One of the most important things we’ve learned over the past year is the vulnerability of global supply chains. Most notably, supply disruptions of lumber have catapulted prices to the moon.
The narrative touted in the public domain is that COVID-19 sparked a dramatic underestimate in capacity by sawmills early in the pandemic as the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to zero, sparking a housing boom. The influx of demand outpaced supply and has caused lumber prices to jump 340% from a year ago, according to Random Lengths.
In terms of output, the lumber industry is controlled by just a handful of firms, including Weyerhaeuser Co., Georgia-Pacific LLC, West Fraser Timber Co., Ltd., among others, which makes it easier for capacity to be controlled.
Maybe there’s more to the lumber story that we’re not being told and should be investigated more in-depth by journalists.
YouTube account “Ken’s Karpentry” recently published a video of “huge quantities” of lumber sitting and not in lumberyards. The exact location of the video is not mentioned but could be near Lyndonville, Vermont.
The narrator in the video, perhaps it’s Ken, but we’re not sure, explains that a train depot has been transformed into a makeshift lumber yard. He said train loads of lumber coming out of Canada are offloaded here and then transported by tractor-trailer to lumberyards across the country.
He said, “I am astounded by how much lumber is here, and I am wondering why there is such a problem at lumber yards.” He added the facility stretches 3/8 of a mile.
The video has more than 300,000 views and over 1,300 comments in just a few weeks.
One person said, “Gee, could it be to keep the price gouging and profits up?? This whole excuse that “it’s due to covid” b*llsh!t has got to stop!”
“It’s too bad there are no investigative reporters left in the world. This lumber story needs to be investigated and exposed,” some else said.
Another person said:
“This is what happens when a few companies own the entire market.”
And this person makes an interesting point:
“There is no lumber shortage. It’s just Weyerhouse and GP wanting to drive up profits.”
So could the lumber industry, controlled just by a few players, be pulling the playbook straight out of the diamond industry to limit supply to drive up prices?
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I drive past a lumber mill outside of town and their yard looks a bit like this video. They have a LOT of lumber stacked and ready to go. Lumber trucks line up outside the gates to deliver every morning. Their side yard has stacks and stacks of logs ready to be milled.
In my neck of the woods, “getting stuck in traffic” means you were behind a lumber or hay truck for miles until you could get to a passing lane. I get stuck behind a lumber truck ever time I drive to town.
There isn’t a lumber shortage, but there may be a distribution problem. If you control distribution, you control prices…
There was once a small lumber industry where I live, and in fact the old mill is still there. The industry ran from the 30’s, and was big from after WW2 through the 60’s. It was was killed as dead as a politicians principles back in the 70’s.
i’ve been wondering the same thing about the ‘chip shortage’ and indeed even the ‘ammo shortage’. theres no indication that the taiwanese have cut production, so where are all those chips going? and theres no hint that ammo/primer manufacturers have cut back, so somebody’s buying all that and keeping it off the market (well, at least buying it for some other purpose). also curious is that ammi prices in europe, which were always a fair lot higher than the US, have remained more or less unchanged through the past year even as they went more than 5x in the states.
as for the semiconductor ‘shortage’ it really raises the question, is there any shortage? have they sold them all to higher priority customers? is it just an excuse for shutting down prudction in already unprofitable industries? (who was gonna be buying all those electric cars anyway? )
there are so many layers of bullshit in almost anything we hear anymore, it takes a hell of a lot of filtering to try to get a picture of what the hell is actually going on.
If you will recall, b h o had every dipstick federal agency buy up all of the guns and all of the ammo they could find in ’14 or ’15 … in the end they bought up more than 2 BILLION rounds of ammo … for agencies we’ve never heard of.
I wonder if that’s not happening again … it would explain a lot. The firearms manufacturers swear they’re running at full capacity … as to the ammo manufacturers … so there’s the strong stench of BS flowing from somewhere.
Commodity lumber prices are reported every day, every minute. Same with silver, gold, iron ore, steel, orange juice. The same crews that manipulate all the rest of the commodities can and do manipulate lumber prices. No one with any common sense should be surprised at it. The same crew that sweats us on everything else decided it was time to sweat us on lumber. It is that simple. They are manipulating the prices because they can, and that manipulation will be to the intended benefit of the small crew, not the consumer ever. And just wait for the sighs of relief when the “fever” breaks and prices come down.
It is a fucking scam, just like almost everything else in the world. They will keep it up until we are broken, dead, enslaved or until we take out the people responsible. We know who they are, there really are \not very many of them. maybe 15-20,000, plus their most devoted minions. Oh, more psychotics would rise to replace them, but we would be rid of the worst for safe few years and that is as good as it might get.
Spot on post. Good job.
In accordance with the Agenda 2030 plan … to which b h o surrendered our National Sovereignty … single family residences are not just unsustainable — but, in the Newspeak of 2020 politics, they’re ‘racist’ … so they must be discouraged.
What better way to discourage construction of homes than by jacking up the prices of raw materials such as lumber by more than 50% in a year’s time?
Same as it always was.
https://fee.org/resources/satans-bushel/
I looked at those pictures. That really isn’t a lot of lumber. The rise in prices for lumber is a reflection of capacity issues and a boom in homebuilding.
To those who see conspiracies in everything……sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar.
Roadgeek, Your sweet, naive innocence is touching. Do yourself a favor and stay far, far away from any speculative commodity investment. Those boys just LOVE it when marks like you show up.
Somewhere there is a commodities and or a hedge fund broker laughing till he wets his pants !
There’s another angle here that just occurred to me: since the borders are a sieve now, with many more immigrants on the way, these people are going to need shelter, and existing housing is already strained in many areas.
This is just another strong-arm scam by these monsters running the show, as when it comes time to build for all the people who jump the border, the cost of lumber will be so high only those who can afford it will be able. Therefore the majority of these illegals will have to live in government-subsidized housing, or its equivalent.
It’s just another way to squeeze everyone together in megacities while TPTB cavort on all the rest of their playground.
Obvious- You’ll own nothing and you will be happy. The Billionaire Boys Club has spoken.
Just be happy in your 250 sq. ft. high rise hovel in the mega city and do what you are told while they are allowed the use of what used to belong to us. That is if you live through the next ten years.
Welcome to New Schwabialand, formerly Slavelandia.
I work in the pipe production industry and getting any kind of transportation for shipping right now is like pulling teeth. There is something weird going on and prices are going through the roof. I know a lot of drivers in my region are bailing for the Northeast as they are paying upwards of $7 per mile to ship into New York and surrounding.
$7 per mile is too good to pass up, which means someone is way overpaying for logistics, which mean something really dirty is going on and something really bad is very close on the horizon. Intrastate shipping is getting kicked in the balls right now and I know my distribution lines are spread super thin. Production is not the issue. Getting the product to the customer is right now and that includes us getting resin from petroleum refineries.
ZFG, out.
P.S. I suspect it is the gubmint and its puppeteers prepping for something nefarious.
We are seeing the exact same thing.
I betcha there will be a “Russian” cyber attack on our already strained supply chain in July.
I would assume the lumber companies listed all have BofD controlled by Wall Street owned 10 mega corps.
Lumber yards are also full because nobody is paying those high prices if they don’t absolutely have to.