We're Going Down...Not just me Brother, YOU!

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Burvol

Bullbuck
Joined
Apr 10, 2007
Messages
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Location
West Coast
I can't help but be concerned for me, my whole family, friends, and logger buddies here. But....everyone here will feel it too. It is mind blowing when you no longer take logs, anywhere. We are heading into some dark times, things that we will never forget.

The market has finally collapsed in my area. Gone. The Chip market is suppose to be viable in 2013 here. No one wants to cut logs until around 2012 here. Our export yard is set to close permantly as well.

My point is, there is not enough inventory to last 2-3 years. What do people see ahead? DISASTER.

Logging is a great barometer of the nation's health. No one is building or fixing things, expanding, ect. This is going to effect all of us here on AS, not just loggers.

I just wanted to say it's more than bad, it's looking like hell. I picked up a thinning job for a month or so, and I am greatful. I want to cut logs this year, but I will stop thinking about it now, and do my best to survive this mess. I'm telling you, it's even worse than the news and people are led on to believe.

Part of this seems planned to me. Kill the markets. Kill logging. Kill Urban Growth. Kill the expansion of America. Move everyone into the cities into affordable Ghettos. Put nature behind glass, go visit it and bow in worship.

The new age is here, ready to roll. Thanks Black Jesus.
 
the current government is taking us down a road that will be very hard to come back from. they INTEND to put us out of business, it fits their vision of the world.
 
the current government is taking us down a road that will be very hard to come back from. they INTEND to put us out of business, it fits their vision of the world.

All the while calling me and you the culprits, not the stewards of the land.
 
Well Burvol, I know the wildland fire fighting company I work for is governed the lumber market at least for revenue. Once our larger logging companies here in Douglas County go down, so will we. Right now Huffman & Wright only has two rigging crews running. I don't even know if Allen & Gibbons is running a crew. We are on a sinking ship.
 
Burvol, I hear you about logging being hard hit. I have lots of friends in the industry here in Ontario and it is life changing atmosphere. A lot of people are having to get their mind around it aint coming back and when it does it doesnt look good for the little guy. Here it takes big capital to get into the mechanical harvesting and you cant make a go of it if you have to beg for financing. The banks wont touch anything forestry related and insurance companies either. I dont think we can blame the government for the bust in the housing market that is behind a lot of the issues in logging. That mortgage bust and the bust in the whole manufacturing business has been building to a head for a long time. When the dust settles out (and it takes a few years) a lot of people will have downsized their housing, their vehicles, their entertainent and the whole shebang. There will be a big adjustment.

I came hear in 1956 with the Uranium boom in Elliot lake (they called it Uranim City of the world) You could not believe the activity and the feeling of wild abandon as there was previously a fair recession following the Koran war and people just busted loose with their wallets and their lives.
I also saw the mines closed in about 95 and the shafts sealed, headframes and all surface structures gone and grassed over. Open pit mining out in Saskatchewan made our shaft mining here totally out of viability. It may be mined again in the future but it will be too late for anyone to wait for.

The denial and resistance to changing gears was rough on a lot of people and caught them unprepared even though the writing had been on the wall for yeaars. This last happenings in the word economy is much more of a shock to a lot of people and it is very hard to find a niche when so many people are suddenly all looking for one. Competition gets ridiculous for the remaining crumbs. I had a gravel trucks and a bit of equipment that I used to keep me busy between my stints away on construction but the displaced people from the mines bid the prices down to where a reasonable profit was not possible no matter how efficient an operator you were. I sold my equipment before i ran it into the ground. Sometimes you just cannot outstarve the desperate as when one folds another comes along to relace him.

I dont know what to say but I have seen people try to hang onto what they can no longer afford and the ones that unloaded were better off. If things pick up they can be replaced; if they do not, well, you would not have been able to afford to play with those toys anyways.
 
Hell of a thing to wake up to Burvol. I feel your pain though I have never been in a situation like yours. Obama cares about photo ops and retoric, not about real people especially out west. We stand to loose our timber industry, mining, grazing and crop production all in the name of social progress. I think right now we are circling the drain. Oh wait the government will bail us all out. After all they own the printing presses.
 
Well, I'm a Democrat so it won't affect me,, I got friends in HIgh Places....feel sorry for you publicans though...


actually some of my thoughts, if voiced would have the black helio fleet swarmming all over me...:censored::censored:
 
You may be confusing cause and effect. That everybody is hurting, hurts loggers. But yes, we are in a heap of hurt and are drilling holes in the bottom of the boat to let the water out. A pick up in logging might be a great sign. You cut the trees long before you furnish the house.
 
I just heard yesterday, that another of our mills is done... Plum Creek shut down the Polson Mill... 89 more families out of work. They say they'll close the the Plum Creek Evergreen Mill this fall... That leaves the Plum Creek Columbia Falls Mill... Who knows if that one will make it?

Stoltze Lumber (If they make it?) will be the only one left in the valley here... Our unemployment rate climbs every day.

I put in for a job managing a warehouse yesterday, the gal called me two hours later to get more info... She said they've been inundated with hundreds of resumes and applications--most are completeely unqualified for the job... Which means she has to sift through all the applicants to find the viable ones to present to the employer.

This ISN'T a lucrative job guys... It starts at $13.00 an hour with some bennies. The cap on the position is $17.00 an hour... And guys are fighting over it like it pays 65k a year.

It's getting hard, and will only get harder for us, while we have these globalist moron, idiot, mouth breathing, jerks running the country.
 
Got to say that the building trades in the UK aren't exactly doing well either, the financial year thats just ended this april has been one of the worst that I remember, I would be surprised if I made half the amount I made the year before.

Not done my books for it yet as I don't want to depress myself.
 
All of this isn't new. Logging has been on the way out for over 20 years. "Engineered" lumber, synthetic building materials, and reclamation has streamlined the way builders use materials and the need for continued processed new lumber. The strongest market in the last ten years besides the exports has been custom-dimension sawn lumber.

If you look at America's economic base stretching back 30 years, we've moved from a manufacturing and export economy to a service economy. What this basically means is that you'll have to trade your chainsaws in for other tools.
 
All of this isn't new. Logging has been on the way out for over 20 years. "Engineered" lumber, synthetic building materials, and reclamation has streamlined the way builders use materials and the need for continued processed new lumber. The strongest market in the last ten years besides the exports has been custom-dimension sawn lumber.

If you look at America's economic base stretching back 30 years, we've moved from a manufacturing and export economy to a service economy. What this basically means is that you'll have to trade your chainsaws in for other tools.

I definitely agree... Hence, I was talked out of a fallers apprenticeship back in the late 90's.

I miss the woods horribly though.:cry:

I dropped two nice firs the other day, and dang near got all hot and bothered!! LOL
 
I posted a large list of mills closing and cutting back in the PNW on another thread. Its dismal. 20% unemployment in rural Oregon now. 12% statewide. We lead the nation now. The mills cannot run skelleton crews forever, and they cannot stay shut for long either. So a lot of the mills are going the way of the sawdust burners here. The next building boom will probably be supplied by imported lumber form Siberia. Or the logging industry will be socilized under ObamaVision, Inc.

BTW: Chrystler Motors is going under as of today too. GM may not be far behind. We have a ways to go on this economic road to disaster.
 
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