an educated guess, the very same companies that manufactures iPhones e.g. Foxconn are the same ones producing Xiaomis in factories. Same goes for the parts, I suppose.

      What I'm really interested in the modular phone by Google codenamed project ara.

      Delete
    5. Kevin,

      LOL! You're a techie!

      Saw the modular phone on my Facebook feed.

      I old school. I missed my Nokia 8250 butterfly phone. Now that's a great design!

      Should never have sold it :(

      Delete
    6. Oh oh, getting nostalgic here. Dammit, I know what phone you're referring to, so I'm not young either. I went from Nokia 3210 > Nokia 6510 > Non-Nokia > E51. All very solid phones apart from, well, not being not "smart".

      Delete
  3. temperament,

    I'm on M1 too ;)

    And yes, I had to "upgrade" to the cheapest Lite data plan even though I switch off the data mode on my phone - but its only a few dollars more than our old non-data plans.

    If its 3 HPs bundled with broadband, its not expensive to go for the Lite plan for your phone as you would enjoy 20% bundled discounts for 3 mobile lines.


    But if its just you and you never use data or WhatsApp, then changing to a pre-paid plan could be cheaper ;)

    The kind where you top-up by buying a phone card; my dad uses this option.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jared,

    By the way, what is the diff between deflation and negative inflation. The article did not say negative inflation mah?

    The topic is about the economy. The comments about handphones! Haha.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rolf,

      It's the same thing.

      Like saying "ponding" instead of "flooding".


      Eh... Its found in the first sentence of the article?

      Your eyes got stamps stuck on them?


      LOL! This watering-hole is full of Jazz players.

      There's no such thing as "off topic" since there's no musical score to follow in the first place ;)

      Delete
    2. oh dear... shoot bird!

      By the way, straits times announced also.

      Guess it should be deflation before inflation then maybe hyper inflation?

      Delete
    3. Rolf,

      Well, I wished I knew too!

      I not smart; I just follow the trend :(

      Delete
  5. temperament,

    That's why we are who we are.

    Even if you strike 8 million Toto, you'll still be the same when it comes to using HPs ;)

    How to change?

    LOL!

    ReplyDelete

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