When journalists want to cultivate their prejudice that politicians are unworldly, they ask about the current price of half a pound of butter. Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, interviewed by the FAZ in April, did not fall into the trap. He often does the weekend shopping and follows prices very closely, Nagel said. In the case of butter in particular, he noticed that after the price had increased a year ago, it had become a little cheaper again: “Overall, the peak of inflation is behind us.”
In fact, the average price of butter fell 3.6 percent year-on-year in April 2023, a good sign after an adventurous inflationary move last year. In December 2021, when well-known economists still believed that inflation was a temporary phenomenon, the 250-gram pack cost an average of 1.66 euros. In the twelve months that followed, things went up in several steps. The high point was September 2022 at EUR 2.39. Mind you, that was the average price. So-called branded goods were 3.50 euros and higher. We have the boss of the Berchtesgadener Land dairy to thank for the creepy sentence “The death zone begins for us at three euros”.
