Capital

The manufacturer's acute seasonal need for short-term credit drove them to the one market where they knew they could get quick cash, even if it meant that they were forever selling lumber at lower prices than they liked. Under such circumstances, the only way they could keep up with costs was to cut more trees, contributing still further to the overproduction and saturated markets that had created low prices in the first place.

Chicago thus became the focal point of a vicious circle: Undercapitalization caused overproduction, which in turn kept prices low and accelerated the destruction of the northern forest. The Lumberman summed up the problem by attributing it to "so many men"¦ striving to carry on a larger business than their capital will warrant and, as a result, having to turn natural capital into liquid capital merely to survive. "The only reasonable explanation of this paradoxical state of affairs," the Lumberman's editors wrote, "is that the mill men are using up their capital, as it exists in the form of stumpage, for no other end than simply keep themselves in business."

My grandpa had our land logged back in the late sixties or so. The guy measuring and buckin' the logs was using his thumbs at each end of the log and stopping the measurements there, basically gaining the width of his thumbs twice on each log. My grandpa witnessed it and realized it was a pattern, so he said something to the guy. The man's reply was "Mah boss says if I caint steal my wages, he don't need me."

Grandpa let ol' thumbs keep going but knew who not to trust in the situation.

When I was in the lumber business way back when, most of the dimensional lumber came from the west coast the mills would saw up the trees and put the product on rail cars no orders just product they were called rollers plywood was also included in this mix , at the time Little Rock Ark was the trading center and I being a distributor for GP could watch the prices change as the lumber and plywood rolled on the rail back in the 70's 1/2 cdx was going for right around $ 6.00 a 4x8 sheet I watched a roller change price as it changed tracks to different locations the end up price was right around 12.00 the supply and demand game was way back when too

Chuck gets it ;)

I'm stumped.

Hey, I know a lot of roofers who are like that! :blink: