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213 comments on DrumBeat: March 21, 2008

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NeverLNG on March 21, 2008 - 9:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Nothing is moving from the yard at Warrenton, OR Weyerhauser mill. They are said to be losing $1M or more a month. No doubt, this is a pattern everywhere. Weyerhauser just sold its containerboard unit to International Paper --

We'll all be eating potatoes out here on the coast pretty soon -- and happy to get them, I believe.

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mcgowanmc on March 21, 2008 - 10:08am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thank you for that. I know in Arkansas last year there was a wave of
pine mill closings.

No, it was 2006!

Maybe Bernanke should consult these guys:

"TIED TO HOUSING Annual housing starts, which peaked at more than 2 million units in 2005, fell in September to the equivalent of fewer than 1. 2 million units, a 40 percent drop. Because the typical new wood-framed home requires about 15, 000 board feet of lumber, the 800, 000 drop in housing units translates into a roughly 12 billion board feet drop in lumber demand. That decline compares with about 2. 45 billion board feet of softwood lumber production in Arkansas in 2006 and total U. S. softwood consumption in 2006 of 60 billion board feet, according to the Southern Forest Products Association.

Lumber prices and demand are not expected to improve before spring 2009.

“They think that 2008 will be just about a carbon copy of 2007,” said John Grigsby, operations manager at H. G. Toler & Son Lumber Co. in Leola.

Henry Spelter, a forest economist at the U. S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., agrees. "

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/207546/print/

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neon9 on March 21, 2008 - 10:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Lumber is about the only construction material declining in price and has been for a good year or 2...

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ET on March 21, 2008 - 12:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Glass half full....
This will give forests a chance to recover.

Same paradigm, in fact, applies across the mine and harvest spectrum.
Bad for the economy = Good for Mother Earth

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aangel on March 21, 2008 - 6:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This came to my mind too, if only I could believe that it wasn't just delaying the inevitable...

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tstreet on March 21, 2008 - 7:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Just arrived here from the other thread about how we need to stop growing. But as soon as a crisis hits, we mainly talk about how horrible it is that we are consuming less of our natural resources in the form of lumber, for example. We are going to do everything we can to keep the growth economy going. Fear and greed trumps all.

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