Why wood prices are going up

[Grandpa]

Saw a piece on TV last night where the price of wood (ply/OSB etc) is going sky high because the Fed Gov is buying huge amounts to do some rebuilding in Iraq. They showed a guy here (Albuquerque) who was adding a room, old cost $14k, new cost with wood prices going up, $20k. They interviewed a contractor who also verified the huge price increases in the wood he's purchasing to build homes. Mind you, NOBODY has said anything about any sort of shortage (which there will not be). They said the 4x8 sheet of what they called 'wafer board' that cost $7 last month was at $20 now and still climbing. I may have to hold off building the storage shed I'd planned on doing. WTF is wrong with this picture.

[Bruce]

We're the only nation that blows up countries then puts them back together again. Kuwait, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and now sights are being set on N. Korea, Iran, take your pick.. Wouldn't it be a lot less trouble to not blow them up in the first place?

As for plywood, the demand in Iraq is NOT the reason for the increase according to an article posted her a few weeks ago. Search the archives.

[Leon]

The wood industry has adopted the Oil industry way of pricing.

[Doug Winterburn]

We had the tip of the gasoline price thing here in Phoenix, supposedly because of a pipeline rupture between Tucson and Phoenix (the gas comes from Texas via pipeline to Tucson). 3/4ths of the Phoenix supply comes from California via another pipeline (owned by the same people as the Tucson/Phoenix pipeline).

Took a month to drive to Washington State, and what to my bewildered eyes should appear but hugely escalating gasoline prices because of a pipeline rupture in Arizona? I keep trying to understand the connection, especially since everything I read says no supply problem, but still searching for an answer.

-Doug

[Leon]

I live in Houston,,,Premium hit $1.84 a gallon, and a very large percentage of the nations refineries for gasoline are here.. Never was a shortage here either...

[Gfretwell]

I think we are still trying to recreate the success we had with the Marshall plan. I bet there are people making money in Vietnam, just not us "poor" folks. We did create a market for Marlboros there. I assume our long range plan in Iraq is to create a consumer culture so we can get our oil money back. How much we spend for oil is not as important to the fat cats as where THEY spend the money we ship over there. Unfortunately we don't make much here to sell them.

[Traves W. Coppock]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 04:16:08 GMT, "Leon" Crawled out of the shop and said. . .:

hell up here in the twin cities area we have three major pipeline heads, and two refineries fed straight outta the gulf. . . never had a pipeline bust open and yet, strangely every time one "breaks" somewhere else, or there is a major blackout, or a fly lands on a beanstalk in the mediterranean, , , we suck on it at the pumps. price is finally below 1.60 here from labor day...

Traves

[Lee Gordon]

Of course wood prices are going up. That stuff doesn't grow on trees, you know.

Lee

[Charlie Self]

Doug Winterburn notes:

It is probable that we need to return to the early '70s and the windfall profit tax laws. A lot of this price gouging would disappear if there were no extra profits made.

Charlie Self

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." Samuel Johnson

[Dr. Seuss]

Heck, we maxed at about $1.89 for low grade, premium was something around $2.15. I think it's still about $1.75 for 87 octane.

I'm all for free markets, but it definitely makes you ponder things like "price fixing" and "collusion" when every different gas station has prices within $0.03 of each other and all change them at exactly the same time. Doesn't really smell like market competition to me.

Even so, we still pay a crapload less than just about everywhere in the world for gas, so it could be worse.

Mike

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Premium hit?

Premium here in CT is currently $1.98-$2.05. Yesterday I paid $2.01 for my 93 octane lawn mower gas. We paid $2.99 a gallon last weekend for 100LL aviation gas for my buddy's plane, and that has a lot less taxes than "street gas".

87 octane is $1.79-$1.90.

Barry

[Leon]

"B a r r y B u r k e J r ." >

Yeah but you live in CT, every thing there is within spittin distance.. ;~) A typical to work and back trip is 40 miles in Houston. PLUS..!!!! All you CT folk is rich ain't ya???? I guess we all could be in CA... LOL

[Renata]

Dontcha know:

*the NE blackout caused a refinery to close for 4 days and

*folks decided to take vacations, just as their kids are getting back to school and

• someone discoved the mideast is unsettled (nothing to do w/population)

Renata

[Mike in Mystic]

haha

I'm in CT, too and my wife drives 52 miles each way to work, and that's usually in an SUV that get's 18 mpg on a good day. :( The last 3 times I've filled up I had to pay over $30.

Of course, I only drive 6 miles each way to work, so I'm not really complaining.

Mike

[Kim Whitmyre]

I just heard the Thief-in-Chief mention 87 Billion dollars. . .And most everyone else said that was just starters! It is worse!

Kim

[Doug Winterburn]

I heard the Congress mention 400 billion dollars for drugs for everyone - including Bill Gates - And that is just for starters. It is _much_ worse.

-Doug

[JC from Gnat Flats]

Yes there was! Didn't you see that fuel delivery truck broke down on the LaPorte Freeway last week? That was the reason supply was so short for a few minutes. Then, they let it slip that the truck was on it's way back from a delivery. And the price immediately dropped a nickel.

It's the old "any refuge in a storm" theory. "Any reason to gouge a nickel".

[JC from Gnat Flats]

Yea, everybody knows OSB is made out of chips and particle board is made out of sawdust.

[Larry Blanchard]

The article in our newspaper this morning said the Iraq purchases would have been a momentary blip if not for other factors coinciding. I don't remember them all, but one was that the mills had cut back production last fall vecause of low prices so reserve supply was nil.

And then there's Isobel :-).

[dennisvogel]

Bwaaa ha ha! That's a good one. Got any more?

Don't expect anyone in Washington to give a rat's ass about windfall profits and price gouging. They think that's just the market at work. Bwaaa ha ha!

Dennis Vogel