Remember what they took from you
Sir, why do you hate the free market
Anyway yeah its funny what happens to lumber prices in the aftermath of a global pandemic plus a major winter storm that caused innumerable pipes to burst and flood homes.
The sawmills are cartels and always been. People just finally having it effect them personally so ofc the easiest answer is to point to someone they already disliked. But really he is complicit if he doesn't have people investigating them for artifical scarcity and price gouging. I mean, he won't, but he should. So should states
Just throwing it out there but Koch owns a massive share of both lumber and major sawmills. Many people are forming their own sawmills now to get around this bullshit. Timber is still higher than normal but not so much people can't start milling their own wood if they have enough startup capital
I'll try to find a more informative thread on the matter I read the other day but this dude knows what's up https://twitter.com/LiliaDragonX/status/1389610964774014986
This is Ben's fault, he must have caused a lumber hoarding crisis
what the fuck? I thought I knew my Benny lore but this is one I missed
LUMBER ALWAYS GETS CHEAPER AT THE END OF THE YEAR BECAUSE NOBODY BUILDS IN THE WINTER
You’re correct, but it truly is an unprecedented situation with lumber right now, but it’s mostly because of a shortage in a time of high demand.
It truly is an unprecedented situation with everything right now, but it’s mostly because of a shortage in a time of high demand.
I live outside the US, the only products that are hard to get are things important to Americans. I half think you guys are experiencing some unofficial sanctions at this point. :xi-gun:
The sawmills are priced gouging and creating an artifical scarcity more than anything right now though. The sawmills and lumber harvesting is back to normal levels and they've stockpiled a ton of it. This is mainly just some cartel monopoly shit right now
Koch has huge stake (lol) I'm lumber and in toilet paper industries. There was an actual bottleneck but right now is when these sawmills should be unloading their massive stockpiles but for some strange reason aren't. They're making insane profits
LUMBER ALWAYS GETS
CHEAPERMORE EXPENSIVE AT THEENDBEGINNING OF THE YEAR BECAUSENOBODY BUILDS IN THE WINTERCOMMUNISM NO WOODThere's was a point last year where I couldn't find pressure treated wood at all I was just calling every store in every town near by
The ground freezes, makes it harder to dig
Concrete doesn't set right when it's too cold
There's probably others, but I'm not a big time contractor or anything
Just a somewhat useful handyman who learned to fix things from his handy dad
Bulky winter clothes mean less flexibility, ice happens which makes for many many slipping and fall hazards, there's less daylight hours to work on and weather being what it is would mean you'd have to stop work for a lot of the season anyway.
Concrete doesn't set in the cold. Also various construction glues and sealants often don't set right either.
That's literally it. You frame a house after you pour the foundation, so it can technically be done when it's cold, but you start the framing asap so it's not gonna be cold when you just finished the foundation.
Everything else follows from there.
The concrete thing is mostly that residential concrete companies don't want to do what it takes to produce a good product. They want to frame pour and strip in like 6 hours so they can get like 2-3 units a day done. To do that you gotta use a ton of accelerant. Makes for shitty concrete and you can't do it in the winter because the frames have to be insulated so the curing concrete retains it's heat. Most commercial jobs work just fine in the winter, they just insulate and use blankets or warm water flood curing.
I'm just gonna say it, we shouldn't be using wood as a building material, people should live in concrete or brick apartments, not single or family homes, that's just wasteful. We should view wood like how we view coal, sure some people need it but we gotta phase it out. Keep the trees in the ground. Laugh at everyone complaining about the price.
Using wood as a building material coupled with sustainable lumber practices is vastly better for the environment even if concrete or brick were carbon neutral (which they very much are not). Wood houses are carbon sequestration as much as a forest is, except if the wood was harvested sustainably, the trees used to make the lumber for the house have now been replaced/replanted and are sequestering more carbon. A wood house can be carbon negative. A concrete house cannot.
So much land has already been clear-cut, the main thing that needs to be prevented is any more cutting in old-growth forests. Logging can and should continue in already-disturbed/farmed areas.
Inflation is actually making me kind of anxious though. I wouldn't care if wages rose too, but they never do. Almost everything is scarce and expensive right now, not just lumber.
I think the inflation fears are a little overblown. There may be a short term crisis, but indicators seem to suggest that it will not be a long term. Probably a lot relating to the rough restart of some sectors post-covid.
During the Texas Freeze, prices initially spiked in the wake of a demand shortage.
But they then proceeded to plummet as power stations failed and retail consumers could not access power at any cost.
This is the long term consequence of capitalist commodity monopolization. People who can't access the thing fall out of the demand market, prompting a crash. The crash drives out investment and kills production / distribution. Then a short term supply shortage becomes a long term supply crisis.
I feel bad for the og punisher fans that have fascist dickheads stealing their shit.
It's ok. The punisher becomes a lot less cooler when you realize the common thugs that the punisher mostly end up fighting are just young men from disadvantaged backgrounds that fell into life if crime due to socio economic status and the real villains can only be shotgunned in the face once.
I thought he was a lot more radical than that, like going after crooked cops and politicians. That's disappointing but pretty standard for american comics.
I was big into it during the Mid 2000s Garth Ennis/"Welcome back Frank". He mostly fought the mob and what ever weirdo they hired to stop him. It was in the bush years, so It's probably was better than him going to Iraq or some shit.
The prices were already hugely inflated as of fall 2020, this guy is tripping lol. Covid has fucked up supply chains for over a year.
I built myself a deck last summer to enjoy some grilling on and it ended up being so fucking expensive. I ended up using composite (i.e plastic) deck boards because I couldn't even even find enough pressure treated lumber in my area to cover the frame.
The lumber I used for the joists was like 75% more expensive than the summer 2019, too.
You better believe it happened, Jackson. I'm putting American on a 5-year plan to build back better.
Now we've got the working people in charge of the, the, the, you know... the thing.
:biden-leftist:
Listen here, Mack, the last guy had Infrastructure Week, but I'm gonna make a plan for the next five years for infrastructure and the other things
One of my family members expressed a wish that Biden doesn't make the stock market doesn't crash like it did "when Obama got in there." :agony-deep:
It makes sense in a twisted game theory kind of way; "Everyone around me are easily spooked fools, that's why they'll sell off when the Demoncrat is elected. Therefore I, the only enlightened and rational Porky, should sell off my position first, or I'm going to be losing out."
Functionally, it doesn't matter if people are stupid or smart
Tell them the President literally has no control over the “economy” and look up the passages about those two things from Michael Parenti excerpts.
2 things meaning the presidents control over it and what the “economy” itself is/means.
Almost like the President is nothing but a PR role to shift the blame from capitalism to the certain actions of an individual who isn’t the 1 of 2 parties you are allowed to vote for.
I don't even understand how 70-ish 2x4s cost $1000 in a """good economy"""
There’s a bunch of OSB sheets underneath it that are making up most of that cost.
Interested to see the reaction when there are bipartisan discussions about rationing.
I know it would wreck us all, but the US having an hyperinflation would be really interesting to watch.
Yes, in countries with high cronic inflation they kinda do it all the time, the companies I mean, and the government too in its own way.
No it wouldn't, don't you know your history that's how the nazis took power.
Wonder if climate change might have an impact on the availability of fresh lumber.
Nah...
The sawmills also anticipated a slump in demand when Corona hit and idled some production capacity. The opposite happened and demand increased, so here we are. But this is Biden’s fault!
How the fuck do you run a sawmill, see the news of "everybody should stay home and nobody is allowed to travel" and think "boy howdy this will obviously decrease demand for the things badly needed in most furniture and home renovations"
The whole economy was expected to take a hit overall, and uncertainty about the future was pretty high. Not really ideal circumstances for a boom in furniture shopping and home renovations, IMHO.
I feel like if you run a business and don't understand "the whole economy is expecting to take a hit" means the poors get poorer and the rich get richer and that this has very little bearing on any actual spending unless your business is literally shuttered you are a grade A moron
I think you're oversimplifying it a lot but at any rate they certainly did fuck it up.
I'm gonna say it again, if you own a sawmill and you read "Literally everybody is going to have to stay home and can't spend money on anything but deliveries, groceries and home improvements" and you think this is the time to slow down because you expecte to make less money you have lucked into your sawmill ownership as a failson who doesn't understand the system it operates under.
I'm fully with @pussad here.
I think you have a really rosy view of what the outlook was back then.
Didn't Trump put some restrictions on imports of Canadian wood back in like 2017? Is that still a thing?
Good post.
The OP shows a chud whining about lumber prices so its just funny that their big orange boy's policies are exacerbating the increase.
Trump put tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber. This isn't anything new, though, and these tariffs have been placed off and on since the 90s, I believe
It happens every ten years or so when America wants to try to flex on Canada for whatever reason. We're lapdogs already.
