101–110 of 156 posts
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I love the tradingeconomics site for tracking commodities prices. Indeed, lumber is at pre-pandemic prices from 5 years ago https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber
Cripes what is going on with orange juice.. there’s some seasonal patterns in the last 25 years, but the last year has just kept climbing.
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Labour is the biggest cost of house building. And during a pandemic, that is almost free, since many people are stuck at home with nothing to do.
I assume it varied greatly by region, but my experience was that it was extremely difficult to find workers during the pandemic response. It seemed like a combination of fear and restrictions, plus free money at least in the US. I saw hourly rates for physical labor jobs go through the roof, double the pre-response rates and still couldn't fill positions.
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A few factors - labour markets are very tight generally, new housing construction has increased, WFH and hybrid has increased the demand for renovating existing housing to make space for home offices (and improve the amenity of housing more generally).
Constriction of foreign-born labor as well https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/tough-immigration-laws...
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-rele....
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Metric makes the math easier, but it is much easier for me to relate to 40 board-feet of lumber than to 0.0944 cubic-meters.
Just like temperature. F is easier for me to relate to. 0 is very cold. 100 is very hot. We like it pretty warm, so 70-72 is great. Also F has a much finer scale for adjustments. I don't have to set my thermostat to 22.5 degrees to be comfortable. I don't really care about the boiling point or freezing point of water in my day to day life.
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And money was being printed left and right
How does that end up in the hands of regular people doing renovation or home builds?
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How does that end up in the hands of regular people doing renovation or home builds?
I'm sure some of it is down to LLCs owned in their names that took out PPP loans from which contractors building a home office were paid out.
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I'm sure some of it is down to LLCs owned in their names that took out PPP loans from which contractors building a home office were paid out.
What fraction do you expect that was? Even just giving a completely unfounded guess.
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I love the tradingeconomics site for tracking commodities prices. Indeed, lumber is at pre-pandemic prices from 5 years ago https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber
Cripes what is going on with orange juice.. there’s some seasonal patterns in the last 25 years, but the last year has just kept climbing.
Something similar happens with Spanish olives, and with them, olive oil. Most Olive groves are not irrigated, because they historically don't need to be, and we've had two very dry years. Production is down to 50% of what it was, and irrigating isn't cheap or easy. And again, replanting isn't a sensible choice, as the trees don't mature in a season. We can plant different kinds of corn and wheat in different places as weather changes: A winter that is a little too short, and too long, and big ag will sell you a different bag to adapt to your updated planting date with minimal yield losses. But not with trees.