Tuesday 13 May 2008

Let them eat cake...

It is time to eat cake and forget about bread.

The inflation rate for the squeezy white stuff is now well into double-digits. The inflation rate for a choccy bikky, thankfully, remains at a modest 7 percent.


Changing the subject slightly, Marie Antoinette never said "let them eat cake". It was cruel lie put around by those nasty left-wing french revolutionaries.

I have always preferred to see Marie Antoinette as Edmund Burke described her in his Reflections on the Revolution in France.

I dug out the passage from wikiquote:

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, — glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy...

Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, — in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.

But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded."


Chivalry might be gone, but bread price inflation regularly revisits us in every age.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I loved this post, well done, great quote.

Anonymous said...

Kirsten Dunst - wow

Anonymous said...

The aftermath .
What holds for the next ever changeing five years
Is a mixed farmer on 11 acres OK
getting.horse/ cart maybe, some hills 3 miles from shops.
It will be enugh
What about the Mob?

Anonymous said...

I am going down to B&Q to buy a pitchfork

Anonymous said...

Nice article on UK housing market

http://tinyurl.com/56spcs

chriswov said...

The food price graph clearly shows that as recently as 3 years ago bread inflation i.e.wheat prices, were in negative territory.This deflation in real terms of wheat prices has continued with only one or two quickly reversed blips since 1980. It is my belief,as a farmer, that consumers have used the money saved on food(down from 33% of income to about 9%)to run up the price of housing(and put on weight!). The way mortgages work means that the weekly savings on food are "leveraged" up resulting in large capital rises on housing.
As already mentioned extra cash has been available year on year for almost 30years.At the very least this won't continue and if food costs return to 33% of incomes the reverse of the above will happen over the coming years.
Who's going to speculate in property now?
excellent blog

Anonymous said...

mmm.. serf or wage slave.

ain't freedom just great.

I've appreciated all your posts 'till this one.

Is it merely envy as opposed to reason that drives you?

Sorry but i'm just a nasty lefty.

Alice Cook said...

anonymous, I am sure you are a nice lefty.

Alice Cook said...

Anonymous, I have just thought about your comment a little more. If my post offended you with some loose and thoughtless words from me. I am sorry, it was not my intention. Alice

Anonymous said...

oops sorry,

love your posts,

I was drunk and maudlin.

Anonymous said...

ps.

I'm willing to bet she said far worse...

Simon.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous

I hope you weren't maudlin about anything more than crashing house prices, increasing inflation and the credit crunch.

Anonymous said...

lol, no.

I'm just a cantankerous old git.

Simon.