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Lumber is shockingly expensive. Thanks, Obama.
the week ^

Posted on 04/29/2021 5:11:29 AM PDT by mylife

Lumber prices are so high that this ordinarily sleepy industry has captured headlines around the world. The generic lumber spot price reached $1,420.50 at time of writing — more than triple the figure of December 2019. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that this has added $24,000 to the average cost of new home construction relative to this time last year.

It's an unfortunate situation for builders, buyers of newly constructed homes, or anyone else who uses lumber. But it's also an unavoidable long-term consequence of some horrific policy mistakes that were made after the Great Recession. The only way to deal with this problem sensibly is to keep running the economy hot so that new supply can come online to catch up with demand.

(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: lumber
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welp there goes the new deck..
1 posted on 04/29/2021 5:11:29 AM PDT by mylife
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To: mylife
So the author's point is that the lumber industry collapsed after the 2008 real estate market collapsed, and has never restored the production capacity it had before then ... and Obama should have pursued a larger "stimulus package" to flood the market with even more money to keep the industry afloat.

Sorry, folks -- I'm no fan of Obama but I'm not blaming this on him. The U.S. housing market had been overbuilt for a long time before 2008, and subsidizing builders and lumber producers with cheaper loans and more money is only going to end in disaster.

2 posted on 04/29/2021 5:16:21 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("And once in a night I dreamed you were there; I canceled my flight from going nowhere.")
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To: mylife

I started building a new chicken house and sorry I did. Can’t quit 1/2 way through. Roof tin was delayed 2 weeks and by that time the siding will be even higher.


3 posted on 04/29/2021 5:16:23 AM PDT by oldasrocks
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To: mylife

Bkmk


4 posted on 04/29/2021 5:16:38 AM PDT by sauropod (Chance favors the prepared mind.)
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To: mylife

A lot of our lumber supply is stuck in Canada - the idiot PM has the borders jammed up and shipments not moving in or out.


5 posted on 04/29/2021 5:18:30 AM PDT by EC Washington
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To: mylife

“The only way to deal with this problem sensibly is to keep running the economy hot so that new supply can come online to catch up with demand.”

All booms are followed by busts.

The bigger the boom (1920’s), the bigger the bust (1930’s).


6 posted on 04/29/2021 5:18:54 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Alberta's Child

This is more a condition of inflated dollar supply.

Isn’t going to end any time soon either.


7 posted on 04/29/2021 5:19:19 AM PDT by zek157
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To: mylife

I live in timber country in North Idaho. The lumber mills around here are running at maximum capacity and have huge piles of dimensional lumber and sheet goods waiting to be packaged and shipped. There is a steady stream of loaded log trucks on the road. I suspect it is the accursed middle men who are jacking the prices up. I’ve been buying boards from “mini-mills” for various projects. When you buy a 2x6 from them it is truly 2” x 6” and is much stouter than the stuff you get at Home Deport for 3X the price.


8 posted on 04/29/2021 5:22:06 AM PDT by 43north (Its hard to stop a man when he knows he's right and he keeps on comin'.)
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prices went crazy during gulf war II


9 posted on 04/29/2021 5:22:17 AM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: Alberta's Child

I was about to post the same thing. Also blaming Obama for “pivoting to austerity” after 2010 is rather laughable.


10 posted on 04/29/2021 5:22:37 AM PDT by babble-on
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To: mylife

Metal wall studs?

Composite decking?

I’ll go out on a limb and guess that most all building materials are historically expensive.


11 posted on 04/29/2021 5:23:21 AM PDT by CodeJockey (Dum Spiro, Pugno)
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To: mylife

Here in my area of the Mon-Valley,SW Pennsylvania,there are a lot of 19-29 thousand dollar fixer upper houses. In the last few years they were being snapped up and flipped. Now they are just sitting. When your building materials prices have almost tripled,(even if you can find lumber)that sure puts a bite in your profit.


12 posted on 04/29/2021 5:23:24 AM PDT by 4yearlurker ("My brain has a mind of it's own!"-what my 8 year old granddaughter told me.)
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To: CodeJockey

prices got so bad in gulf war II we started housing troops in cargo containers


13 posted on 04/29/2021 5:26:43 AM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: mylife

And my wife is pushing hard to build a new house because she’s sold some land, but it’s not gonna be enough. Yikes!


14 posted on 04/29/2021 5:27:57 AM PDT by Paul R. (You know your pullets are dumb if they don't recognize a half Whopper as food!)
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To: oldasrocks

if you have a truck do some dumpster diving or curb shopping. I trash picked a old cedar picnic table and took it apart and ripped it down for building my raised garden bed. Also flea markets are becoming popular.


15 posted on 04/29/2021 5:28:38 AM PDT by 4yearlurker ("My brain has a mind of it's own!"-what my 8 year old granddaughter told me.)
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To: mylife
Had to rebuild some of our box gardens last week - six 8' 2"x8"s cost 100 bucks.

Damn - no wonder housing prices are way up, who can afford to build a new one?

16 posted on 04/29/2021 5:29:44 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("You'll never hear surf music again" - J. Hendrix)
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To: mylife

Lumber is expensive right now, this is true, but blaming Obama in 2021 is just a nonstarter.

Blaming Obama for high lumber prices by saying it was his fault for not throwing massive heaps of our tax dollars at the lumber and housing industries in 2008... which led to Obama losing that ironclad control of all three branches of government in 2010... which then led to an unremarkable economic recovery... which of course led to Trump, who was of course just the worst thing ever... just may be the worst of all possible takes.

The subtle lede in this article is that if you’re mad that lumber is expensive, you’d better get all the way on board with unlimited government spending (and control, the author is eager for the government to not just subsidize the lumber industry, he’s quite happy with the government telling people what to build as well) because accepting the realities of an economic system and possibly waiting a year to put that new deck in is going to lead to republicans getting elected.


17 posted on 04/29/2021 5:30:55 AM PDT by jz638
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To: Alberta's Child
You mean like pubic infrastructure projects to compete with businesses and individuals for labor and material and price the private sector out of the market while the gubmint builds what the bureaucrats in DC and the politically connected decide the public needs?

That kind of idiocy, slouching toward Venezuela.

18 posted on 04/29/2021 5:31:14 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: Alberta's Child

Yep, and the 20% tariff (now reduced to 9%) PDJT added on to Canadian lumber didn’t help.

https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/us-commerce-department-cuts-tariffs-on-canadian-lumber/


19 posted on 04/29/2021 5:31:38 AM PDT by Drago
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To: Psalm 73

We’re going to see the copper pipe scrounger guy in the Wire pushing a shopping cart around with some ripped off nailembedded 2x4 trying to get funds for his next fix.


20 posted on 04/29/2021 5:33:24 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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