Monday, November 4, 2013

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

The following chart shows annual production and nonsupervisory logging employee hours worked.


Click to enlarge.

That dog don't hunt.

Unless the long-term trend changes, it would seem that about the only logging we'll be doing in the distant future will require a username and password.

October 9, 2013
Here’s the Report That May Have Prompted The Lumber Liquidators Raid

Conservation groups say forests in Russia’s far east are known for large scale illegal cutting operations. Illegal logging brigades comb forests for high-quality varieties like Mongolian oak and Korean pine, cutting down trees in the middle of the night and passing them along to illegal saw mills. From there, traders mix the illegal wood with legal wood and Chinese manufacturers use fake documentation to smuggle so-called black wood out of Russia to sell to Western retailers.

Source Data:
BLS: Employment

12 comments:

Fritz_O said...

...traders mix the illegal wood with legal wood and Chinese manufacturers use fake documentation...

Some things will never change.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Fritz_O,

Some things are just too shocking to be true!!

This is probably not one of them, lol. Sigh.

I refer you to my profile. When I set it up back in late 2007 it asked me a random question and I decided to answer it.

You've just inherited a manufacturing plant that specializes in plastics. What are you going to make?

I suspect I'd be making an apology. Might just as well start contacting the lawyers. What are the odds I'd inherit a melamine plant though? Talk about bad luck!


Check this out.

Melamine Poisoning In China: Why Did Most Survive The Food Safety Scandal?

In 2008, at least six babies died and 300,000 became sick after being fed infant formula that had been deliberately and illegally tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.

mab said...

Barking? Tree?

Those strike a chord but I'm not sure why.

Makes me think of pulp, fiction, paper, economy?

Luke The Debtor said...

Has anyone taken a look at Russia's far east? It look uninhabited.

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

Strikes a cord? Of wood? Match that!

I better knot continue lest I'm decked and screwed over. Some get board of puns for peat's sake! I've been piling them on lately and risk becoming plumb out.

That said, if you saw what I saw then you'd have trouble pruning back too. There's something rotting under the economy's veneer.

Nothing sticks. Literally. Much of our hole economy was built with nothing sticks. That's why we can't nail the recovery and get back to harvesting the old growth forest for the trees. See?

Stagflationary Mark said...

Luke Smith,

Russian Far East

According to the 2010 Census, Far Eastern Federal District had a population of 6,293,129. Most of it is concentrated in the southern parts. Given the vast territory of the Russian Far East, 6.3 million people translates to slightly less than one person per square kilometer, making the Russian Far East one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world. The population of the Russian Far East has been rapidly declining since the dissolution of the Soviet Union (even more so than for Russia in general), dropping by 14% in the last fifteen years. The Russian government has been discussing a range of re-population programs to avoid the forecast drop to 4.5 million people by 2015, hoping to attract in particular the remaining Russian population of the near abroad.

mab said...

There's something rotting under the economy's veneer.

Well, the plan is to keep whittling and chipping away at the core until even the median 1 percenters feel pinched.

We're close, but not there yet. No worries, gentle Ben assures us he has plenty of tools in his tool kit. The main hacking has been done. What remains is mostly marquetry!

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

How much wood could a hacksaw saw if a hacksaw could saw wood?

Puns just whet my whittler!

Ben uses a unique tool that most of us don't own. It's a combination of a hammer, saw, axe, and monkeywrench.

He swings it wildly and let's the chips fall where they may. Although he's a doctor, macroscopic surgery leads to long recovery times, especially when spurting lifeblood is involved!

Law of the Macroscopic Surgical Instrument

I suppose it is tempting, if the only surgical tool you have is a monkeyhammeraxesawrench, to treat every big bleeder with a bailout.

mab said...

I'm not sure of the rules, if there are any.

Chord, cord? Marquetry, market-tree?

Regardless. Wood you like to extend the "produce" to Sports!

Warren Sapp, Tree Rollins, Ryan Leaf, Forrest Gregg, Tiger Woods, Cliff Branch, Charles Barkley, Jonny Bench, Arthur Ashe, Jacques Plante, Adam Oates, Reggie Bush.

As you can see, I'm in a grove. I could go on, but I'm betting board.

What's more (or less), I have no idea how to tie all this together. Oh well, if we can have a stand of trees, a stand of grass, why not a lot of stand alone sports names begging to be puns.

I don't make the wooden rulers, only the yard-"sticks".

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

What's more (or less), I have no idea how to tie all this together.

Ties are dangerous.

1. A missing tie can derail a train of thought.

2. The tighter a tie becomes, the more noose it is.

3. A tie can lead to sudden death, or at the very least a win by default.

“The growing number of students who have defaulted on their federal student loans is troubling,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said.

mab said...

Ties are dangerous.

Indeed, that's why I'm not willing to call it a lucky draw. You're clearly the bettor man - going all in on a long term tip(s).

That was quite the Oscar award winning Gamble.

Oil well played!

Btw, some claim that radicals are dangerous too. Not sure why.

Perhaps it's a "sign" of the times. Or perhaps it has something to do with the theatre of the obsurd.

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

The Gamble could have turned into a trip to the Proctorologist to get this consumer's assets stapled, but hindsight shows TIPS actually wasn't the crappy investment Siegel thought it was.

I would free radicals, especially those who live in Tribet. It's a humanitarian trifecta. That said, 3-1 leverage can be risky. Don't start with a large ante oxidant unless you're royally flushed. You can expect a raze in this economic environment, so play your house of cards close to your jest. It's ultimately your call. Just don't fold by default if you can help it.

Speaking of the help, the 1% say there's a bull market in help wanted men.

The Bon's Jovial. Marche right in. Load up. What could possibly go wrong at department stores long-term?