Advertisement
Promo

Become a member of the ZDNet UK community

David Meyer

View blog's RSS Feed

Communication Breakdown

Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.

Wednesday 19 March 2008, 12:04 PM

Portable memory makes the 'inflation basket'

Posted by David Meyer

Every year the "inflation basket" - the theoretical shopping basket of standard products that can be used to measure inflation - gains and loses a few items. It's a good indicator of where we're at, societally speaking, and this year one of the most notable additions is the portable digital storage device - including "camera memory cards, sticks etc., those used
in mobile telephones and USB memory keys".

Also in are the the fruit smoothie, the muffin, the next-day-delivery bouquet, peppers, "small type oranges", the "non-chart" (i.e. classic) CD album and, er, "livery charges".

Out of the basket goes 35mm film (that took a while), the CD single (ditto) and the frozen ready-made vegetarian meal. Also, the "stubbie" lager bottle (too tiny for Binge Britain?) has been replaced by the 330ml bottle.

Tellingly, TV repair is also out of the "basket", as people are just replacing rather than fixing their broken sets (probably upgrading to HD while they're at it), as are the microwave oven (too cheap to count now) and, but of course, the washable carpet ("Spending on washable carpets is low and decreasing. Class is already well represented with a number of other carpet items").

Comments on this post

David Meyer
  • David Meyer
  • London, UK
  • Member since: October 2006
ZDNet Staff

Contacts' Latest Discussions

Number of Tracked Discussions: 2,396

ator1940 ator1940

AOL's Steve Case

Wednesday 23 December 2009, 12:31 PM

1 comment
ator1940 ator1940

Plurk holding Microsoft's feet to...

Tuesday 22 December 2009, 3:00 PM

3 comments
J.A. Watson J.A. Watson

Copyright in a new light

Thursday 17 December 2009, 8:42 PM

6 comments

Contacts' Latest Blogs

Number of Contacts Blogs: 11

Avatar Tom Espiner

Twitter hack was DNS redirect

Monday 21 December 2009, 4:43 PM

1 comment

Skip Sub Navigation Links to CNET Brand Links

Help

Become part of the ZDNet community.

Newsletters