Price of wood reporting

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 00:51:53 GMT, B a r r y
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 16:30:03 -0400, Tom Watson <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>
>>Same thing happened to me. Guy spent an hour and a half on the phone
>>with me and when the article came out - I hadn't the slightest idea
>>who he was talking about.
>>
>>It was a weird feeling.
>>
>
>Was it Charlie for" Woodshop News"? <G>


Nope. It was the theater reviewer for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Musta been transferred there from the National Enquirer.

I think he's still around.

But I don't read him.

Gave the play a nice review.

But missed the whole point.



sigh...




Regards,
Tom.

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

"John Grossbohlin" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Re the WSJ article, is John Lucas amongst us???

John "How Does He Do That" L, is out trollin' for more babes, would me my
guess.
How does he do that? ;^)

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>
> 40 years ago, and the first time I read an article in which I'd been
> interviewed, I flat ass couldn't believe the reporter and I had been on the
> same planet .. it has gotten much worse since.
>
Yep - I've been misquoted on paper and misrepresented on TV - I've
learned to expect it :-).

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

"Leon" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>"Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>>
>> 40 years ago, and the first time I read an article in which I'd been
>> interviewed, I flat ass couldn't believe the reporter and I had been on
>the
>> same planet .. it has gotten much worse since.
>
>
>I have always heard that the news paper was written so that a 3rd grader
>would understand it.
>I think that a 3rd grader actually writes the articles.

I believe the WSJ is written to the level of an 8th grader. Just read
it in "Growing A Business" by Paul Hawken (of Smith & Hawken). BTW,
it's an excellent book thus far.

JP
***********************
Meliora.

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:35:53 -0500, "Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote:


>40 years ago, and the first time I read an article in which I'd been
>interviewed, I flat ass couldn't believe the reporter and I had been on the
>same planet .. it has gotten much worse since.


Same thing happened to me. Guy spent an hour and a half on the phone
with me and when the article came out - I hadn't the slightest idea
who he was talking about.

It was a weird feeling.



Regards,
Tom.

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

"jo4hn" wrote in message
> Any chance you could post the article for those of us who are members of
> the unwashed?
> scruffy,

We know better now that we've seen what you look like. Not bad for an old
dude ... sir.

;>)

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 7/10/04

He usually is here offering good advice but I haven't seen any posts from
him as of late.

Bob S.

"John Grossbohlin" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Re the WSJ article, is John Lucas amongst us???
>
>

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:14:14 -0700, Charlie Self wrote
(in article <[email protected]>):

> For anyone who recalls the reporter who was asking about the price of wood
> for
> an article, look in today's Wall St. Journal.
>
> Inaccurate, interesting, makes me wonder why I didn't get a job writing that
> kind of stuff a long time ago. Six email messages and four phone calls and
> you've got your week's work done.
>
> Charlie Self

Sticker Shock At the Lumberyard; Remodeling Gets Costlier As Price of Wood
Surges; Impact of China and Iraq

Avery Johnson .  Wall Street Journal .  (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.:
Aug 11, 2004 . pg. D.1

SUMMER REMODELING PROJECTS are getting more costly, thanks to rising lumber
prices that are affecting such things as backyard decks and fences.

Lumber prices have risen sharply during the past year, due to a collision of
factors as diverse as the war in Iraq, trade with China, the strength of the
dollar, the housing-construction boom and wildfires in the American West.

The wholesale price of low-grade boards and plywood used in home- improvement
projects like decks and additions is up 24% from June of last year, according
to the government's producer price index. An ordinary eight-foot-long,
two-by-four, a common type of lumber used for building construction, costs
$2.95 today, up from about $1.85 in January 2003, says Gary Bowman, vice
president of materials management at the T.W. Perry lumberyard in Chevy
Chase, Md.

The biggest jumps have come in plywood, a low-grade product made by gluing
together very thin sheets of wood, as well as oriented strand board, a
lower-cost product much like plywood. At Wiley Bros. Inc., in Schaghticoke,
N.Y., a four-foot-by-eight-foot sheet of oriented strand board now goes for
$19.84, compared with $7.60 in January 2003, says co-owner David Moore.

The tumult in the lumber industry means higher prices for homeowners planning
to remodel, add a deck, put up a fence, repair a shelf, build a treehouse, or
create anything else that requires wood. While the higher prices aren't
slowing down housing construction, they are hitting do-it-yourselfers hard --
creating order backlogs at lumberyards and forcing people to slow down
projects or look around for cheaper grades of wood. Some woodworkers are even
trading lumber on eBay in an effort to find better prices.

At a Home Depot store in northern Virginia, Dennis Griffin, a 41- year-old
firefighter, grumbles as he scans the prices on the plywood he wants in order
to build a stage for his 15-year-old daughter's Irish-dance competition. The
four-by-eight sheets he used last year cost $15.95 this year. So he does what
many other do-it-yourselfers are doing and settles on 24 sheets of oriented
strand board that cost $9.98 apiece, cheaper than plywood, but still twice
what he paid last year.

"The prices are through the roof, probably double what they were last
summer," he says. "It's a hassle but it has to be done."

The Remodeling Activity Indicator kept by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing
Studies shows homeowner spending on improvements isn't climbing as fast as it
was a few years ago, though second-quarter spending was still 4% above the
year-earlier quarter. Homeowners spent $125.8 billion on home improvements
during the past four quarters.

Demand for lumber has been strong since the home-building boom took off
during the late 1990s. Rains in the South in spring 2003, followed by summer
fires in the West, caused mill closures. Then Hurricane Isabel hit Florida in
late summer 2003, boosting demand for plywood used in repairs.

Early last fall, an urban legend that the Pentagon was rebuilding Iraq with
American plywood took root and caused even more panic buying in the industry.
In fact, Marcia Klein of the Defense Logistics Agency says the agency bought
just 20 million square feet of plywood sheeting, less than 1% of the U.S.
consumption of plywood.

After that, many lumberyards miscalculated. "In May there was the
anticipation that demand would start to drop as interest-rates rose, but that
didn't happen," says Butch Bernhardt, director of information services at the
Western Wood Products Association. When lumberyards ran short, prices
climbed.

Other complicating factors include a building boom in China that sucked in
imports, a 27% tariff slapped on imports of lumber from Canada -- which
supplies 30% of U.S. lumber consumption -- in May 2002, and a weaker U.S.
dollar that makes imports from Europe more costly.

The higher prices are boosting the profits of timber companies. International
Paper Co. reported second-quarter profit more than doubled from the previous
year. The company received a significant boost from higher wood-product
prices, spokeswoman Jenny Boardman says. Weyerhaeuser Co. reported record
second-quarter net earnings of $369 million, more than double its
year-earlier results, and cited the rise in prices.

Home Depot Inc.'s first-quarter profit rose 26% on strong sales gains, but
the company won't say how much its retail lumber prices are up. "Because of
our scale and buying power we can minimize the impact of the price increases
on consumers, but it's still likely consumers will see some price impact,"
David Sandor, a communications director, says.

Many big home developers are simply absorbing the higher prices -- a
relatively small part of a new house's cost, compared with land or building
costs. And where builders do pass on these relatively small costs, home
buyers aren't deterred, amid the frenzied rush to take advantage of low
interest rates.

That leaves individual consumers feeling the pinch. One shopper at Home
Depot, Hanni Hernandez, says she has sunk more than $1,000 into wood this
summer for trash and storage bins she is building by her Washington, D.C.,
home. "I suffer a little sticker shock every time I come here," she says.

For tight-fisted consumers trying to hold down their costs, some economists
suggest waiting for prices to drop. Lumber prices are expected to cool a bit
in the fall, as a normal seasonal decline takes hold and higher interest
rates kick in. A trade pact with Canada that could be negotiated in December
would greatly reduce prices of lumber and plywood.

That is the strategy Tom Bozzuto, chief executive of developer Bozzuto Group
of Greenbelt, Md., adopted when he dragged out the purchase of lumber for a
housing development while waiting for prices to cool. For apartments that
cost $70,000 in materials and labor to build, the cost of wood was about
$8,000. This summer's prices added about $4,000, so Mr. Bozzuto bought as
much wood as he needed week-by- week.

Some suggest customers consider new materials to replace the plywood
traditionally used as wall sheathing. Styrofoam can replace plywood in
nonstructural projects for about $9.50 compared with $14.50.

Brian Papa, a principal at the high-end Brooklyn, N.Y., design-and- build
firm called MADE, says he substituted medium density fiberboard -- a product
that binds residual wood from lumber production with wax and resin -- for
veneered plywood in a showroom to save money.

John Lucas, a 67-year-old amateur woodworker from Hope, R.I., who runs a Web
site called woodshopdemos.com, says trading down wasn't an option for a
bookcase and dollhouse he made for his granddaughter. He spent $130 on poplar
for the project.

But for those who want to save money, he recommends checking eBay. The
on-line auction site mainly draws hobbyists trading hardwood in relatively
small quantities, and some specialty lumber providers sell online. Thai teak
plywood sheets were on offer recently for $3 a piece. EBay is best if a buyer
knows what he or she wants before heading online, he notes.

He also suggests consumers use phone-book listings or a neighborhood
woodworkers' association to track down local mills. The same piece that would
retail at $6 at stores and lumberyards often can be had at a mill for $1.50.

Charlie Self wrote:
> For anyone who recalls the reporter who was asking about the price of wood for
> an article, look in today's Wall St. Journal.
>
> Inaccurate, interesting, makes me wonder why I didn't get a job writing that
> kind of stuff a long time ago. Six email messages and four phone calls and
> you've got your week's work done.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories -
> those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost." Russell
> Baker

Any chance you could post the article for those of us who are members of
the unwashed?
scruffy,
jo4hn

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 16:30:03 -0400, Tom Watson <[email protected]>
wrote:


>Same thing happened to me. Guy spent an hour and a half on the phone
>with me and when the article came out - I hadn't the slightest idea
>who he was talking about.
>
>It was a weird feeling.
>

Was it Charlie for" Woodshop News"? <G>

Barry

"Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> 40 years ago, and the first time I read an article in which I'd been
> interviewed, I flat ass couldn't believe the reporter and I had been on
the
> same planet .. it has gotten much worse since.


I have always heard that the news paper was written so that a 3rd grader
would understand it.
I think that a 3rd grader actually writes the articles.

"Charlie Self" wrote in message
> For anyone who recalls the reporter who was asking about the price of wood
for
> an article, look in today's Wall St. Journal.
>
> Inaccurate, interesting, makes me wonder why I didn't get a job writing
that
> kind of stuff a long time ago. Six email messages and four phone calls and
> you've got your week's work done.

40 years ago, and the first time I read an article in which I'd been
interviewed, I flat ass couldn't believe the reporter and I had been on the
same planet .. it has gotten much worse since.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 7/10/04

"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

<Charlie Self says "I'll take World Injustice for 200, Art!">

>
> Inaccurate, interesting, makes me wonder why I didn't get a job writing
that
> kind of stuff a long time ago.

Bzzzzt! "What is 'integrity'?"



> Six email messages and four phone calls and
> you've got your week's work done.

On the one hand, six and four more that William Randolph Hearst would have
done...
Jayson Blair, slide over!

Re the WSJ article, is John Lucas amongst us???