HerrSquid
Inspired
Read last night that the timber industry was in a 12-year lull of historically low demand, partially due to the Great Recession. Sawmills had shut down, workers were laid off, forests were going unharvested, nobody was making money on timber. So the market was in a period of low supply that met the low demand. Then the pandemic happened, some people were home with time on their hands, and started wanting wood for projects and remodeling. Demand went way up, supply couldn't keep up (it takes two years to open a sawmill to turn timber into lumber) prices shot up, and then things got even worse when speculators starting buying supplies up because suddenly there was stoopid money to be had if you had lumber to sell. I wouldn't discount the effects of people getting sent checks either, since it gave them money to spend on projects needing wood, and yeah, why work a crappy job if the government's sending enough money to squeeze by on?
Perfect storm.
Perfect storm.