Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

Ah, the U.S. government pays for the building of logging roads, the U.S.
government sells "trees" at ridiculously low prices to big business timber
outfits such as Georgia Pacific, LP, PalCo, etc.  A lot of those logging
roads that the taxpayer is paying for are on private land.

The high cost of building houses in the U.S. is due in part to the big boys
selling a ridiculous amount of timber to places such as Japan!

Lynda
----- Original Message -----
From: Walter H.Jeffries <Highlands AT blacklightning.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Homebuilders nightmare, Big Timber dream - Not


> On Sep 1, 2004, at 9:41 PM, Tvoivozhd wrote:
> > For Bush, turning National Forests over to State thieves isn't
> > enough---has to sweeten the pot for Big Timber by a 27.5 percent
> > import duty on Canadian lumber---adding $2000 to the cost of building
> > each house in the U.S..
>
> It is not as simple and easy as you present. I'm in the timber
> industry, although not 'Big Timber' - we only have about 1,000 acres.
> We do sustainable logging on our land, that's private land, without
> government subsidy. On the other hand, the Canadian government
> subsidizes their industry considerably. In addition to subsidizing the
> harvesting of the trees the Canadian government has put a lot of money
> into updating the private mills.
>
> The cost of updating mills is so high and the market has been so
> volatile that small mills, which is primarily what exists within
> trucking distance of us, can't afford the cost to upgrade. The Canadian
> government's subsidy to their industry made it so they are now more
> competitive. This has helped the Canadian mills and put a lot of mills
> in the USA out of business. In part, because of that we have to now
> ship our logs further, be it in the USA or elsewhere.
>
> Now here is the irony, we produce primarily high grade maple from our
> forest, without government subsidy, and much of it ships north TO
> Canada as well as to points as far away as Japan. Why would it ever
> ship TO Canada you ask? Because their mills have finer cutting blades
> and can make better use of the wood with less waste. This is because
> they had hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from the Canadian
> government to update their mills. It is then reimported back into the
> USA for use in furniture making, cabinetry, etc or sent to Japan and
> points East as veneer for knickknack boxes and other fancy trinkets.
>
> There is a good reason for there to be an import duty on Canadian
> lumber, it is because the government paid for the upgrading of the
> mills, the buildings of the roads, reduced lumber taxes, etc. If this
> will equalize it a bit and make it so that more lumber comes,
> sustainabily, from our own forests and is cut by our own mills who are
> then able to compete with the subsidized Canadian mills then that is
> good. That is what import duties should do - They correct imbalances.
>
> It isn't quite as simple as you present it and it's not all 'Big
> Timber'.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -Walter
> West Topsham, Vermont
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>
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