Inflation Is Under Control, Aside From All This Inflation

[rcjordan]

Inflation Worriers Still Have Plenty to Worry Them - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-13/inflation-worriers-still-have-plenty-to-worry-them

[rcjordan]

Companies sound alarm over commodity price hikes

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/companies-sound-alarm-commodity-price-hikes-77394274

[ergophobe]

Skyrocketing steel, lumber costs threaten to slow construction jobs

As material prices jump, contractors cope any way they can.
https://www.constructiondive.com/news/skyrocketing-steel-lumber-costs-threaten-to-slow-construction-jobs/594969/

[Brad]

> construction

Around here the smaller residential contractors (those that survived 2009) are going out of business or are stepping away for awhile.  The bigger boys are moving in and they can buy in quantities of scale that can offset the rising costs.

[rcjordan]

I'm waiting for Doc Cool to tell us about the rise in beef prices.  I hit the butcher shop last week and I may have to go vegetarian, hhh.

[rcjordan]

>construction

Soaring Lumber Prices Add $36,000 to the Cost of a New Home, and a Fierce Land Grab Is Only Making It Worse

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/business/money-report/soaring-lumber-prices-add-36000-to-the-cost-of-a-new-home-and-a-fierce-land-grab-is-only-making-it-worse/2478214/

[rcjordan]

Widespread Commodity Shortages Raise Inflation Fears - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/business/economy/commodity-shortages-inflation.html

[Travoli]

Not currently inflating: U.S. population.

"The U.S. birth rate is so low, the nation is "below replacement levels," meaning more people die every day than are being born, the CDC said."

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/05/us-birth-and-fertility-rates-dropped-to-another-record-low-in-2020-cdc-says.html

[rcjordan]

>population

That's how to handle the housing costs problem.

^{Debbie says:}
Everything ***Screams*** Inflation - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/everything-screams-inflation-11620163599

[ergophobe]

The big questions are:
1. is inflation bad?
2. for whom?

[rcjordan]

^{Well, this is going to cost everybody whether they know it or not.}

Copper Just Smashed Past a Record. Here's What You Need to Know - Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-08/copper-just-smashed-past-a-record-here-s-what-you-need-to-know


<aside>
Though my dad would not speculate on the stock market he would bet the ranch on .....copper pipe and copper wire.  When copper prices bottomed out truckloads of pipe & wire would start arriving at the wholesale business.  We'd have pallets & bundles of it stacked everywhere. 

[ergophobe]

https://www.longtermtrends.net/copper-gold-ratio/

Copper prices are high only relative to the recent past if you look at them according to the copper/gold price ratio. By that standard, it's less than half the cost it was a decade ago (when it was outrageously high).

Right now it's cheaper than at any time in history since 1979 (of course, that starts putting you into the era of regulated gold prices, so I'm not sure how useful that is)

[Brad]

Interesting charts.  There was a spike back in the early 1970's which I remember, because that's when some genius they came out with aluminum wiring for homes which didn't last long.

[ergophobe]

A new house that would have cost $10,000 in wood to get off the ground a couple of years ago now costs $40,000 worth of wood — assuming, that is, you can even get your hands on the lumber.

Since 2007, he sold off one sawmill and completely shut down two others; he employs about 700 workers now, but with those jettisoned operations, he estimates he'd have employed 500 more. 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.

https://www.vox.com/22410713/lumber-prices-shortage

[Brad]

I wonder if we will start playing with non-wood materials?

20 years ago people around here were playing with building with galvanized steel studs and framing members, pushed by the steel industry.  Never took off.  One small builder used Insulated Concrete Forms on both the foundation and kept going to form the outer walls above ground.  Very quiet inside.  Used a lot less lumber.

The problem is builders are so resistant to change.  So are the trade unions.