Add to this the stimulus was WAAAY too lush. This whole covidcation has been a boon to working people. The stimulus is more money than they have had in their lives.
Bingo!
It's good to see someone who understands the situation.
I'm a landowner with a lot of timber and you pretty much can't give away pine timber right now, the prices are really, really low. Meanwhile lumber prices are through the roof. The bottleneck is in the sawmills, the laborers that would normally work the mills are sitting at home making more money than they've ever made in their life drawing extended umemployment benefits and stimulus checks. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that if you pay someone more money not to work then they'll choose that over punching a timeclock, it's just an extension of the welfare state we've seen over the last 50 years.
It's easy to say "just pay them more" but it's not really that simple, businesses don't reorganize around bubble times, that's a recipe for bankruptcy when things crash.
Only people who have run a successful business understand that you don’t set undue precedent on wages. You manage unusual conditions with incentives but not base wages.
Interesting that timber is low as you say. Not too unexpected. I really do hope that some people with this outrageously priced material in stock get to choke on it. I also hope I get to see people who have paid the equally stupid prices for housing live with it for a long time or take a bath to sell it. Why? These stupid conditions are borne of greed and more stupidity. Lessons have to be learned. The crash always comes and this time it can’t come soon enough for me.
I have always been more wary of booms than the bust that follows. I have watched nervously, in horror at times, the euphoria laced rocket ride up knowing it can’t last. More than once I have longed for moderation and steady but that is not the way things work.
Add TAX FREE to the lush benefits now being handed out and you can easily see just how high the incentive is to NOT WORK AT ALL.