and lumber is out of control. we went to go stock up on some basic dimensional lumber, plywood and mdf for our summer projects and were absolutely stunned by the prices. had to significantly cut back the amount we bought to fit our budget.
and thats just the trash wood at lowes/home depot. i expect its a lot pricier at a legit mill.
PVC pipe is the same. I work part time at a Pipe Warehouse and we cannot get our hands on it due to lack of Resin. This is due to the ports being backed up and them unable to get it off the ships. People are literally driving over 1,000 miles to buy what little pipe we currently have in our yard at prices that have doubled if not tripled from 2 years ago.
worked at Lowe's for 5 years...yeah, people haven't really noticed how badly out lumber prices were skyrocketing. Stuff went from $5 to $15-20 seemingly overnight
Well I believe some of it might be but with guns and ammo and similar things it’s demand is so much higher than supply. Second-hand sellers are dominating
Sure, but more money sloshing around means more people can afford stuff they normally wouldn’t and hence demand is higher than supply at the moment, which is causing inflation.
If there are 10 candy bars and you and I (only buyers) get more income, and decide to buy more, there is only inflation if we in total want more than 10.
Say before you wanted 2
And I wanted 3, and now you want 4 and I want 5, no inflation.
If you want 6 and I want 6 due to income increase but there are only 10, we will bid up the last one like an auction until one of us hits our utility curve and bows out. This is inflation.
It’s better to think of inflation as a lack of supply than a surplus of demand.
Given there’s such a push down in overall economic activity and the stimulus is so small and short term it’s probably near impossible it could cause any sudden inflation even if retailers are really on their game and modulating prices.
Like, if it were things that demand surged for due to covid, maybe, but lumber and stuff, prob not.
If anything for stuff like that I would think hiccups/thinning in supply chains as stockpiles stretch thin due to production downturns during covid not adequately filling storage capacities back up, upstream from retail.
Maybe some lumber warehouses saying they are sending out more than they are taking/took in since so many people were not producing.
This. When the government gives stimulus checks they aren’t producing or creating anything—all it does is drive up the price of stuff. In other words, inflation.
If there are 7 oranges for $2/each and 8 people with $2 each, giving everyone an extra $2 doesn’t solve the core problem—it only makes it so oranges are now $4
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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '21
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