“When the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, many people in the lumber industry assumed business was about to go sour. Millions of people were out of work, businesses across the country were shuttered, and the country was in a recession. And so, producers reacted accordingly.
“They really dialed back, thinking that demand would fall, and the reality is that demand never slowed,” said Dustin Jalbert, senior economist and lumber industry specialist at Fastmarkets RISI.
Instead, things sped up. People stuck at home because of Covid-19 shutdowns across the country decided it was a good time to take on home improvement projects repairing and remodeling their homes — they put up fences, added on decks, built out offices, refinished basements. The DIY trend helped drive stellar sales numbers at stores such as Home Depot and Lowe’s.
Many of those who weren’t busy fixing up their homes went looking for new ones. And where they couldn’t find preexisting homes, they started to build. Whatever initial slowdown there may have been in construction pretty quickly subsided. “Us being capitalist America, if people want to buy a house because they want to move out of the city and move to the suburbs, someone will build it for them. They’ll figure out a way,” said Michael Wisnefski, CEO of MaterialsXchange, an online marketplace for lumber and plywood.”
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“demand isn’t just surging in North America; it’s also up overseas, which further strains the industry.”
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“Finding lumber workers was challenging pre-Covid-19; during the pandemic, it’s been even harder. Sawmills have had a hard time staffing up and adding shifts, not only because of Covid-related restrictions and safety measures but also because a lot of people don’t want to work those types of jobs. Some people I spoke with suggested expanded unemployment insurance, which adds an extra $300 a week onto state benefits until September 6, may also be a factor — though, of course, sawmills are making so much money now they might be able to afford to pay workers more and court them back.”
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“He notes that many people just don’t understand how hard it is to get a sawmill up and running. “They’d like to see our industry respond to these prices and make new lumber, but a new sawmill today is $100 million, it takes two years to build, and there’s no guarantee you’re going to have the raw materials to run it.” Plus, who knows how long this current surge will last.”
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“For his part, Barber, in Canada, isn’t seeing much of a bump in his paycheck. “The price of lumber has gone way up, the mill’s making a lot more money, but they’re not paying us any more,” he said. “It’s funny how that works.””
Joe Biden’s immigration agenda overshadowed by migrant challenges in first 100 days Rebecca Morin. 4 29 2021. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2021/04/29/bidens-100-days-immigration-agenda-overshadowed-migrant-challenge/4821671001/ Biden to push citizenship for US illegal immigrants in speech despite surging border crisis Steven Nelson. 4 28 2021. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2021/04/28/biden-to-push-citizenship-for-illegal-immigrants-in-speech-amid-border-crisis/
“Some 5.6 million single-family homes sold last year — more than at any time since the housing bubble — and the prices of those homes were up 9 percent from a year before, according to the National Association of Realtors. The organization expects average housing prices to go up another 9 percent this year — another huge jump from the typical 3-5 percent annual price growth and far above the rates at which people’s income is rising.
Though not the root cause, the pandemic did accelerate those costs, as schooling and working from home made having a nice, large living space all the more important.
“It has reminded us all of the importance of home and how essential it is to have a safe space of shelter from the outside world,” Zillow Group principal economist Chris Glynn told Recode.
The pandemic also allowed subsets of Americans who remained employed — usually those who were more gainfully employed in the first place — to save money for a downpayment, as there was less for them to spend their money on.”
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“The reasons are demographic as well. Millennials, who make up the largest living cohort, have arrived at the age where they’re forming new households and buying their first and even second homes (though that milestone happened later than in previous generations). And as millennials with growing families flock to the housing market, the supply of homes has not been enough to keep up.
Many people, including older Americans who don’t move as much as young ones or who were afraid to let people visit their homes in the pandemic, are holding onto their homes longer, meaning many existing homes — which make up the vast majority of home sales — have not been entering the market.
Additionally, new home construction, though it has ramped up lately, has been depressed since the Great Recession devastated the construction industry. High lumber prices are also delaying and driving up the cost of new housing.
Finally, investor interest in renting out single-family homes as an asset class has led them to buy up much of the housing stock that individuals once would have. Buying homes to rent means there are fewer to buy to live in, which, by extension, has led more potential buyers to rent.”
“No American president has had to choose whether to go to war to defend Taiwan against a Chinese military invasion. President Joe Biden might have the decision thrust upon him.
The outgoing commander of US forces in the Indo-Pacific region, Navy Adm. Philip Davidson, told US lawmakers in March that he believes Beijing will attempt a takeover of the neighboring democratic island — which it considers part of mainland China — within the next six years. Davidson’s successor, Navy Adm. John Aquilino, expressed a similar concern days later.”
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“The four-stars’ predictions aren’t wholly shared by everyone in the administration. “I’m not aware of any specific timeline that the Chinese have for being able to try and seize Taiwan,” said one senior US defense official, who, like others in the administration, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive foreign policy issue.”
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“Experts I spoke to also felt Davidson and Aquilino’s claims are too alarmist and may be in service of trying to boost defense spending for operations in Asia.
But all agree that China is a more credible threat to Taiwan today than in the past. Beijing flaunts it, too. In recent weeks, China sent 25 warplanes through the island’s airspace, the largest reported incursion to date, and had an aircraft carrier lead a large naval exercise near Taiwan.”
“When the transit agency that serves Washington, D.C., replaced its aging trains during the last decade, it ended up paying about $400 million more than global averages—the equivalent of an additional 150 cars.
One major reason for the higher costs, according to economists with the American Action Forum who studied the D.C. Metro’s procurement process, was a federal mandate first imposed in 1982. It requires that equipment purchased by federally subsidized transit agencies contain at least 60 percent American-made components.”
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“The cost of “Buy American” provisions can be significant. An analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a pro-trade think tank, found that “Buy American” rules on the books in 2017 cost taxpayers $94 billion that year—$745 per household.”
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“Overpaying for subway cars didn’t make the D.C. Metro safer or more efficient. All it did was force riders and taxpayers to spend more for less. The same will be true of Biden’s policies.”
“This isn’t speculation. We know what this law bill will do to freelancers because it’s based on A.B. 5, legislation passed in California in 2019 that codified extremely restrictive rules controlling who was allowed to work as an independent contractor. The law was written deliberately to attack the gig economy and companies like Uber and Lyft, which operate on a business model in which drivers are classified as independent contractors. This means they can set their own hours and control their work schedules, but also means they don’t qualify for certain benefits. And it also makes it much harder for union supporters to organize them.
But A.B. 5 was written so broadly that in practice it affected thousands of different jobs, threatening hairdressers, freelance journalists, real estate agents, translators, musicians, and many, many others. Ultimately, the bill’s own creator had to pass legislation last year that carved out a bunch of occupational exemptions. The ride-sharing and delivery drivers were left in, but then California voters in November supported a ballot initiative that exempted them as well.
A.B. 5 is in tatters but is still officially on the books. A federal ruling had exempted truck drivers from A.B. 5, accepting the argument that it was preempted by federal transportation law. But on Wednesday, a panel of three judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed the lower court’s order, meaning that independent truckers may soon be affected by the law, hampering their ability to find work unless a company takes them on as employees.
Circuit Judge Mark J. Bennett was the sole dissenter, noting that “[California Trucking Association’s] members will now suffer irreparable injury.”
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“Embedded within the PRO Act is text to take A.B. 5 nationwide, despite California voters’ rejection of the measure. It sets the exact same rules restricting who is permitted to be classified as an independent contractor, regardless of what the worker actually wants. This, to be clear, is completely intentional. A.B. 5 proponent Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) dismissed the concerns of freelancers, saying, “These were never good jobs.” It was very clearly her goal to dismantle and destroy the ability for workers to decide to make careers out of being independent contractors.”