Mike's Minute: The power of statistics

Given Westpac played what I would loosely call a dumb game this week with numbers, let me return serve. 

Their numbers involved a bunch of what they call "necessities" and their prices over the past ten years. 

White bread is up 120% and butter up 157%. Chicken though is only up 2%. So, if you ate a lot of chicken, not only would you be protein rich, you would have saved a fortune. 

The CPI is up in that period 38%. 

Their argument is that this is why we are miserable; everything appears so expensive. 

Not everything is, but if you eat a lot of white bread and butter, obviously without the chicken, you are arguing it’s a cost-of-living crisis. 

By the way, here are my numbers: while the CPI is 38%, hourly wages are up 53%. 

Now that dovetails into what we saw just last week with the food price inflation for the year at 1.9%. Our wages have in fact gone up more than that, so in other words, food is getting more affordable. 

It's a statistical fact – food is more affordable this year than last year. 

If you spread it out over 10 years at 53% versus 38%, things are way more affordable. We are actually getting ahead. 

See what you can do with numbers? 

Which has been my argument throughout this cluster of numbers, and misery, and point scoring, and finger pointing. 

If you want to be miserable and find something that is wrong, or broken, or too expensive, you can. 

But equally —glass half-full— if you want to find gain, or benefit, or advancement, you can as well. That choice is yours. 

For dairy and meat, we can explain the price gains: they are international. For olive oil, it’s a Spanish drought, for coffee it’s a disease, for your council rates its half-wits with no clue. 

But if you aren't prepared to avoid things that appear too much, then that’s on you. 

After all, what really is a necessity at the supermarket? What is a "must have" versus a "nice to have"? 

Is white bread really so good that it's worth getting exercised over?