Helping Business Students Understand Rising Inflation

A short two-minute news clip on consumer price inflation is a great way of updating our business students on the latest information on inflation. I really liked this one from Sky News this week.

Click here to launch the video.

This is a lively piece on consumer inflation.

Of course the reporter falls into the trap of giving the impression that consumer prices are rising out of control, suggesting that life is becoming almost impossibly expensive - even for him. And he goes for the easy targets - housewives struggling with bags of shopping at Asda and the poor old pensioner (pensioners always complain when interviewed on television). The report doesn’t major on the actual CPI inflation figure, which is 2.5% for the last 12 months - hardly runaway inflation.

But this is a good summary of the main price increases facing households and touches on how some will respond. Some good business studies terms are used too, which your students will hopefully pick up and should be able to define:

- niche items
- incomes
- inflation
- stagflation
- growing economies