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"The way you stop it is you go back to a much more old-fashioned form of accounting and things. You know, I have a son who is so good with computers. He's a young person and he can make these things sing and when you put everything on internet and on all of these machines -- you never see a piece of paper -- I really think that you have to go back to a different form of accounting, a different form of compiling information."'
https://secondnexus....ks-paper-varney
Meanwhile, the Biden administration's response to the lumber shortage is...
'Amid surging lumber prices that are already adding an average of $36,000 to the construction cost of new homes, the Biden administration is moving forward with plans to double tariffs on lumber imported from Canada.
The Commerce Department announced [...] it was taking the first step toward hiking so-called "anti-dumping tariffs" on Canadian lumber [...] for 2019. Yes, 2019. If approved through what is likely to be a lengthy review process, the tariffs would apply retroactively to purchases made for the past two years. That means American importers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in taxes they didn't even know they would owe—taxes that will likely be passed down the supply chain in the form of higher prices.
That's only the first bit of insanity here. Anti-dumping tariffs, in theory, are meant to cancel out what's seen as unfair subsidies for foreign competitors to American companies. They are supposed to be deployed in order to prevent import prices from becoming so low that they threaten domestic producers—even though there's really nothing terrible about low prices for imports.
But lumber prices are anything but low right now. In fact, they are up over 250 percent in the past year, and the price per thousand feet of board lumber just hit an all-time high.
[...]
The current price surge for lumber—like similar increases for many other goods—has been triggered by a shortage of supply as pandemic-closed sawmills have been slow to reopen even while demand for lumber has steadily climbed, driven by robust demand for new housing. Import taxes aren't to blame for this mess, but they certainly aren't helping.
Even the Trump administration, which counter-productively hiked tariffs on everything from steel and aluminum to washing machines and other consumer goods, realized that much. Trump approved a lumber tariff hike in 2017, but his administration cut those duties in late 2020 amid concerns about the rising price of lumber.
[...] manufacturers are concerned that tariffs are helping to drive inflation across the entire economy by artificially jacking up prices for many commodities[...]
With prices skyrocketing, the best thing the federal government could do is sweep aside impediments to supply chains. Instead, the administration is erecting new barriers which will protect domestic industries.
Unfortunately, [...] the law guiding the U.S. anti-dumping tariff process explicitly forbids consideration of how new duties might impact consumers.
[...]
Denying the reality of how tariffs work doesn't always look as buffoonish as the Trump administration often made it. Sometimes it just appears to be rote bureaucratic activity. But the result is the same, and Americans are going to keep paying the price until the Biden administration learns that.'
https://reason.com/2...-make-it-worse/
Hélas, my stonks... in a way I hate Biden more than Trump. Hating Trump feels like hating a mental patient, or a toddler with a severe brain injury....
'Fox News, CNN Decided Not to Broadcast Trump's First Major Speech Since February
[...] MSNBC did end up airing portions of the speech but only as background while correspondents commented on the event.
"Fox is sticking with a pre-taped 'Watters World' instead."'
https://slate.com/ne...h-carolina.html
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 08 June 2021 - 10:59 PM
