Past innovations, such as the advent of electricity or the invention of the gasoline-powered motor, required the development of considerable infrastructure before their full potential could be realized. Electricity, when it substituted for steam power late last century, was applied to production processes that had been developed for steam.
It also does not help that many of these increases affect the regular, high-frequency expenses of households, and therefore contribute to perceptions of high inflation among the general public. The recent encouraging signs in price trends  This is not to say, however, that price-formation patterns in South Africa are completely static.