[ortusdux]

Also:

- WFH people fleeing high COL cities, buying fixer-uppers, and paying whatever to renovate

- Rolling covid shut-downs of companies that make wood products like OSB glue or treated wood chemicals

- Freight costs

- Trailing effects from a bad fire season and the Texas ice storm repairs

- Tariff repercussions

- Russia is planning to stop exporting raw logs next year. They are about 12% of the worlds supply.

- Speculators profiting off the volatility

[jdhn]

>- Russia is planning to stop exporting raw logs next year. They are about 12% of the worlds supply.

Why would they do this? Is this a way of getting back at the US for sanctions? Seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot.

[dragonwriter]

> Why would they do this?

Raw logs are an input; it drives up the price for external industries dependent on lumber and drives them down for domestic industries, sacrificing raw material exports for more competitive intermediate and finished goods exports.

Since for the most part economic development depends on having exports as far toward the finished goods end of the raw material to finished goods spectrum, its not an insane strategy if you can deal with the short-term dislocations.

Shifting competitive advantage is harder than leaning in to your existing competitive advantage, but sometimes your existing competitive advantage is a long-term loser.