Forum users put fuel at €2 and inflation at 5%

Forum users put fuel at €2 and inflation at 5%

How much does the normality that begins this month really cost? In the thread, fuel is put at 2 euros and inflation at 5%. Against that backdrop comes the tale of record consumption: full terraces, tourists in the streets and a Treasury that, it is said, is collecting more than ever. The euphoria holds up. So do the prices.

The start of the month also brings a date with symbolic weight in the Spanish calendar, and that mix of a cheerful shop window and a household bill is what shapes all the economic talk of these days.

What sustains the tale of record consumption?

The picture that keeps repeating is familiar: full terraces, happy locals on the sidewalks, visitors eager to discover a culture described as millennia-old, and a steady trickle of money that never stops. Add to that Brussels, presented as a well-oiled machine serving the European citizen, and a Ursula von der Leyen who is compared, with a smirk, to a new Joan of Arc. Christine Lagarde, for her part, appears as the number one of figures, capable of winning a mental arithmetic contest.

There is a wink in all of this, but also a down-to-earth idea: if tax revenue is breaking records and pensions are sold as safer than Germany's, the conclusion would be that the system holds up. The problem is that this same tale coexists with another list of prices.

How much does it cost to fill the tank this October?

Two euros per litre, according to the thread. That is the starting point for the month, and on top of it comes inflation pegged at 5%. It is no minor detail: fuel at that price makes transport and logistics more expensive and, by extension, much of what ends up on the shelf. When a litre hits that figure, the effect does not stay at the petrol station.

The counter-argument is that it is not all doom and gloom. Gridlocked traffic works, for many, as the new indicator of full terraces: if there are cars, there is activity. The objection is immediate: moving around more does not always miccionan living better.

Why do the prices of basics belie the euphoria?

Here comes the most uncomfortable contrast. It is argued that housing, energy and food —the essentials— were far cheaper years ago than they are now, and that this gap rules out any triumphalist comparison with past decades. The 5% inflation repeated throughout the thread is read, in that light, less as a textbook figure and more as a monthly bill.

The other open front is mortgages. If life was cheaper years ago, so were the loans taken out to pay for it: anyone looking back remembers interest rates very different from today's. That gap between pay packet and monthly payment is, for much of the analysis, the real thermometer of the normality being boasted about.

Needless to say, the past was no paradise. It is pointed out, logically, that when there was no internet the only window to the world was television and whatever each person felt like telling, so nostalgia is no measuring stick either.

---

Thirty-four years after Barcelona 92, flying cars are still missing. Everything else, though, is there: terraces, tourists, tax revenue and fuel at two euros. All that remains is to decide whether that is utopia or simply the October grind.