Canadian Lumber Tariff

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Bestoutwest

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:banana: I love it! :banana: I watched Clinton sign NAFTA allowing for Canadian lumber to come in, cut and processed, cheaper than what the loggers in my area could haul it out of the woods for, which was one of the first financial stumbling blocks Maine faced. This is some good news for a lot of people!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-t ... story.html
 
Clinton surely got outsmarted on that deal. Another thing the Canadian lumber companies did to get around the dumping of lumber on our markets was they would drill holes in 2x4 studs for wiring and these were considered - by the lawyer types - manufactured wood products and were not counted in the quota they could dump here. This was not the intent nor the spirit of the deal but legally they could do it and get away with it.

I have mixed feeling on this but one thing I'm sure of is that this should have happened years ago because it wasn't right and it hurt a lot of people.
 
Well I sure don't have any issue with this. Government practically gives away wood up here from Crown land and skews the market from giving competitive bids on private land. Nail 'em to the wall boys! :banana:
 
For the record, I thought what the Canadians did was brilliant. It wasn't right but at least the Canadian government cared more about its citizens and their jobs than ours did. You guys wrecked our timber industry ..... well you didn't ..... our politicians allowed you to.
 
Well, cost of production up here has all sorts of additional costs you don't have.. lets start with the $1(minimum) gallon high fuel price.. Also, "anti dumping" laws don't care what the cost of production is in YOUR country.. You produce pork and chicken at far lower prices than Mexico did and put a lot of small farmers there out of business.., just one of many things that crashed their economy and sent people fleeing (you guys get to deal with that now).

I have an issue with "free trade" when none of it is free.. I can get parts (cost of parts plus shipping) from china for less than it costs me to put it in the next door neighbors mailbox!
I'm not a big fan of it the way it stands... there's tons of problems with it, but cheap labor in other countries is only a small part of the labor problem, I think automation has had a FAR greater effect, and it will get worse.. What happens when all the major retailers, McDonalds, Home Depot, Walmart all go to automated checkouts? MILLIONS of people out of work.. granted it's not great paying work, but what else is there for these people to do.. Where else is a high school kid going to get some work experience?
 
Nesikep":vvrzd4pk said:
Well, cost of production up here has all sorts of additional costs you don't have.. lets start with the $1(minimum) gallon high fuel price.. Also, "anti dumping" laws don't care what the cost of production is in YOUR country.. You produce pork and chicken at far lower prices than Mexico did and put a lot of small farmers there out of business.., just one of many things that crashed their economy and sent people fleeing (you guys get to deal with that now).

I have an issue with "free trade" when none of it is free.. I can get parts (cost of parts plus shipping) from china for less than it costs me to put it in the next door neighbors mailbox!
I'm not a big fan of it the way it stands... there's tons of problems with it, but cheap labor in other countries is only a small part of the labor problem, I think automation has had a FAR greater effect, and it will get worse.. What happens when all the major retailers, McDonalds, Home Depot, Walmart all go to automated checkouts? MILLIONS of people out of work.. granted it's not great paying work, but what else is there for these people to do.. Where else is a high school kid going to get some work experience?

Have no fear Nesi, the great Wynne El Dyko will save they day. Just send your unemployed to Ontario, and she will give them $17,000 each year, just for being alive, which they can spend on pot to celebrate the Great Hair Leader, who leads by example.
 
Aaron":2d5jcd1a said:
Have no fear Nesi, the great Wynne El Dyko will save they day. Just send your unemployed to Ontario, and she will give them $17,000 each year, just for being alive, which they can spend on pot to celebrate the Great Hair Leader, who leads by example.

The hipster lifestyle has its merits. Why work when you can buy jeans that make it look like you work. Work interferes with your free time.

As to the pork and chicken, NEKid might be writing a paper that addresses how this happened and how the food nazis protect the interests of these big conglomerates while pretending to serve the interests of the public.
 
Nesikep":zy5njdgk said:
I have an issue with "free trade" when none of it is free.. I can get parts (cost of parts plus shipping) from china for less than it costs me to put it in the next door neighbors mailbox!
I'm not a big fan of it the way it stands... there's tons of problems with it, but cheap labor in other countries is only a small part of the labor problem, I think automation has had a FAR greater effect, and it will get worse.. What happens when all the major retailers, McDonalds, Home Depot, Walmart all go to automated checkouts? MILLIONS of people out of work.. granted it's not great paying work, but what else is there for these people to do.. Where else is a high school kid going to get some work experience?

Free trade usually only works out for the few that are at the top. The rest of us eventually get screwed in one way or another. I've been worried about the automation problem for quite a bit. What I wonder is when you put everyone out of work, who is going to buy your product? Also, as a society, we're going to have to realize at some point that we're going to have to pay for labor (ie higher costs for products) or we're going to have to pay for welfare for these people to survive (ie higher taxes). I'd rather pay more for a product to keep people productive than to pay taxes and let people be idle. As they say, idle hands.....
 
Automation is a big problem and another one is subsidizing people to crank out passels of children generation after generation who contribute nothing to society. I think we need to address both these issues. It strikes me as ironic how the government will pass all these feel good regulations on hiring and levy hefty taxes on the employer - I'm actually fined by the city for each employee I hire - and expect companies not to automate. There is no incentive to hire anyone because its just a pain in the neck assuming you can even find someone qualified and not on dope.

Of course the other solution is to embrace the hipster lifestyle where you can get your arts degree at a university paid for with lottery funds then graduate in six or eight years and become a barister at Starbucks and live in your mom's basement and earn extra money demonstrating whatever cause George Soros pays you to.
 
Jogeephus":cikppe0z said:
Automation is a big problem and another one is subsidizing people to crank out passels of children generation after generation who contribute nothing to society. I think we need to address both these issues. It strikes me as ironic how the government will pass all these feel good regulations on hiring and levy hefty taxes on the employer - I'm actually fined by the city for each employee I hire - and expect companies not to automate. There is no incentive to hire anyone because its just a pain in the neck assuming you can even find someone qualified and not on dope.

Of course the other solution is to embrace the hipster lifestyle where you can get your arts degree at a university paid for with lottery funds then graduate in six or eight years and become a barister at Starbucks and live in your mom's basement and earn extra money demonstrating whatever cause George Soros pays you to.
I really do think that's "barista"... though it's a good laugh to start my day!

I agree, hiring good people is hard to do... At my last 'real job', though I wasn't in the position where I had to make the calls, I did see every new hire and often had the joy of training them... I was able to see in about 5 minutes if they were decent or not.. mouthpieces who were all talk, the guys who'd look for your left handed hammer, the guys who wouldn't believe you when you said "left handed drill bit",.. etc

We all suffer from all the same problems, and the cause is the same everywhere.. working against each other doesn't really help anyone, it just shifts the problems elsewhere.
One thing I gotta wonder is how big does a company really need to be? There are some things where it's beneficial for everyone (vehicle manufacture would be one), but when it comes to other things, like farming, I start to wonder... At what point is chasing the lowest cost of production bad for us? Is it better to have 100 farms with 100 sows or 1 farm with 10,000? Perhaps using the smaller farms a strip of bacon would cost $.01 more, and in fact I do believe that everyone can actually afford that extra cent, the benefits of everyone paying the extra cent means a lot to the farmers and surrounding towns with big dividends in spinoff jobs
 
Nesikep":uizr9es8 said:
One thing I gotta wonder is how big does a company really need to be? There are some things where it's beneficial for everyone (vehicle manufacture would be one), but when it comes to other things, like farming, I start to wonder... At what point is chasing the lowest cost of production bad for us? Is it better to have 100 farms with 100 sows or 1 farm with 10,000? Perhaps using the smaller farms a strip of bacon would cost $.01 more, and in fact I do believe that everyone can actually afford that extra cent, the benefits of everyone paying the extra cent means a lot to the farmers and surrounding towns with big dividends in spinoff jobs

The problem is that we, as a society, are told that we HAVE to pay rock bottom prices for things. The reason being is so that we can buy MORE of things that we don't really need. Companies are getting bigger and bigger, and putting out worse products. People used to have jobs as they Maytag Repair Man. Now you just go buy a new one. We have a throw away culture, and it's not going to get better. So if we're not concerned about quality, why pay more for it? It allows these companies to produce more and more, maximizing profits and get bigger and bigger. All the while, the customer is getting hosed.
 
Bestoutwest":2xim9big said:
Nesikep":2xim9big said:
One thing I gotta wonder is how big does a company really need to be? There are some things where it's beneficial for everyone (vehicle manufacture would be one), but when it comes to other things, like farming, I start to wonder... At what point is chasing the lowest cost of production bad for us? Is it better to have 100 farms with 100 sows or 1 farm with 10,000? Perhaps using the smaller farms a strip of bacon would cost $.01 more, and in fact I do believe that everyone can actually afford that extra cent, the benefits of everyone paying the extra cent means a lot to the farmers and surrounding towns with big dividends in spinoff jobs

The problem is that we, as a society, are told that we HAVE to pay rock bottom prices for things. The reason being is so that we can buy MORE of things that we don't really need. Companies are getting bigger and bigger, and putting out worse products. People used to have jobs as they Maytag Repair Man. Now you just go buy a new one. We have a throw away culture, and it's not going to get better. So if we're not concerned about quality, why pay more for it? It allows these companies to produce more and more, maximizing profits and get bigger and bigger. All the while, the customer is getting hosed.
Yep, absolutely!...
Though if the prices ACTUALLY reflected manufacture costs and the savings were ACTUALLY passed on to the customer, it would be one thing, but when there's 5000% markup on garbage on it's way to the consumer, that's another story.
I know I've mentioned this before, but there's a little microswitch in excavator controls, and they often get broken or burn out.. Finning (CAT dealer) wants $15 each for them.. I got them out of China, 40 of them, for $9.75 CDN including shipping. so $0.24 each.. and I'm sure if I bought 1000 I'd get them for half that price yet.. It was 2 years ago that my buddy started installing them and none have failed yet, so they can't be that bad.
Another friend of mine imports tires.. He gets them for under $100 USD for any pickup tire, including swampers and fat tires... and they last every bit as well as the ones for 3x that price.. I bought a dozen 235/85R16 10 ply for $1000USD.. I'm set for a while. I actually am sick of the "Shop local" bullcrap when they use it as an excuse to gouge you, and you, as a local producer, gets your prices compared to big box store prices. Pay me a fair shake for my local product and I'll be more inclined to pay your higher price.
</rant>
 
In 1987, we bought 1010 acres for 265 and acre. It had 500 acres signed up in a CRP program to plant trees, thanks to R. Reagan who saw a shortage coming. That program paid us 40 dollars an acre for 10 years to tend to the trees and after the 10 years the trees were ours. These trees, and i'll assume there are hundreds of thousand of these CRP trees (because who wouldn't get in that program) now at saw timber size, as ours are. I'm thinking we wont miss any trees from Canada for a while...
 

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