Stuff That Interests Me

Tom Haynes wrote an interesting piece in the Telegraph the other day to mark the 40th birthday of the pound coin. “The pound in your pocket is now worth just 30p” ran the title, followed by the subhead “Some 40 years after the first pound coins were minted, their relevance is waning”. I’ll say!But the pound has actually lost a lot more than 70% of its value, and the article’s own statistics demonstrate that. “The average house cost £27,386, compared to £290,000 today,” says Haynes. I make that a fall of over 90% in purchasing power.A first-class stamp was 16p. Now it’s £1.10. That’s a fall of over 85%.A pint of London Pride cost 58p. Good luck finding it below a fiver today outside of Wetherspoons. Another c90% loss of purchasing power.A pack of fags was £1.02. Those same B&H will cost you 14 times that today. A 93% loss of purchasing power.A Mars Bar was 15p. Today it’s 65p. That’s a 77% loss of PP.In general terms, as covered before in this piece on inflation, items we buy with debt, such as houses, hav