Yesterday, as I prepared my garbanzo beans with pork special, I came face to face with the gloomy reality of the rising cost of living. Example: what they wanted for a sad coriander bunch was almost as much as what I paid for the imported, dried variety of such condiment.
Then there are such cases: College restaurants in high demand amidst vegetable crisis
[quote]College restaurants, known for their cheap prices, are now filled not only by students but also taxi drivers, nearby residents and even families thanks to skyrocketing vegetable prices.
Ever since Typhoon Krosa hit Taiwan, the average price of wholesale vegetable has been increasing, which is now unbearable to consumers.
…Lao-Mo’s buffet restaurant in NTU has attracted over one thousand customers every day, as the diner hasn’t changed prices in the three years it has been open. Students, taxi drivers, public officials and hospital caretakers are among his main clients. “I feel almost like doing charity work,” Lin said, the owner of Lao-mo.
Produce costs always rise after a typhoon. They will go down again as thankfully we live on an island with three growing seasons a year and a big hydroponic industry. But inflation is a serious problem as the rise in oil prices is driving up transportation costs which affects everything.
Produce price increases are temporarily after a typhoon, but general rise in food cost is a global trend thanks to bad harvests all over and the introduction of bio-fuels … ethanol and diesel (palm oil), record oil prices … higher cost of maize and other edible cereals etc …
All this makes raw materials more expensive, add transport cost increase and your milk, beer, meat … food has risen 10-30% at retail level …
Tommy525 wrote:
garbanzo beans with pork? hmmm sounds good !! What country dish is that?
I think is quite spread in Central America. I used to eat a variation with chicken wings back home, not bad, but I started using pork meat -lean, not too fatty- in Taiwan.
Most elements are not expensive: garbanzo beans about 60 to 100 nts -if organic- , pork about 40-50. But spices have gone up: onion, celery and coriander are sky high. Tomatoes are really optional -especially the ugly ones we have after all that rain. Feeds 3 biantang for me.
My bubble tea has gone up everywhere by $5, and the loaf of bread I bought today was $5 more expensive too. Everything is going up I guess. I know inflation was only about 2% last year, I wonder what it’ll end up being this year. I wish I still lived in hte SOuth, where everything was $20 cheaper. Anyone know how prices are down there now?
Here in Taichung prices are also increasing. Breakfast (not everything, but what I eat), meat, vegetables, eggs, milk, cheese (a hell of a lot), even instant noodles. One thing that I noticed after the last typhoon that hit was that after the initial rise of vegetable prices, they never came back down. Perhaps just not enough time to recover, but I don’t recall it ever taking so long.
Of course gas has also increased what seems like every week.
While it doesn’t really affect me too much, I wonder about the locals who make a much lower salary. With all these prices increasing, I feel bad for the families that live off lower incomes.
So with basically all essentials increasing, I’m afraid my landlord’s gonna call and say rent is also gonna cost a bit more!
[quote=“djm409”] While it doesn’t really affect me too much, I wonder about the locals who make a much lower salary. With all these prices increasing, I feel bad for the families that live off lower incomes.
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Guess they will have to tighten the belt up and buy the 3 series BMW as against the 5 series
Was in RT Mart and Costco on Sunday… didn’t look like there was a slowdown in consuming… as like every Sunday as long as I can remember it was PEOPLE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE SEE
I guess it depends. Last night I was at Geant, which caters, I would dare to say, to a less affluent crowd. As I picked my organic pork -Thank Goodness it’s back-- I noticed a woman next to me carefully choosing and calculating against the contents of her basket. She looked like the usual office lady, not an amma. This made me pay attention to other people, many of whom who were also in a bind as to how much their salary would stretch. Actually, most people at the check out counter were working class guys, buying foodstuff. These were the ones who picked the vegetable bins clean, except tomatoes, which were like 30 Nts each -not organic.
From today’s China Post: Taiwan’s vegetable prices set record after typhoon
The average wholesale vegetable price in Taipei climbed to NT$53.63 a kilogram Sunday, the highest since Dec. 1, 1974, when the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co. started recording vegetable prices,
It is certainly not the fill the cart with what little Lin wants crowd. This store, as well as Lien He whatever supermarket, is a bare essential, no frills kind of shop. Obviously, the working class is obviously feeling the pain of the pinch in earnings. Costco crowd can still push the credit limit. Furthermore, weekend crowds are the leisure, waste time, take the kids out of the house type.
How so? Fruit and veggies are they same as in Canada. Milk, cheese, more so, bread, about the same. A decent hotel costs more here than back home. A meal in a decent restaurant the same or more. Wine, beer, spirits.
Cars more here. Apartments more. Computers and most electronics the same.
Public transport is cheap, yes. Gas much more here.
How so? Fruit and veggies are they same as in Canada. Milk, cheese, more so, bread, about the same. A decent hotel costs more here than back home. A meal in a decent restaurant the same or more. Wine, beer, spirits.
Cars more here. Apartments more. Computers and most electronics the same.
Public transport is cheap, yes. Gas much more here.[/quote]
I’d disagree, MM.
With the Canadian dollar at NT$33+ and many prices in Canada having yet to be adjusted to it’s rise against the greenback, things in Canada are not cheap at all. Case in point, a book I bought here for NT$610 is listed at C$34.99 on the inside cover. That same book is listed at US$29.99…
Wine, beer, spirits…a bottle of gin at Costco is NT$321; that’s less than CDN$10.
And gas, at least in Quebec this summer, was up around CDN$1,09/L…more than the NT$29-30/L I pay to fill up with 95 octane here…Canada’s pretty expensive nowadays, IMHO.
Vegetable prices always go up around a typhoon. This one was a particularly damaging typhoon, so the high prices will remain for a bit longer. But they will go back down as the growing seasons get back to normal.
With regards to oil prices, I hope the next US president will not be an enabler of the big oil companies.
MM, Fox mentioned first world countries, not Canada.
Everything you listed is FAR more expensive in the UK than it is here – FAR more! My sister was here in April and she was reveling in how cheap it is compared to there.
I thought tomatoes were cheap the way the feed the cherry ones to the kids for snacks.
I’ve noticed a trend in housing costs going up. I’m looking for a new place to live in Banchiao and the prices seem to be about 15 percent higher than they were 3 years ago.
My food is always expensive because I shop at Jasons and cook a lot. I would be shopping organic/ health food/ gluten free in Canada too so I guess the prices would be the same.
I’m sure the electricity went up but I can’t be sure.
My wages went up a bit and I’m going to ask for more money when I decide to get some more privates.
I guess I’m feeling the crunch but I still couldn’t live as well in Vancouver as i do here and have a nice place to live and have decent work at decent hours at decent pay as I do now. Hell, I could work half as much and still live well here.
I’ve tried gardening a few times in order to get good veggies but I’m just no damn good at it. Where’s the black thumb of death emoticon?
