Global changes in the household

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I thought we’d start a thread for household management, the idea being to lower the barrier to investing and financial tracking through an easily approachable topic. So, tips and discussion on topics important to households, such as the price of electricity, gas, and petrol and how global changes affect them, mortgage costs and offers in relation to interest rates, etc. Feel free to also discuss the impact of taxation on households.

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Let’s start with the premise that since Covid-19 has shut down businesses and the price of oil has fallen, how can this be expected to affect households? If businesses don’t use electricity, will the price of electricity also decrease for households, or are these prices separate?

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The price of oil affects many things in the economy, starting from fuel costs, which can ultimately even affect the price of electricity. Businesses and households operate in the same markets here.

If these basic economic matters interest you, I can recommend the Marginal Revolution University, available for free online. Professors from George Mason University explain economic concepts in relatively short videos, and you can test your learning with multiple-choice questions. Easily accessible material.

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This is a really good opening for this thread.

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The impact of the coronavirus on agriculture has been discussed little on this forum, and I couldn’t really find a suitable thread to open a discussion. Maybe here then, because future difficulties in the production chain will be visible not only in farmers’ incomes but also in increased raw material costs for households/restaurants.

European farmers are concerned about obtaining cheap and reliable labor. This Wall Street Journal article opened up the issue from a French perspective.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-eu-and-its-farmers-depend-on-open-borders-coronavirus-upends-that-11587489550?mod=mhp

In agriculture, foreign labor is a global phenomenon. If there are problems with labor mobility/availability, the effects will eventually be seen as reduced offerings on the dinner tables of households/restaurants and increased food costs. The money spent on food is then taken away from other consumption.

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Yes, this is exactly the kind of thought processes I’d like to see here.

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