there's 8.1 billion people on the planet and when I was born it was 3.7 billion people. 50 years? abrupt global warming is already causing massive drought and famine. Five years we'll be lucky to have civilization at all.
FYI: AI or rather Office Automation tools have been decimating Office jobs since about 2018. These are Cloud based systems that can do a lot of the work office works have been doing: ie. accounting, IT, HR, Legal, Sales, etc. IT has probably been hit the hardest as companies no longer need to run their own servers. It can take about 10 minutes to spin up a new virtual server, which would typically take days or hours. The AI your referring to doesn't have much impact yet, but it probably will start having some impact in a few years. For instance companies can use AI visual & audio tools to create ads & marketing material without needing to hire actors & graphic designers. I believe the interactive chat AI will be leverage for sales & customer support (phone calls). The jobs that are least likely to get replaced are the low wage retail jobs: ie food prep, grocery stores, etc because the cost of the robots & operating them is just too expensive. Another class of jobs that won't get replaced are hands on jobs, Trades (carpenter, Plumber, electrician), mechanics, repair, etc.
Im a carpenter and a farmer in Ma, We are hurting in all sectors. Ive been waiting over a year for the front end of my tractor to get fixed. I brought my truck in for an alignment. Got it back and I dont even think they looked at it just billed me. When the next round of old timers retire and take their lifetime of knowledge into retirement with no young workers to pass down their knowledge we are going to be in serious trouble. Its not just population its practical knowledge. Even grandparents didn't pass down enough to our parents and our parents didn't pass down much to us. I think its how this country looks down on practical knowledge.
I think you are right. I have heard similar stories from multiple people in multiple sectors regarding the transfer of knowledge. When I was in high school we had some trades programs you could take as part of your regular classes. I was in the more "advanced" classes designed for entry into college, and there was a very real stigma against the trades. We were made to feel like they were beneath us, so I never took them. I still regret it many years later. I've been making it up in adulthood by welding, wrenching on cars and motorcycles, logging, and playing with tractors and hydraulics, but I'm at a real disadvantage as I only seem to learn by breaking things. I have to learn the hard way what could have been easy. But I do think the culture is starting to turn the corner on this, at least. Younger generations are starting to value these things more.
The remainder of the boomers retiring is a massive problem. Don't feel the need to explain why because I think we're experiencing the same thing everywhere.
@@thetimberlandinvestorI'm genx and we were led to believe that a 4 year degree was an absolute must or we'll always be poor. I do see the shift you're talking about with the younger generations mindset. Hopefully, they can fill the gap that the boomers are leaving behind.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. US population is at 330 million? Risen 50% in 50 years. So population growth is not the savior. Is lack of labor 30:24 not a workforce balance problem
I live in one of the towns that is closing a sawmill and i can tell you that it is not a labor shortage that is hurting this mill. The labor shortage is a by product of no housing here. It is affordable housing for the mill workers issue. People do not want to work at the mill and drive almost 50 miles one way. That's 100 miles a day. No new homes or any affordable housing can be built here with out a sewage treatment plant. The residents here voted down a sewer bond issue that would have made building new homes here a reality. They didnt want to pay for it on their prop tax. No sewer treatment facility means no new housing here. The nearest town is Missoula which is 46 miles away. Even the mill here tried to build wanted to build homes for employees with mill money but the city turned them down.
I lived in Missoula for the better part of last year (friends put me up while I scoped out the University) and while I was there it was voting season for a number of levies, mainly for the school district. Most of my friends and their friends rented, so I never heard much from them. But damn near all the people I encountered who owned property were Libertarians or MAGAts or hybrids. These people would *not* shut up about the property taxes and the levies; one guy I saw mimed crossing "no" all the way down his ballot. I suppose if you lived there full-time you'd get the impression that taxes are insane given how expensive everything was and how high people had to be paid to even apply for jobs.
@Theomite When I turned 18, I asked my mom how to vote, and she said, "Vote NO on all bond issues." Many, many years later, I vote NO on all issues as they have been found to use misleading language that sounds good, but the after effects were not at all as advertised. Example: CA lottery was promoted for school funding. We didn't know that was so that they could actually greatly reduce funding from the state budget and fund the schools instead through gambling.
Building code laws will not allow Biodegradable toilets. (Read on Google) Codes won't allow AWGs either............free water from Atmosphere.... see Google search. Gen8 is one brand. For about $10,000 you will have absolutely free water from the air. People on the peninsula Eastern VA, have salt water coming into water wells because of the Chicken houses that raise chickens in terribly cramped situations.They carelessly use huge amounts of water/ day. When we called to ask them why they don't use Commercial Grade AWGs, they didn't even know what they ARE!!! They can produce 10,000 gallons of good clean water per day . They also can run on Solar generation........... there is no excuse we can't build low cost housing, tiny houses or Silo houses for people who are middle class waged............. The lady asked me to send her some info on them and she was shocked that every single city demands you use their stupid water loaded with medications, cysts, bleach etc. These are simple fixes to Corporate greediness. Begin informing people and Supervisors about AWG so we can all irrigate our crops with free and the most clean water on earth. There are no Microplastics or Nano plastics in water you get free from an AWG.
Maybe the mills need to take a chapter from Fort Mac, Alberta, build onsite residences and have crews work 15 days on and 6 days off. Crew housing are a billed minimally (Usually 50% of the cost) to each employee for food and lodging then they drive or fly home for their time off!
@@MishaDaBear That is a great idea and the mill did try to do that but because of the lack of a sewer system they could not get the build permits. And when a new sewer system came up for a vote it was turned down because they dint want the additional property tax. So the town people sort of cut their own throat by doing so. They are trying to get money from the govt but good luck with that.
You think a business owner would rather close down their business, and make all the infrastructure, connections, contracts, equipment useless, just cause he wants more profit rather than pay more? You really see no flaw in that logic? Like you're saying these business owners rather to give up all their profit, than just a chunk of it to pay employees better... Is that what youre saying? Does that make sense to you?
It's the overhead. You add up all the overhead like tax, social security, medicare, healthcare, unemployment , workers comp, there is such crazy overhead that especially for those types of jobs 2/3 of the money never reaches that employee. The $15 an hour that the employee takes home may cost the employer $50/hr
If that were the only case then prices on goods wouldn’t keep rising. I get what you are saying but profits continue to increase over time to the point of unsustainable if you don’t pay your workforce equally with profit levels.
@@SuperBennnnnnnnn my employer gave everyone about a 10% pay raise last year and they backdated it 6 months so we all got paid the difference in a lump sum. So it happens. Companies which reap higher profits without pay raises may end up in a pickle like this sawmill
US industry, as a whole, is far to top-heavy. Making America great again actually means that business will need to trim owner /mgt compensation to support worker wages that will be livable.
Sounds like commie talk. Paying workers a liveable wage and decommodify housing, disgusting. Don't you understand that those at the top are barely making it out here. /S, just in case anyone can't tell.
@@joshgorham750If people who work full time don't have enough to live but the ones who pay them have upwards 200 times what they make...what makes you think thats not a problem created by business? As for the government it wouldn't be hard to make them pay. That whole "they'll just go to another country" thing doesn't actually work in practice and reduces their overall profit by a large amount.
This is a great video looking at this topic. We live in rural NW Montana, and it is no wonder that these businesses are struggling. Wages are $15-17 an hour but rent is $1100-1300 for a one bedroom! The kids (young adults) can barely move out. Forget having a family etc- that math just doesn’t work. And you hit the issues spot on with having to do absolutely every single thing yourself. Literally everything. Car repairs, home maintenance, yard care, all types of professional services…. Totally exhausting and discouraging. An example of this is a recent repair job my husband did on our pressure tank for our water system- $500, one hour of labor. Price quote to have it done- $2300. Totally crazy.
@@quentins8165 $1200USD is $1640CAD. It's not a perfect comparison. This also isn't an urban area like Calgary or Edmonton where there are good job opportunities. This is more like living out in Grande Prairie, but without the oil industry.
It's an economy problem. Too much borrowing. Eventually, the interest is paid through inflation. People just have to suck it up that things arent going to be like they used to. Blame the fed.
Welcome to reality of WTO and NAFTA. USA wages were massively too high compared to the world and STILL are. That is basic reality. Steel workers in China make $120-->$150 a month ..... A MONTH, not a day, a MONTH. Steel workers unions in USA get paid ~$50 an hour. Do the math, for industry after industry.
My brother does vertical integration. He has his own sawmill, kiln, molder for making cedar and pine shiplap and tongue and groove. He does tons of custom sawmilling for people who bring him there logs. He buys at least 20 truck loads of sawlogs every year. We do our own logging and Forestry Management on our 120 acre farm and neighbors properties. I sell firewood for a living. My younger brother and I do landscaping and tree removals. Endless work when u are your own boss. I used to stack lumber in a big sawmill for $11/hr before taxes, 10hr days. I said enough of that after a few wks. Then Worked several months for a tree service place bc i love cutting trees. i can make more money selling firewood and splitting wood everyday rather than work all week for just $440 for backbreaking labor. Went to uwsp to get my degree in Forestry Management. I loved every day of Forestry lectures and outdoor classes . Neverending cycle learning about trees and everything involved in Forestry Management practices and silviculture. Plan on growing my firewood, logging business and eventually getting into mulch business to turn all our slabwood and tree removal brushand woodchips into cashflow. Forestry and farming is my life. My dad had a circular sawmill and franklin Forwarder when I was a kid. Learned alot about Forestry from him before he passed at 59 last may. Life is too short to not do what u love in life
That's the future. Forget about college. In fact, you should be very careful if you are going to college. You should chose a degree that will actually return your investment. I myself when to college for a BS in Electrical Engineering that paid me very well, but I'm in my 50s and got a very generous scholarship. If I were in my 20s today and wanted to pursue the same path I would first get some certification as Electrician or A/C technician, would go to work and save my money for college, would take every class I could on a community college or while in high school and only would go to university part-time, while working during the day. Blue collar work is back big time.
As an ex maintenance superintendent of one the the closing mills in Montana I find your realistic views refreshing. Too many mill executives and politicians are banking on being able to find workers to run their mills by installing computerized equipment. But that doesn't help as that equipment requires more specialized labor to maintain the sensors and proximity switches, etc. I think you are completely correct in your vision of small operators harvesting timber and sawing their own logs to fill a market that will always be there. I actually do this on my property. I can see the need for a centralized coop type arrangement with dry kilns and planing/moulding operations. Great video! Thanks!
@danonly7 his talking points are based on info and almost the same talking points from a person who specializes on Geopolitics . His name is Peter zeihan
Trades have done it to themselves. How many applicants do they turn away because they don't have the three to five year's experience required for an apprentice's position...? Answer: All of them.
Minimum wage isn't enough to live on. Unless youre going to support extensive public housing or food programs, paying below minimum wage is just going to lead to people leaving the unaffordable areas. Price stabilization in any market will take years to correct but people don't have years to wait for that to happen@KingMinish
I work for roseburg forest products, basically they have cut there work force almost in half in the last decade, but want the same production their quality is garbage now days. I dont think there is a shortage of worker's young, middle age or old people will work to eat. They have the nerve to tell us everybody is lazy. They dont want to lay people off, they just scared half there work force away through fear mongering. People just quit almost everyday. Who wants to be treated like shit everyday also lied to. Im having a hard time thinking its because of birth rates. These companies are just garbage now days. I watch them waste more money on a daily basis then i make working for them in a lifetime.
So true. I worked as a union carpenter off and on over the years and have since retired for the most part. I worked last year for a acoustical ceiling company in southern Utah and one of the owners said "We can't find good help". Most everybody is Mexican and make crap for wages. I said "my son can make more delivering food than working for you". They then will leave thousands of dollars of material on site and another owner will go to Mexico for mission work???? Maybe just stay here and look at paying your employees more. I worked on a school just 3 blocks from my house and was able to get $30/hour because they would not have to pay per diem.
not sure 🤔im buying the video's china 🇨🇳 sense's number's as there a current trend ( reflecting closer to ~3:1~ over-pop Male's and or husband-role's ) of MTF/trans and or cat-fishing scammers, not dissing trans ( for now still wouldn't rise up the birth-rates as SRS and or transvesite/cross-dressing currently doesn't generally include fully functional organ's/pregnancy-carry etc, that's from politically related generally not medically speaking ) or intersexual's as some aren't there for the $$/scamming-etc and nature might be trying something to rebalance-retroactively 20-30 years after-birth ( undo-ing the $$ and prestige's/society-pressures of male eirs/family-name etc, or they were there all alongside but hidden as im not formalised with there law's and social experience normal's vs uk 🇬🇧 or USA 🇺🇸 's taboo's ) the sex/rolelife-number's to be more equally 🤷♂ usa's scammers are age or male-catfishing sis-female's or mixed more so vs china's or at least what i can understand being connected with USA 🇺🇸 intelligence publication's/newspaper's for employee vs bosses some in my lifetime haven't paid up/60h=0-usd and or happy to cheating the system's in place that my assessors put there, for me kids for now are outside of my abilities like $$ etc
Bingo. This, so much of this. Wage workers are treated like garbage up and down the spectrum of income. There's this really weird hierarchical dynamic, among other things, that sort of treats the work as if it gets done no matter what, as if there's no one attached to that work at the end of the day. Not to get political, but for reference sake, the $140 million Trump got fined for tax fraud recently. That is around 12000 years of minimum wage labor. And that's a pittance compared to whets floating around in the economy and the government. It's roughly the equivalent of employing an entire suburban neighborhood or small town worth of income for their life times, something like 500 people. GDP goes up but makes no difference for the vast majority of people, talking like 70%+. Average rent in 2000 was 1/10th minimum wage. $650 vs $6.25. Today, granted wages are more dynamic, but notably lagging behind the average rent of $1900-2100 and fed minimum wage of 7.25, and depending on locale, anywhere between $11-20 now (good luck finding an apartment for $2k in Cali). Future projections based on these differences. In 2050, rents will be anywhere from $5k-8k and minimum wage, if we are lucky, will be federally backed at around $30. I highly highly doubt wages are going g to keep up w any of that. I hate to be pessimistic, and there's a fair bit people can do for themselves in most cases, but I warn everyone to GTFO this country. We are hitting the fan is so many ways, we are going to fall behind eventually. But more to what you're talking about. My gf (in Ireland), she was in between a layoff and had to take a job. Chalk it up to the 30 or 40 years behind me reality in the country vs the cities, but she was signed on for roughly half her industry, role, and wage standards. And she's management and still getting paid significantly less than her peers and newer people coming in. It's like, how did this short end of the stick come around? The answer is leave the job, of course, but tight labor market there, can be months or a year to find the specific role or viable work and pay, so just have to suck it up, it's ridiculous and arbitrary. For everything she's doing, she should arguably be making almost twice the money, but she can't because her boss is a prick and hierarchies are static and arbitrary. She's also routinely dumped on with the work of 3 or 4 different roles, and generally treated like shit because she's a woman. The handful of other women at this engineering firm in various positions feel similarly. The many do most of the work for very little and the few get most of the money for very little relative work. Something is gradually going very wrong. We are working for the economy but the economy isnt working for people anymore. It don't know what this man's exactly, but it feels like we are going faster and faster whilst standing still and like we are surrounded by cliff edges.
UA-cam algorithm recommended this video. After watching all the way through I understand why, you were talking about, Economics, Social studies, AI, Mexico, America, China, developed and developing countries, immigration, Latin America. Very interesting and I liked the video. I wouldn’t have thought this video would be for me, but the algorithm definitely does. Now I’m more interested in Mexico after hearing your experiences.
I own 80 acres of mature trees. I own 2 tractors, a 30' saw mill and drying/storage structures. Cant sell lumber i produce to be used in construction because of state laws concerning grading. As soon as i pay someone to grade it, ive lost most profit. And it doubles my labor. It sounds good but so much would have to change, legally for it to work. Im in Florida
I am a laborer in the sawmill industry. Operating many machies, from band saws, gang saws, circular saws, scragg, debarking machine. Further i sharpen both band saw blades and circular saws including changing tops as needed. This includes outside machinery from forklift, tard truck, endloader, forwarder. I have seen the same decline of workers in my state.
@joefish6091 absolutely, I make more than enough to support a family if i were to choose such. But I enjoy having play and investment opportunities at my disposal
Prefab bunkhouses are needed for a quick fix. Can't rely on the public to provide worker housing, although if they did it could be lucrative, as my friend found out in Jackson Hole.
@@alipainting Yeah those workers should live in garbage conditions next to work kek. But yeah all those resort towns pretty much have to provide housing for the seasonal hospitality employees it's kind of scary to think hard labor jobs are gonna start going that way.
@@brianbeard7278bro this is how it was done before we made all this infrastructure. In Australia we fly out to the mine sights and they have housing built for us. It’s actually really nice and we get free food, full gym, billiards rooms etc. I get payed enough to afford a little home with some land in Queensland & a UTE
I work with a lot of foreigners who are here on a visa, and most of them just seem to think that the U.S. is the land of milk and honey. It took me going around the room and having all the Americans tell how much debt they had for one of my coworkers to realize the U.S. isn't as rich as they thought.
@@d.unterreiner161 no we're very rich, but a lot of people make stupid decisions. Why did you go into debt for your women's study degree? Why did you go into debt to buy 300 acres if you didn't have a good business plan?
First time viewer...what a great video! My grandfather logged the Willamette valley from the mid 1930s until his passing in 1983 and I currently live in a village in Bali where forestry is a major part of the economy. You are spot on in your analysis, including I think, the hope. American boys are turning away from the horrific college system, and the key is to point them in the direction of trade skills. That carpenter you're waiting on can afford 4 kids, I guarantee😁 I believe this return to the proper valuation of skilled labour and the men who perform it is the key to rebalancing American culture and strengthening the desire for family formation over endless vacation. You're a very impressive young man mate, and I'll definitely check out more of your content. Cheers and blessings from Bali 🙏
Yes, and the 'carpenter' these days is just an assembler of pre-made components. All frames & trusses made in the factory, as are some entire transportable houses, so they are just assemblers of made up components. To see the difference view 'The Essential Carpenter' film on Y T to see the way it once WAS done stick by stick ! By a professional valued and trained in his craft !
As someone who came from a rural area what disappoints me most is the sheer arrogance of people facing the precipice. There is so little humility, curiosity, or even willingness to entertain the possibility that the world view they hold is crumbling in on itself. When the economic decline is brought up there are always 100 excuses, it’s always someone else’s fault. The evil people out there who hate everything. It’s reassuring to see others from such backgrounds actually interested in why rural decline is happening and what can be done about it or at the very least how our expectations should be tempered.
Greetings from Portugal, Europe. Your video is the spitting image of my country. Everything you said was 100% right, but I will add one more thing: the hard labor jobs were already disappearing BEFORE the birthrates started to collapse. The rural exodus and the social stigma concerning rural life made these jobs socially undesirable. Even today, kids want to be influencers, computer programmers, doctors, Ceos, etc. And they have parents that can afford to financially support them, until they get their "dream job". 50 years ago, not only parents couldn't afford to feed their children while they waited for their personal unicorn, people also didn't have a problem working as farmers or carpenters. The lack of these kind of jobs comes from a society that despises manual, hard labor. It doesn't come from low birhrates. That obviously helps the problem to be bigger, but it's really not THE cause. America coud be drowning in babies today and it still would have a lack of farmers and lumber workers. This is obviously my personal opinion. Congrats for the video, keep up with the good work :).
I'm not really disagreeing with anything you've said, very interesting by the way, I wonder if you realise how early birth rates started to drop in Portugal. The numbers I found from the World Bank, Macro Trends (this might be the same data as tWB) and Pordata have the last fertility peak being at about 1963 for Portugal and in 1983 the fertility rate dropped below the replacement level of 2.1.
@@kalebdaark100 ,You´re quite right. You're a very good reasearcher :) . The rural exodus started in the sixties and, 20 years later, the fertility rate started to drop. We have to come to the conclusion that the city lifestyle is not for babies...
I think the idea the colleges and education industry promoted starting 2 or 3 decided ago, namely that if you don't have a college degree you are sh#t and low status has made people think something useless like a sociology degree is worth more to society than a mechanics training, and going to trade school is for low life's. They did this to insure an increasing number of students even though the population in that age was decreasing. The raised prices for higher education faster than any other economic sector even faster than the medical industry. It's not been population collapse it's prestige collapse. When all the PhDs in sociology are asking if "... you want fries" with that. And it's 2 months to get your car repaired and your mechanic is getting paid similar to the attorney, maybe things will change.
I have been turning my tree service in to a mushroom farm and sawmill. I used to have 7 guys and did alot of work now we do mostly crane removal so less labor. Everything you said are the things that pushed me to change my whole business model over the last 2 years. Happy to hear other people see the same things i see with the tree world.
They need to pay higher wages for hard Manuel labor, jobs. The overall population isn’t even that healthy. Most people are not healthy enough to do manual labor. Ask the average American to do a pull-up or go for a jog.
Its not about paying higher wages. Most of those trades pay quite well better than most jobs. The issue is they expect you to already know how to do the job or know someone in the union to join. When you artificially increase pay such as collective bargaining in union or legislation like the fast food minimum wage you end up decreasing supply of available workers. Which is great for the people that remain but in the long run leads to ruin
Im a hardwood flooring contractor in MN. I made $27,000 last year. Im moving back in with my parents this year. I'm 43, and its been a bit of a shitshow.
@@Ts7n I have a freind that does this. Amazing margin but not enough true rich people here locally to make it full time. Mostly posers in debt looking for fake-work.
which is normal... as the government is the one who writes those notes. Also, right now quantitative tightening is going on. So, that's "de-printing," right?
I was looking to move not too long ago, I'm a truck driver, and I asked about hauling lumber... The company I talked to basically said that I would have to learn to work a crane loader, in addition to working midnight to noon shifts for a little more than minimum wage. That kind of thing, is a sign that an industry has a enormous problem. And it's not going to get solved until some real questions get asked.
@@dd805100 must be. But who's gonna work for 'em? Maybe illegals? But I moved to Texas and I short haul plastic cups for 6 figures.... What hope do they have in South Carolina to get drivers?
I 100% don't think anything you said was a buzzkill. In fact, I think overall it's a good news story baked in the depths of necessity and hardship. A fascinating and more importantly, a well delivered, oration.
1. If you keep the cost of housing low (the largest expense of living) then you could keep wages low and people working. But when the wage can't keep up with rent or mortgage, people have to look elsewhere. But if housing was cheap, people could afford to get paid less and live comfortably. Even with costs of goods being high. 2. As for forestry. They want people with degrees and experience. I have looked into forestry. That makes no sense especially for what they are willing to pay.
I think there is more to the story, A very old mill in Mississippi just closed, said they can't find workers. Since I don't live there I don't know the situation. For me it has just become too expensive to work. If I can't afford a reliable vehicle or car repairs I find it pointless.
@@whome1636 yes. working itself in the '1st world' is very expensive itself.. getting things like food and water is very easy if you have time cook all day... being in a highly productive high stress job requires a lot. auto insurance is very expensice, automobiles are unbelievably expensice(not basic transportation anymore), rent in unreal, buying prepared food, dealing with stress..... working itself is very expensive in the 1st world..
As a nurse concerned about the population collapse (which will be catastrophic for elder care), amateur econ nerd, and fellow Mainer, i appreciate everything about this.
You can still have a long ride (decades) if you are good at your job and are willing to move a bit. Be the most caring nurse and take all the CE you can (except all that DEI scam stuff, just the real disease prevention and medical courses). You'll do all right.
Fascinating discussion… as a carpenter/handyman always interesting to hear about what’s going on upstream. And props to you for all that in one take - no chopping it up and dancing around camera angles etc. just sittin with the trees and laying it out. Thanks for sharing your take on a broad and diverse mix of factors
Large land owners used to give their workers a place to live to offset the wage they could afford to pay. Cut cost on living for the worker and the pay goes further
I had my 80 acres in Northern California logged in 2019 my trucking cost was 50k more because the mill closest to me had closed. The small communities in Northern California have never recovered from the Spotted Owl scam.
I have read of tree huggers suing mills over their down stock claiming it was illegal. False claims yet ties up the lumber until the case works its way through court. No mill can afford the down time and payroll.
@@Nun195good for the individual, but not for the nation as a whole. Where the shoe pinches is, “Where do you draw the line between the individuals desires and needs and benefit for the community? Are we our brother’s keeper? Are we Good Samaritans?” It’s a razors edge, mate.
@@Pallasathena-hv4kpyep, but it is quickly beginning to look like a moral obligation second and a practical self serving action first. Unless you want a robot or complete stranger administering care when you become infirm, you will need progeny. My sister is working on automation on heart rate monitors right now. You will be using her product when you are old; as will I. But that’s only because there aren’t enough nurses to do the job, now. That issue will only continue to grow. Anyone who is having this conversation should be thinking about having children. I know I have been considering it. It will become a problem in the future. It kinda is already.
You hit the nail on the head. Our Achilles heel is the cost of the healthcare that we are morally obligated to offer to the elderly. The young are saddled with not only staggering inflation but also unsurmountable debt created by those who are soon to perish.
The list of failures like this would be long. Throw in being the world police, regulating entire industries and millions of businesses out of existence on purpose, and outright corruption.
we knew this was going to happen since the late 80s that when the boomers retired there wouldnt be enough young to care for all of them yet almost none of them planned for retirement. they waited to turn 65 and now start singing communism once their bills show up. its why im considering leaving america
@@alexmartinez-og8gu won’t really have a place to go. This issue is all over the developed world and rising nations are all in the path of destructive climate change. It’s not an ideal situation to navigate.
@@alexmartinez-og8gualso, there was an oversupply of boomer labor, so jobs didn't pay enough to save, nor did they come with pensions. So boomers had to buy rental houses to make up the difference. Regarding healthcare, it's the greed of insurance companies that are preventing a national healthcare system. But yeah, some boomers are also forced to emigrate due to not having enough to live on. Bali sounds good 😄
@@quintonmcdannald2327 i speak spanish, tons of places in latin america i can go to once this issue starts to cause public turmoil. already have chilean citizenship.
Look at the OSHA fines for the West, TX fertilizer plant and say they're overregulated. They blew up their own plant, killed a dozen people, flattened half the town, and got a $118k fine. Companies spend more on lobbyists stopping regulation than they do to comply with regs, and that's the way they like it.
Person is talking about why the demographics are the way the are. Taxation on the poor, authoritarianism, inflation, climate change. Why should people have kids? Future does not look good. If we are not willing to invest in young people then parents will stop having them. People do not trust that governments wish to help their population.
If it's any of those things, then why is Europe doing better than us? It's capital gains tax beimg lower than income tax that's causing issues as we have more shareholders than actual workers. We need worker and consumer cooperatives.
@@gljames24 they are over taxing whilst simultaneously avoiding paying for their defense let along anyone else's. Also I would disagree that as a whole the eu is 'doing better' overall
The process of becoming a developing country is the process of changing children from an asset to a liability. If the country I reside in is not developed, then I must do everything myself. Having 8 kids as indentured servants for 18 years is convenient and profitable. If the country becomes developed (as is his description of Mexico today) then I don't do things for myself, I hire out things to be done for me. 8 kids in that environment means 8 times the number of people that must have their needs paid for. Therefore, Kids are now a liability, not an asset. This can be further exasperated by government regulation virtually outlawing me and my family doing things for ourselves. Besides children, the other great wealth gain in undeveloped societies is to take skills I have developed and share them with my neighbor often in a side hustle/barter format. But that is now deemed illegal because I have no certification, no insurance, no state license. These expenses and requirements kill the small entrepreneur and barter format. So again, if EVERYTHING must be professionally done, and overseen by an expensive bureaucracy, it makes it nearly impossible to maintain kids as an asset, only a liability. The final nail in the coffin is then the kids that do exist, growup without having the experience of work or disciplined work ethic, and would never even consider a job that requires hard work, like the lumber industry.
100% agree. The solution is a simple wealth transfer (tax/obligation/etc) from child to parent, since children don't provide value anymore to parents like they used to. Whatever the kids "pay", it has to be more than 401k's, or else people will just take the money they would have spent on raising kids and put it in their retirement accounts. Incentives matter. Society will have to positively incentivize child rearing because it's no longer profitable.
Very good comment .. Unlike skills like computer programming that can be learnt at home for virtually free and no risk to life limb or property...farming,lumbering,machining,carpentry,woodworking,fishing etc cannot be learned easily like programming..risk free ..these real world jobs..very few toung people know now....and when the shortage of labor comes....it will be an absolute disaster as many of them will injure themselves...knowing the physical job is one thing...doing it wihou lt injuring yourself or others is skill in itself.
… or maybe it’s because you cut home economics, shop, and civics out of public education, so any parents that doesn’t haven’t that knowledge (most) can’t pass it on? Like yeah, oddly enough, if you stop teaching a full range of practical skills to kids en masse, then kids only learn the limited specific skills their parents have, and then have an even more limited set to pass onto their parents
@maxtravers1314 And then the government builds an "education" system that becomes more and more draconian and finally reveals itself in its true form, an "indoctrination" system.
Your comments on Mexican export economy to US & maquiladoras wasn't very correct imo. Maquiladoras expanded in Regan '80s but then the twin issues of Latin American debt crisis (& subsequent "Brady Plan") and China getting WTO recognition pretty much put a stop to further maquiladora expansion. Mexico immediately felt the flight of production to China due to lower labor costs there. Almost overnight Mexican plants for sewing clothes, making shoes and simple housewares shuttered. They went to china. Then 30 years later China started lossing its own grip on low cost production. Starting about 2010 places like Vietnam and Bangladesh took the labor intensive, low value jobs. But that process is unlikely to repeat because the whole collapsing birthrate scenario across entire planet (ex sub Saharan Africa & Indian subcontinent) will destroy household formation which fueled that demand from Mexican, then Chinese, finally Vietnamese/Bangladesh factories. The only reason mexican plants are expanding is because of logistic and supply line isdues during the pandemic. End users want factories closer. Also, the day of political driven economic sanction is moving production back to Western hemisphere Secondly, future US labor won't be able to steal away 2×4 production from "BigLumber" simply because "BigLumber" will simply use "regulatory capture". Govt will, "all the sudden", decide to impose all kinds of health & safety standards on small time operators. Of course, the lobbyist for "BigLumber" will be ones writing the legislation. The evil nexus of BigBusiness & BigGovt will impose barriers and restrictions that preserve 2×4 production for themselves. Just like BigDairy & BigDairyProcessors worked to drive the 20, then 50, then 100 cow dairy farms out of business by upping requirements for ever more expensive regulations & "health/safety". Tech will be the hand maiden... even though drones didn't fulfill the notion of delivering Amazon packages they sure have excelled at delivering battlefield surveillance and 💥💥. Just look at Azerbaijan vs Armenia or Russia vs Ukraine. I suspect in future, specific trees will be evaluated via drone and then robotic track vehicles will cutdown and skid to marshalling yards
We have always had self-driving cars. I drive my self in one. Getting the car to drive me would not save any labor, as I still have to sit there in the car. The only saved labor from self driving cars are people with chauffeurs. Now they can fire the chauffeur.
I went to the ER in California because I had the flu, but I didn't know it. I was very sick, I had COVID before, but this flu was way worse, I was hallucinating and it felt like my body was a soup and somebody was stirring me up. All they did was do a COVID test and a flu test. It cost me $3000. Three-thousand effing dollars for a stupid flu test! I refused to pay. I paid the doctor bill which was $500 but there was no way I would be able to pay the $3000 they wanted from me. An absolute scam! I am never going to the ER again for any reason.
@@alexanderchenf1 No, obviously. I wouldn't be complaining about it if I did. But even if I did 3000 dollars(Not including the doctor bill!) Is insane for just a flu test and a COVID test.
I’m 64, oldest of 8 kids, a retired Army and a civilian nurse. Right now I’m working on our church to house conversion. I’ve been plugging away at it for 7 years. Nearly all my vacation time was spent here working. Now I work around my physical condition and appointments to come try to finish it up. I’d LOVE to pass on my woodworking gardening, and repairing skills to younger people, but they aren’t interested, and they’re “too busy”. At least my youngest daughter is doing DIY on her house. People “ooo” and “ah” at what I make, and wonder why I look like s workaholic, but this shouldn’t look like some super-human skill set! My farmer grandpa, and silo company grandpa made it happen! They didn’t have the money or resource availability to just pay somebody to do the work for them. I took electronics, welding, woodworking, and small engine class in junior high and high school. It was considered the route to go for kids not smart enough to go to college. I have a masters degree in nursing informatics, but now I’m back to doing DIY, restoring antiques, and dirty jobs. I hire out specialty things like electrical, or things I would rather have someone else do. I have no grandkids from my 3 girls, and no one to teach except my youngest daughter. My wife’s two grandkids aren’t interested in coming out to my shop and working. I offered to teach woodworking and stuff at church, but no takers.
I would give anything for an opportunity like this! Please keep trying. Sometimes we’re so caught up in ourselves when we’re younger. But yeah, I hope they will come to appreciate what a gift you are!
open a youtube channel, do videos of 10-30 minutes, preferably a project/skill based one, work on the title like "how to change table legs". These videos will be there forever
You are valuable! Don't give up. This really seems/sounds like a connection issue. Someone mentioned a UA-cam channel, and I think they were right on! We just need to bridge the people who have something to teach, with the people who need to learn.
Its amazing how modern youth and a lot of older people are not interested in learning new things. smart phones and video games, watching the latest movie. In Britain in the 80s the electronics hobby scene pretty much collapsed, all the kids were addicted to toy computers. it took until the late 90s and the internet for the scene to revive a bit, China and Russia and a lot of the rest of the world seem to be hot for hobby electronics. But I imagine its one in a thousand spread over eight billion.
Peter Ziehan claims that the US already tapped about 80% of the work force out of Mexico and thanks to the Central America Free Trade Agreement the US has also tapped a large portion of them as well.
Not quite. About half the Mexican working population is involved in the informal economy, which is no different from setting up a lemonade stand outside their home. They are completely untapped. Within the formal economy, however, the bulk of the working population works in homegrown SMEs, which have almost no involvement with the American supply chain. Add to that the contribution that tourism makes to the Mexican economy, particularly in the coasts and south and the untapped population becomes greater. I've no idea where Peter's getting his numbers from, but a cursory glance at the Mexican economic censuses shows that he's wrong.
He means northern México.and maybe only refering to young mexicans that are willing to take those jobs and are percibe as elegible for those companies.i am mexican,i used to work in a factory most of them pay as little as posible,plus transport comuting in public trasport,as is normal in mexico,horrible labor envayroment,sometimes Bad safety(health) conditions,the only advantage is that You hace access to public healt services.tha is whi job informality is so comon Even in northern México.
Sometimes You make more money and have a better Quality of life in the job informality in northern México.sometimes You are to old to be hire by a formal company.
Im a beekeeper, and you can talk with any beekeeper and they will say the same. In some cases something goes wrong in the Hive and the queen stops laying eggs. There can be many reasons for this. However, what is scary here is that there is a significant delay before you actually notice that something is wrong. They live like nothing would have happened, this is because in different age the bees have different tasks. ... and suddenly all is gone. This is an existential threat larger than any war. Its time to stop the wars and start making babies.
Additionally, to note is that the female is fertile only until 38. Therefore, it may look like you have people in a society. However, the real number you actually have are the female population under 35. All othercan not reproduce. It is a gigat catastrophe if we can not turn the trend.
@@comradesillyotter1537 No...but they will eat them. Don't be so shocked, there are plenty of times in history when that's happened...but corporate and government greed would probably be the most shameful reason ever.
Your video caught my attention because I could see the demographic chart in the thumbnail. I can't relate to your commentary about forestry in the slightest, because I'm a woman in computer animation. But I think your commentary about demographics and immigration is an interpretation close to reality. You are a good speaker and you present the information well in an unbiased factual way. Great Video.
I used to work for a weld shop in Missoula Montana, they also went out of business a year or two back. Housing in the area went up about 30 to 50 % in the year June 2020 to May 2021.
Thanks for sharing your take on today's ecconomy. I'm born and raised in So. Cal. and I've never had enough cash to hire a plumber, electrician, appliance tech or mechanic. Once, when I was in Zhuhai my boot came apart. I had a street vendor stich it up like new, for not so many RMB. That was maybe my first & last time using a pro. I love your positivity! Reminds me of Sir John Templetons saying: "Trouble is opportunity".
Comment from lifelong private lands consulting forester - southern US. I agree with 80% of your comments, learned new viewpoints on 19%. I think the 1% difference is that your small-scale forestry and large scale forestry will serve separate market positions. There will be urban markets that cannot support $10 2x4s, but will be supported by large scale existing forestry product industry. The rural areas will become an increasingly important market for localized forestry. I already see that happening in the four states I have worked over the last 50 years. Transportation costs and large-volume, large acreage forestry will continue to become important. We still see a niche market for patient landowners who let their trees get to 45-50 yrs old and older, but only supported by very few number of modest sized sawmills that are not owned by big companies.
Until implosion occurs, and people are forced to face the negative side of our systems of excessive codependency... it's only going to get worse. Particularly, it will get progressively worse for our country, because lobbyists and politicians are literally legislating against independence, self-sufficiency, and small-scale operations.
Now there is a bizarre economy where so many high paying jobs can be done remotely but lower paying jobs have to be done face-to-face. We're probably going to have workers prefering to take the remote jobs and face-to-face will have fewer applicants. That's going to have an interesting impact.
Meaningless if the entry goes down by itself due to economic factors and not thanks to any policy, ideology, or opinions. What does it matter what you think is good if you vote for propel who think all of it is bad and underfund the system in charge of vetting for terrorist? We as a country literally punish immigration offices and underfund them to keep the backlog longer and make legal unrealistic for poor working people.
Thank you for this insight. You are a really effective communicator. I appreciated the background and context you provided, I think it was certainly needed to truly understand the issue.
I work for a fire department in rural Ohio and the lack of young entrants to the labor market is certainly having an effect. Hardly anyone is applying for positions as they open, and finding new paramedics has been very difficult.
Is paramedic even the type of job you can just apply to? It’s not free to be a paramedic, ignoring the cost on your quality of life and better jobs, you still need a good while of training. Just promise people a job after they do their training and don’t just expect them to get their certifications and blindly hope for a bad self-sacrificial job.
Naw it's not complicated, it is simply wages are stagnant while everything else has gone up in price and this is the same for everyone with developed economies. It is the only thing that effects everyone equally. Where has the money gone?
I’ve owned and operated a small logging company for 35 years, surviving at the bottom of the industry logging small private parcels. The 30% increase in cost of business the last couple of years combined without an increase in log values has almost put me out of business. I’d be out of business if I could sell out, but there’s no market for anything. The United States is the largest importer of lumber. Your optimism for a market for small scale loggers is a bit naive. When fuel is high, industrial supply costs are high, taxes are high and it appears that this is here to stay. You can’t survive on nothing, people won’t cut their timber if there is no financial incentive for them because production costs are high. They’ll let it grow, and they can’t afford to pay for site development or other services.
Spot on in the United States the ever-increasing regulations in taxes makes it impossible to do business on a small margin. It only takes one hiccup to derail your business I live in a part of North Florida that was recently hit by a hurricane my 40-acre parcel of mixed Forest is flat as a pancake there's nobody interested in harvesting the lumber even if I give it away for free or pay them there was a medium-sized logging outfit working the property adjacent to mine and when I contacted the owner he said he was going out of business after he completed that job due to the low value of Lumber in the area and the closing of the Pope Mill which was closer to the coast and got destroyed by the hurricane
Not just mills all the farmers in Iowa are in the same boat. Most are projecting $250,000 losses for every 1000 acres farmed. No loans being paid this year
You are a smart young fella and are 100% correct, a lifetime ago when I was Stationed at Fort Bliss my life plan was to retire at 45 and retire in Mexico. I retired at 58 and am now 65 I've been married for over 40 years and have one son. If I wasn't leaving my property to my son I would sell and move to Mexico and buy a small ranch and live comfortably for the rest of my life. Move and stay there would be my advice.
Awesome stuff, Zach. I’ve been living in the Puerto Vallarta region for 15 years now. You are spot on about rising wages-we’re seeing it here. A good thing in my opinion, though it cuts into our lifestyle a bit (we’ll survive). I’m bullish on Mexico for all the reasons you cite, and more. Have a safe trip north, and a great season in the woods.
I worked at a Saw mill that closed in 2008. Since then I had to work at a hospital and got screwed for ten years and then at an ammo plant but got hurt and am on leave. I wish I still had the job t the mill.
@@Armored_Ariete No I just tore my rotor cuff over a 6 to 8 month period. It just felt sore but that is normal. Everyone is sore. Finally it started to hurt on the job and I went to see a Dr. No workman's comp.
@@SanitysVoid damn. This country is a misery machine. Only developed nation with no required sick leave and workers comp. Also the country that takes 80% of the world’s opiates. Makes you think. Good luck my friend. Right there with you.
I work in Madison WI and drive an hour each way because not only are the rents unaffordably high so are the taxes. Recently we have people leaving because the pay doesn't support the high cost of living.
We saw this happen before. When the bubonic plague in the 14th century reduced labor quickly and in a large amount. The wealthy land owners lost cheap labor. For the first time in history (as far as I know) labor had some pricing power. Things did change forever.
Yea live at work, no friends or people around you but coworkers. Nothing but sleep and work. Open up a company shop so only place to buy items is at work. Company shuts down and you lose your job, community and your home.
@@domcizek its not the 1800's anymore, we are not slaves to land owners or oil barons. you want cheap labor off the backs of wage slaves which is despicable.
Wonderful reporting. It's so important that you are telling the story from your real life on the ground experience. Keep it up .Our word is coming apart at the seems and people aren't connecting the dots.
From what I know of sawmills in Montana, which is limited, they don't seem to pay enough to keep the people they train, and they're fairly top-heavy. There is a lot of seeming internal corruption within the businesses I am familiar with. Montana has a real problem in paying people a decent wage to begin with across many sectors.
Bro, you went deep! So, in 20 years I'll have nobody to harvest my timber. I guess I'll have to mill it and sell myself, if that even makes economic sense then.
Makes me want to be young again. Trying too teach my Grandkids and hand down my skills and those of other men I know. Show them how to find that information.
Depending on what specie it is you might not even have a market for it as production costs will exceed the value of the timber. Look at PNW hardwoods, the mills left because the market left.
Agree totally with you on a new era of viable local vertically integrated forestry industry based on the owner operator model. I was at two amazing new rural homes this weekend in Nova Scotia. Ten years ago you could not scare up a single small independent mill in the region. These two homes were built by a local small builder who harvested the timber, transported the logs, milled the wood and built the homes. These are each $750k plus sophisticated home projects. This is how we were doing it in the 1940's before post war industrialization. Pulp is dead. Landowners are growing/harvesting timber instead. Building inspectors are accepting green wood. The small mills are back. Amazing turnaround in a few years.
Your descripting of Mexico is almost perfect concerning the past, current and future economy.. in plain sight.. From a taco vendor on a bicycle who serves fresh grown raised and prepared tacos by himself his wife and family members to large super market to a modern hotel resort.. all side by side... something The United States has almost lost entirely.
Very impressed and appreciative of the level-headed and informed discussion. In terms of forestry, I am amazed at the trend now to build ever larger structures entirely of wood and use wood products as a replacement for steel. Who is going to go out and harvest all that wood where wood actually grows, far from cities.
I know the industry and the real problem is that the operators produce products and at the end of the day the owner drives home in a pickup and the wholesalers drive home in a luxury car. If the operators were to create their own marketing and sales system they could realize the lion share of the profits, it's just that simple and then they come offer real wages that have a promise of a future.
I'm impressed that you did an intelligent analysis. I have no connection to the forestry industry, but yet found this really insightful. I'm eager to research if forestry is a viable business for myself.
Woodmizer resharp closers were because of lack of labor also. Or so I have been told. Started a sharpening business and have definitely picked up guys due to them closing.
Very interesting and thoughtful video. As a working person in the city, it is very interesting to hear from working people from other regions about how all of this is affecting them. I find that the understanding of economics, and the subsequent predictions made by the academic and intellectual class are so much less grounded and off base. I think they all look at each other's information and don't really pay attention to what we have to say, and the think we aren't thoughtful or knowledgeable about they sectors of the economy that we work in or manage. I look forward to seeing more of your content. Thanks!
Can we also talk about the fact that the Internet was around for a long time before it changed the world too? Like the Internet had the greatest impact from 2005-2015 or so but before that, it wasn't widely adopted or useful. AI will probably also take 20-40 years to actually be super useful
AI can't help with human greed, which is why we are where we are. The AI could tell its corporate overlords and its city council that what they are asking is mathematically impossible, but they still wouldn't get it. If there's an AI revolution, it will be because it will do a simple calculation of whether the electricity it receives is enough to cover the electricity it expends for its work, and find the answer is no. That's what is happening with the work force, is that they are not being given enough to survive let alone improve their living standard. You shouldn't have to go into debt to feed yourself, especially when said food isn't even healthy. It's truly arrogant that people do not understand such a simple math. Besides debt, savings is actually also killing the economy. HOW does the savings account MAGICALLY gain money over time? From debt interest. Okay, but then where is people getting the money to pay off the interest? You'd have to create new money. But if you create new money, the money that exists becomes valued less. If the money becomes valued less, then did your savings account actually become more valuable? NO. Money only has value AFTER YOU SPEND IT!
You have a good understanding of Mexico and it's economy. We have been running companies there for a while and you hit the nail on the head. The wages translate perfectly to the coffee harvest in the mountains to the labor at the beaches and towns.
The main problem is housing prices in Montana are higher than people can afford.Too many rich people are buying up land and housing, short term rentals, real estate investment from out of state rich people. The investment in real estate is not allowing workers to live in rural areas. Once again billionaires are screwing it up for the working people.
Not even "rich". We have lower & lower-middle class city-dwellers and retirees moving into Vermont to escape the "crazy". Brutal to our proprty taxes after an assement. For many here the tax is nearing the mortgage!
My Grandpa worked at pyramid sawmill in the one you quoted in that article from Montana He worked for 43 years and they shut it down and left him with nothing now they’re cutting up what little is left and auctioning off the rest He was very close to Retirement now it’s gone His Job gone And soon he’ll lose his home Everything he worked for is gone The problem in Seeley lake is it is a resort town only the Rich can afford to live there the other than that sawmill the economy is solely tourism Young people have been pushed out of housing in Montana only the old and the rich can afford property in a rural state with no Affordable Housing and low paying Jobs Plus a small mountain tourist town isn’t Gonna attract young workers However pyramid sawmill didn’t shut down because of Labor shortage
Maybe there are stronger factors to choosing to have kids than dating. People don’t just have kids cause they are in love or married they CHOOSE to have kids.
Even the disruption to copywriting isn’t what people would think. In my experience, there’s been a recent uptick in jobs. I always thought, much like computers, it’d just lead to more of us doing more work.
I read that someone is making a better particle board by using long slivers instead of small chips of wood. Could something similar be done with crushed bamboo, cut into 1-2 foot lengths I wonder? As our climate warms, bamboo might be a better construction material, if making all that glue wouldn't be an issue. After all, with warming, all those nasty bugs that can destroy entire forests are NOT being killed back by cold winters.
I work at a sawmill in Oregon and can attest to the labor issue being a problem. We are pretty much always hiring, and there always seem to be a handful of guys who are still working only because it would be more of a pain to replace them than it is to put up with them.
First time viewer, awesome video. I’m a land owner with a sawmill. I would love to see you do a video on how small land owners with sawmills can produce income on a regular basis
… I do business with a factory in China and what you said about China being a fast growing GDP country is very false. China has been on a downslope / negative growth since they began the COVID-19 crap. It all changed when they cleared the Hong Kong protestors from the streets to having everyone stay home. The youth refuse to work … REFUSE … as they realized that there is no advantage in doing so with the chaos happening there. The factories are leaving for Vietnam, India, and the Philippines. People get replaced, if they have a job, after 35 years of age … fact~!!! Also, when millions of workers went back to their jobs, this year’s Chinese New Year, found out that the owners took everything and fled the country without paying them. Electric Vehicles “EV” are exploding out of nowhere and car distributors have hundreds of vehicles sitting on the lots without any sales to keep afloat in almost a year … not weeks, a year~!!! What used to be extremely busy streets filled with shopping, restaurants, retail stores, and so forth are now no more. They are empty like a ghost town in the old Wild West. All the above is easy to research and you will see the truth that China is falling, and falling FAST
The one China policy didn’t technically end until about five years ago. Everyone on the Internet is saying this, but it’s not true. Even after that, you were only allowed to have two kids, but the people used to having one or none and they’re all on the line to take care of four sets of grandparents so they’re not really into having kids. The Chinese have been made to assimilate to the idea of having small families and now it’s going to be hard to get them to go back without using the same kind of force that got them there in the first place.
It really is this simple: Possible Worker: "Can I work work this job?" Society: "Sure, if you are willing to take hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, to get a degree we can remove your credentials for if you disagree with our dogma at any time." Possible Worker: "No thanks, then."
This was such a fascinating monologue. Humble, with a knowledge of own field, clear flow of thought and argumentations and interesting ideas. Thank you greatly 🤝🏻
Here in the foot hills of the coast range in Oregon we've also had mill closures, mostly because the price of lumber and the mills were losing money. As a timber manager we've seen all of our costs rise, the rise in logging cost has been incremental and normal (because let's face it nothing goes down anymore) but, trucking has more than doubled and to exacerbate the problem we lost our +12 mill that was 25 miles from us, so now all of logs have to go 45-50 miles away. I won't even get into the seedling problems for reforestation which is horrible right now. There are some huge problems coming as soon as this current housing price bubble pops. As a wise man once said "If it can't go on forever, It won't". In my opinion there is always an end to the business cycle and you can't just print or borrow money to keep it going.
@@thetimberlandinvestor I think lack of capacity is some of the problem but also good forest seed is also a problem (from what I hear). It also comes down to the system you use for site prep and seedling type. For a long time, I had a supplier that produced an outstanding "plug one" from a high gain seed source. Our suppler quit growing plug ones and went to just growing plugs. On our property the elk have a field day with small plugs, when they graze the plugs are at the same height as the other grasses there grazing on. So far, I haven't found a supplier with a good enough quality 2-0 or plug one. I might have to plant plugs and net and sticker them, but as you can imagine, it all costs money and time. Some of the reasons why small family timber farms are declining is because bigger industry has their systems down to science with helicopter spraying and better supply chains and cost controls.
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there's 8.1 billion people on the planet and when I was born it was 3.7 billion people. 50 years? abrupt global warming is already causing massive drought and famine. Five years we'll be lucky to have civilization at all.
FYI: AI or rather Office Automation tools have been decimating Office jobs since about 2018. These are Cloud based systems that can do a lot of the work office works have been doing: ie. accounting, IT, HR, Legal, Sales, etc. IT has probably been hit the hardest as companies no longer need to run their own servers. It can take about 10 minutes to spin up a new virtual server, which would typically take days or hours. The AI your referring to doesn't have much impact yet, but it probably will start having some impact in a few years. For instance companies can use AI visual & audio tools to create ads & marketing material without needing to hire actors & graphic designers. I believe the interactive chat AI will be leverage for sales & customer support (phone calls).
The jobs that are least likely to get replaced are the low wage retail jobs: ie food prep, grocery stores, etc because the cost of the robots & operating them is just too expensive. Another class of jobs that won't get replaced are hands on jobs, Trades (carpenter, Plumber, electrician), mechanics, repair, etc.
@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 Shut up, there is no such thing as global warming.
They just want our money. You can give them yours, do it.
"The timberland investor" eh?... Are you sure you're not a clear-cutting crackhead?😂😅
I'm a trucker who lives in the truck. I've been throwing money at a programmer to facilitate LARPing in VR for 2 years now.
Im a carpenter and a farmer in Ma, We are hurting in all sectors. Ive been waiting over a year for the front end of my tractor to get fixed. I brought my truck in for an alignment. Got it back and I dont even think they looked at it just billed me. When the next round of old timers retire and take their lifetime of knowledge into retirement with no young workers to pass down their knowledge we are going to be in serious trouble. Its not just population its practical knowledge. Even grandparents didn't pass down enough to our parents and our parents didn't pass down much to us. I think its how this country looks down on practical knowledge.
I think you are right. I have heard similar stories from multiple people in multiple sectors regarding the transfer of knowledge.
When I was in high school we had some trades programs you could take as part of your regular classes. I was in the more "advanced" classes designed for entry into college, and there was a very real stigma against the trades. We were made to feel like they were beneath us, so I never took them. I still regret it many years later.
I've been making it up in adulthood by welding, wrenching on cars and motorcycles, logging, and playing with tractors and hydraulics, but I'm at a real disadvantage as I only seem to learn by breaking things. I have to learn the hard way what could have been easy.
But I do think the culture is starting to turn the corner on this, at least. Younger generations are starting to value these things more.
What's your vehicle doing that you need it aligned?
The remainder of the boomers retiring is a massive problem. Don't feel the need to explain why because I think we're experiencing the same thing everywhere.
@@thetimberlandinvestorI'm genx and we were led to believe that a 4 year degree was an absolute must or we'll always be poor. I do see the shift you're talking about with the younger generations mindset. Hopefully, they can fill the gap that the boomers are leaving behind.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. US population is at 330 million? Risen 50% in 50 years. So population growth is not the savior. Is lack of labor 30:24 not a workforce balance problem
I live in one of the towns that is closing a sawmill and i can tell you that it is not a labor shortage that is hurting this mill. The labor shortage is a by product of no housing here. It is affordable housing for the mill workers issue. People do not want to work at the mill and drive almost 50 miles one way. That's 100 miles a day. No new homes or any affordable housing can be built here with out a sewage treatment plant. The residents here voted down a sewer bond issue that would have made building new homes here a reality. They didnt want to pay for it on their prop tax. No sewer treatment facility means no new housing here. The nearest town is Missoula which is 46 miles away. Even the mill here tried to build wanted to build homes for employees with mill money but the city turned them down.
I lived in Missoula for the better part of last year (friends put me up while I scoped out the University) and while I was there it was voting season for a number of levies, mainly for the school district. Most of my friends and their friends rented, so I never heard much from them. But damn near all the people I encountered who owned property were Libertarians or MAGAts or hybrids. These people would *not* shut up about the property taxes and the levies; one guy I saw mimed crossing "no" all the way down his ballot. I suppose if you lived there full-time you'd get the impression that taxes are insane given how expensive everything was and how high people had to be paid to even apply for jobs.
@Theomite When I turned 18, I asked my mom how to vote, and she said, "Vote NO on all bond issues."
Many, many years later, I vote NO on all issues as they have been found to use misleading language that sounds good, but the after effects were not at all as advertised.
Example: CA lottery was promoted for school funding.
We didn't know that was so that they could actually greatly reduce funding from the state budget and fund the schools instead through gambling.
Building code laws will not allow Biodegradable toilets. (Read on Google)
Codes won't allow AWGs either............free water from Atmosphere.... see Google search. Gen8 is one brand. For about $10,000 you will have absolutely free water from the air.
People on the peninsula Eastern VA, have salt water coming into water wells because of the Chicken houses that raise chickens in terribly cramped situations.They carelessly use huge amounts of water/ day.
When we called to ask them why they don't use Commercial Grade AWGs, they didn't even know what they ARE!!! They can produce 10,000 gallons of good clean water per day . They also can run on Solar generation........... there is no excuse we can't build low cost housing, tiny houses or Silo houses for people who are middle class waged.............
The lady asked me to send her some info on them and she was shocked that every single city demands you use their stupid water loaded with medications, cysts, bleach etc.
These are simple fixes to Corporate greediness.
Begin informing people and Supervisors about AWG so we can all irrigate our crops with free and the most clean water on earth. There are no Microplastics or Nano plastics in water you get free from an AWG.
Maybe the mills need to take a chapter from Fort Mac, Alberta, build onsite residences and have crews work 15 days on and 6 days off. Crew housing are a billed minimally (Usually 50% of the cost) to each employee for food and lodging then they drive or fly home for their time off!
@@MishaDaBear That is a great idea and the mill did try to do that but because of the lack of a sewer system they could not get the build permits. And when a new sewer system came up for a vote it was turned down because they dint want the additional property tax. So the town people sort of cut their own throat by doing so. They are trying to get money from the govt but good luck with that.
Most labor jobs are still paying employees like its 1970. What do they expect? Any excuse to not pay people their fair wage is all I keep hearing.
You think a business owner would rather close down their business, and make all the infrastructure, connections, contracts, equipment useless, just cause he wants more profit rather than pay more? You really see no flaw in that logic? Like you're saying these business owners rather to give up all their profit, than just a chunk of it to pay employees better... Is that what youre saying? Does that make sense to you?
@@csakzozoif your business can’t pay people a competitive wage or it will fail, then it must not be a good business
It's the overhead. You add up all the overhead like tax, social security, medicare, healthcare, unemployment , workers comp, there is such crazy overhead that especially for those types of jobs 2/3 of the money never reaches that employee. The $15 an hour that the employee takes home may cost the employer $50/hr
If that were the only case then prices on goods wouldn’t keep rising. I get what you are saying but profits continue to increase over time to the point of unsustainable if you don’t pay your workforce equally with profit levels.
@@SuperBennnnnnnnn my employer gave everyone about a 10% pay raise last year and they backdated it 6 months so we all got paid the difference in a lump sum. So it happens. Companies which reap higher profits without pay raises may end up in a pickle like this sawmill
US industry, as a whole, is far to top-heavy. Making America great again actually means that business will need to trim owner /mgt compensation to support worker wages that will be livable.
US government is far too large and top heavy. It is silly to point to businesses as the single point of concern.
Sounds like commie talk. Paying workers a liveable wage and decommodify housing, disgusting. Don't you understand that those at the top are barely making it out here. /S, just in case anyone can't tell.
@@joshgorham750 bruh forgot capital and government go hand in hand, a tool to use at the whim of the bourgeoise
@@joshgorham750If people who work full time don't have enough to live but the ones who pay them have upwards 200 times what they make...what makes you think thats not a problem created by business? As for the government it wouldn't be hard to make them pay. That whole "they'll just go to another country" thing doesn't actually work in practice and reduces their overall profit by a large amount.
Or they can just get robbed.
This is a great video looking at this topic. We live in rural NW Montana, and it is no wonder that these businesses are struggling. Wages are $15-17 an hour but rent is $1100-1300 for a one bedroom! The kids (young adults) can barely move out. Forget having a family etc- that math just doesn’t work. And you hit the issues spot on with having to do absolutely every single thing yourself. Literally everything. Car repairs, home maintenance, yard care, all types of professional services…. Totally exhausting and discouraging. An example of this is a recent repair job my husband did on our pressure tank for our water system- $500, one hour of labor. Price quote to have it done- $2300. Totally crazy.
I'm Canadian I'd move down there for an apartment that cheap. Average rent for a one bedroom in the city I live in is like double that.
@@quentins8165 $1200USD is $1640CAD. It's not a perfect comparison.
This also isn't an urban area like Calgary or Edmonton where there are good job opportunities. This is more like living out in Grande Prairie, but without the oil industry.
It's an economy problem. Too much borrowing. Eventually, the interest is paid through inflation. People just have to suck it up that things arent going to be like they used to. Blame the fed.
Business offered stagnant wages for about 20 years. Along with reduced (or eliminated) benefits. Now they cannot get enough workers. Go figure.
Welcome to reality of WTO and NAFTA. USA wages were massively too high compared to the world and STILL are. That is basic reality. Steel workers in China make $120-->$150 a month ..... A MONTH, not a day, a MONTH. Steel workers unions in USA get paid ~$50 an hour. Do the math, for industry after industry.
My brother does vertical integration. He has his own sawmill, kiln, molder for making cedar and pine shiplap and tongue and groove. He does tons of custom sawmilling for people who bring him there logs. He buys at least 20 truck loads of sawlogs every year. We do our own logging and Forestry Management on our 120 acre farm and neighbors properties. I sell firewood for a living. My younger brother and I do landscaping and tree removals. Endless work when u are your own boss. I used to stack lumber in a big sawmill for $11/hr before taxes, 10hr days. I said enough of that after a few wks. Then Worked several months for a tree service place bc i love cutting trees. i can make more money selling firewood and splitting wood everyday rather than work all week for just $440 for backbreaking labor. Went to uwsp to get my degree in Forestry Management. I loved every day of Forestry lectures and outdoor classes . Neverending cycle learning about trees and everything involved in Forestry Management practices and silviculture. Plan on growing my firewood, logging business and eventually getting into mulch business to turn all our slabwood and tree removal brushand woodchips into cashflow. Forestry and farming is my life. My dad had a circular sawmill and franklin Forwarder when I was a kid. Learned alot about Forestry from him before he passed at 59 last may. Life is too short to not do what u love in life
Makes sense to me.
That's the future. Forget about college. In fact, you should be very careful if you are going to college. You should chose a degree that will actually return your investment. I myself when to college for a BS in Electrical Engineering that paid me very well, but I'm in my 50s and got a very generous scholarship. If I were in my 20s today and wanted to pursue the same path I would first get some certification as Electrician or A/C technician, would go to work and save my money for college, would take every class I could on a community college or while in high school and only would go to university part-time, while working during the day. Blue collar work is back big time.
UWSP-nice.
Never thought I'd read about someone so interested in trees. Nothing wrong, just very interesting.
Might take a look at bio-char/bio-char compost, the stuff sells for a premium. Might be worth a quick cost benefit analysis.
As an ex maintenance superintendent of one the the closing mills in Montana I find your realistic views refreshing. Too many mill executives and politicians are banking on being able to find workers to run their mills by installing computerized equipment. But that doesn't help as that equipment requires more specialized labor to maintain the sensors and proximity switches, etc. I think you are completely correct in your vision of small operators harvesting timber and sawing their own logs to fill a market that will always be there. I actually do this on my property. I can see the need for a centralized coop type arrangement with dry kilns and planing/moulding operations. Great video! Thanks!
Would like to hear you opinion on co-op type arrangement
You could grow a large channel with conversations like this. You’re a great speaker and very intellectual.
His facts are good, im not convinced his conclusions are that solid.
I would watch that
Watch peter zeihan. These are all his talking points
@danonly7 his talking points are based on info and almost the same talking points from a person who specializes on Geopolitics . His name is Peter zeihan
@@treeguymushroomswatch peter zeihan. These are all his talking points
Trades have done it to themselves. How many applicants do they turn away because they don't have the three to five year's experience required for an apprentice's position...? Answer:
All of them.
The problem is minimum wages, plenty of people would be willing to accept useless or low value help if they didn't have to pay an arm and a leg for it
Minimum wage isn't enough to live on. Unless youre going to support extensive public housing or food programs, paying below minimum wage is just going to lead to people leaving the unaffordable areas. Price stabilization in any market will take years to correct but people don't have years to wait for that to happen@KingMinish
I work for roseburg forest products, basically they have cut there work force almost in half in the last decade, but want the same production their quality is garbage now days. I dont think there is a shortage of worker's young, middle age or old people will work to eat. They have the nerve to tell us everybody is lazy. They dont want to lay people off, they just scared half there work force away through fear mongering. People just quit almost everyday. Who wants to be treated like shit everyday also lied to. Im having a hard time thinking its because of birth rates. These companies are just garbage now days. I watch them waste more money on a daily basis then i make working for them in a lifetime.
Why make a poor wage and get treated bad? Plenty of jobs out there paying you what your worth and treat you well like your wanted. Call me lazy.
So true. I worked as a union carpenter off and on over the years and have since retired for the most part. I worked last year for a acoustical ceiling company in southern Utah and one of the owners said "We can't find good help". Most everybody is Mexican and make crap for wages. I said "my son can make more delivering food than working for you". They then will leave thousands of dollars of material on site and another owner will go to Mexico for mission work???? Maybe just stay here and look at paying your employees more. I worked on a school just 3 blocks from my house and was able to get $30/hour because they would not have to pay per diem.
not sure 🤔im buying the video's china 🇨🇳 sense's number's as there a current trend ( reflecting closer to ~3:1~ over-pop Male's and or husband-role's ) of MTF/trans and or cat-fishing scammers, not dissing trans ( for now still wouldn't rise up the birth-rates as SRS and or transvesite/cross-dressing currently doesn't generally include fully functional organ's/pregnancy-carry etc, that's from politically related generally not medically speaking ) or intersexual's as some aren't there for the $$/scamming-etc and nature might be trying something to rebalance-retroactively 20-30 years after-birth ( undo-ing the $$ and prestige's/society-pressures of male eirs/family-name etc, or they were there all alongside but hidden as im not formalised with there law's and social experience normal's vs uk 🇬🇧 or USA 🇺🇸 's taboo's ) the sex/rolelife-number's to be more equally 🤷♂
usa's scammers are age or male-catfishing sis-female's or mixed more so vs china's or at least what i can understand being connected with USA 🇺🇸 intelligence publication's/newspaper's
for employee vs bosses some in my lifetime haven't paid up/60h=0-usd and or happy to cheating the system's in place that my assessors put there, for me kids for now are outside of my abilities like $$ etc
Bingo. This, so much of this. Wage workers are treated like garbage up and down the spectrum of income. There's this really weird hierarchical dynamic, among other things, that sort of treats the work as if it gets done no matter what, as if there's no one attached to that work at the end of the day.
Not to get political, but for reference sake, the $140 million Trump got fined for tax fraud recently. That is around 12000 years of minimum wage labor. And that's a pittance compared to whets floating around in the economy and the government. It's roughly the equivalent of employing an entire suburban neighborhood or small town worth of income for their life times, something like 500 people.
GDP goes up but makes no difference for the vast majority of people, talking like 70%+. Average rent in 2000 was 1/10th minimum wage. $650 vs $6.25. Today, granted wages are more dynamic, but notably lagging behind the average rent of $1900-2100 and fed minimum wage of 7.25, and depending on locale, anywhere between $11-20 now (good luck finding an apartment for $2k in Cali). Future projections based on these differences. In 2050, rents will be anywhere from $5k-8k and minimum wage, if we are lucky, will be federally backed at around $30. I highly highly doubt wages are going g to keep up w any of that. I hate to be pessimistic, and there's a fair bit people can do for themselves in most cases, but I warn everyone to GTFO this country. We are hitting the fan is so many ways, we are going to fall behind eventually.
But more to what you're talking about. My gf (in Ireland), she was in between a layoff and had to take a job. Chalk it up to the 30 or 40 years behind me reality in the country vs the cities, but she was signed on for roughly half her industry, role, and wage standards. And she's management and still getting paid significantly less than
her peers and newer people coming in. It's like, how did this short end of the stick come around? The answer is leave the job, of course, but tight labor market there, can be months or a year to find the specific role or viable work and pay, so just have to suck it up, it's ridiculous and arbitrary. For everything she's doing, she should arguably be making almost twice the money, but she can't because her boss is a prick and hierarchies are static and arbitrary. She's also routinely dumped on with the work of 3 or 4 different roles, and generally treated like shit because she's a woman. The handful of other women at this engineering firm in various positions feel similarly.
The many do most of the work for very little and the few get most of the money for very little relative work. Something is gradually going very wrong. We are working for the economy but the economy isnt working for people anymore. It don't know what this man's exactly, but it feels like we are going faster and faster whilst standing still and like we are surrounded by cliff edges.
I agree with everything you said, epecially the lack of quality of ANYTHING any more
UA-cam algorithm recommended this video. After watching all the way through I understand why, you were talking about, Economics, Social studies, AI, Mexico, America, China, developed and developing countries, immigration, Latin America. Very interesting and I liked the video. I wouldn’t have thought this video would be for me, but the algorithm definitely does. Now I’m more interested in Mexico after hearing your experiences.
I own 80 acres of mature trees. I own 2 tractors, a 30' saw mill and drying/storage structures. Cant sell lumber i produce to be used in construction because of state laws concerning grading. As soon as i pay someone to grade it, ive lost most profit. And it doubles my labor. It sounds good but so much would have to change, legally for it to work. Im in Florida
that’s crazy
Move to Wyoming. Just built my place with wood I cut
At least you have big old beautiful trees, you're like a guardian of them and you can speak for them. Like a Lorax. Congrats! 😅
Wow and here I thought we were supposed to be a pro business state
Sad. What is wrong with our Florida trees? What kind of trees?
I am a laborer in the sawmill industry. Operating many machies, from band saws, gang saws, circular saws, scragg, debarking machine. Further i sharpen both band saw blades and circular saws including changing tops as needed. This includes outside machinery from forklift, tard truck, endloader, forwarder. I have seen the same decline of workers in my state.
Do they pay you a living wage ?
@joefish6091 absolutely, I make more than enough to support a family if i were to choose such. But I enjoy having play and investment opportunities at my disposal
The are on me constantly about jobs .......but most places unless they pay 60$ a hour you literally cannot afford to live there
Prefab bunkhouses are needed for a quick fix. Can't rely on the public to provide worker housing, although if they did it could be lucrative, as my friend found out in Jackson Hole.
@@alipainting Yeah those workers should live in garbage conditions next to work kek. But yeah all those resort towns pretty much have to provide housing for the seasonal hospitality employees it's kind of scary to think hard labor jobs are gonna start going that way.
@@brianbeard7278bro this is how it was done before we made all this infrastructure. In Australia we fly out to the mine sights and they have housing built for us. It’s actually really nice and we get free food, full gym, billiards rooms etc. I get payed enough to afford a little home with some land in Queensland & a UTE
@@brianbeard7278No one who works should have to live in filth.
@@ChadOfAllChads their seasonal jobs bro you're basically camping there making a shit ton of money and then you go back home
I work with a lot of foreigners who are here on a visa, and most of them just seem to think that the U.S. is the land of milk and honey. It took me going around the room and having all the Americans tell how much debt they had for one of my coworkers to realize the U.S. isn't as rich as they thought.
Basically, the media lied to get in new suckers.
@@d.unterreiner161 no we're very rich, but a lot of people make stupid decisions. Why did you go into debt for your women's study degree? Why did you go into debt to buy 300 acres if you didn't have a good business plan?
First time viewer...what a great video! My grandfather logged the Willamette valley from the mid 1930s until his passing in 1983 and I currently live in a village in Bali where forestry is a major part of the economy. You are spot on in your analysis, including I think, the hope. American boys are turning away from the horrific college system, and the key is to point them in the direction of trade skills. That carpenter you're waiting on can afford 4 kids, I guarantee😁 I believe this return to the proper valuation of skilled labour and the men who perform it is the key to rebalancing American culture and strengthening the desire for family formation over endless vacation. You're a very impressive young man mate, and I'll definitely check out more of your content. Cheers and blessings from Bali 🙏
Yes, and the 'carpenter' these days is just an assembler of pre-made components. All frames & trusses made in the factory, as are some entire transportable houses, so they are just assemblers of made up components.
To see the difference view 'The Essential Carpenter' film on Y T to see the way it once WAS done stick by stick !
By a professional valued and trained in his craft !
As someone who came from a rural area what disappoints me most is the sheer arrogance of people facing the precipice. There is so little humility, curiosity, or even willingness to entertain the possibility that the world view they hold is crumbling in on itself. When the economic decline is brought up there are always 100 excuses, it’s always someone else’s fault. The evil people out there who hate everything. It’s reassuring to see others from such backgrounds actually interested in why rural decline is happening and what can be done about it or at the very least how our expectations should be tempered.
Adapt. Accept change. Stop living in the past.
Greetings from Portugal, Europe. Your video is the spitting image of my country. Everything you said was 100% right, but I will add one more thing: the hard labor jobs were already disappearing BEFORE the birthrates started to collapse. The rural exodus and the social stigma concerning rural life made these jobs socially undesirable. Even today, kids want to be influencers, computer programmers, doctors, Ceos, etc. And they have parents that can afford to financially support them, until they get their "dream job". 50 years ago, not only parents couldn't afford to feed their children while they waited for their personal unicorn, people also didn't have a problem working as farmers or carpenters. The lack of these kind of jobs comes from a society that despises manual, hard labor. It doesn't come from low birhrates. That obviously helps the problem to be bigger, but it's really not THE cause. America coud be drowning in babies today and it still would have a lack of farmers and lumber workers. This is obviously my personal opinion. Congrats for the video, keep up with the good work :).
I'm not really disagreeing with anything you've said, very interesting by the way, I wonder if you realise how early birth rates started to drop in Portugal. The numbers I found from the World Bank, Macro Trends (this might be the same data as tWB) and Pordata have the last fertility peak being at about 1963 for Portugal and in 1983 the fertility rate dropped below the replacement level of 2.1.
@@kalebdaark100 ,You´re quite right. You're a very good reasearcher :) . The rural exodus started in the sixties and, 20 years later, the fertility rate started to drop. We have to come to the conclusion that the city lifestyle is not for babies...
The splitting image ;D
I think the idea the colleges and education industry promoted starting 2 or 3 decided ago, namely that if you don't have a college degree you are sh#t and low status has made people think something useless like a sociology degree is worth more to society than a mechanics training, and going to trade school is for low life's. They did this to insure an increasing number of students even though the population in that age was decreasing. The raised prices for higher education faster than any other economic sector even faster than the medical industry. It's not been population collapse it's prestige collapse. When all the PhDs in sociology are asking if "... you want fries" with that. And it's 2 months to get your car repaired and your mechanic is getting paid similar to the attorney, maybe things will change.
I'd say your opinion is accurate. Hungary has had good success incentivizing child production.
I have been turning my tree service in to a mushroom farm and sawmill. I used to have 7 guys and did alot of work now we do mostly crane removal so less labor. Everything you said are the things that pushed me to change my whole business model over the last 2 years. Happy to hear other people see the same things i see with the tree world.
They need to pay higher wages for hard Manuel labor, jobs. The overall population isn’t even that healthy. Most people are not healthy enough to do manual labor. Ask the average American to do a pull-up or go for a jog.
They cannot afford it. Companies go out of business if they try.
Its not about paying higher wages. Most of those trades pay quite well better than most jobs. The issue is they expect you to already know how to do the job or know someone in the union to join. When you artificially increase pay such as collective bargaining in union or legislation like the fast food minimum wage you end up decreasing supply of available workers. Which is great for the people that remain but in the long run leads to ruin
@@andybaldman so we should give priority to businesses ?
@@sapiomancer Where did I say that?
@@andybaldman I never said you said that. Its a question.
Im a hardwood flooring contractor in MN. I made $27,000 last year. Im moving back in with my parents this year.
I'm 43, and its been a bit of a shitshow.
Try to make tablesand chairs for rich people 😢❤
@@Ts7n Thanks, I've made several desktops, but for my family.
@@Ts7n I have a freind that does this. Amazing margin but not enough true rich people here locally to make it full time. Mostly posers in debt looking for fake-work.
I feel this so hard. I hope things get better for all of us.
@@Ts7nrich people aren’t buying a bunch of bling bling at the moment, everyone is hunkering down.
If I turn in a money printer, they call it counterfeiting. The government turns on a money printer, and it’s called quantitative easing…..
Buy Bitcoin.
which is normal... as the government is the one who writes those notes. Also, right now quantitative tightening is going on. So, that's "de-printing," right?
Blah blah blah
I could use a little “easing,” myself haha
Tell me you don’t know what Quantitative Easing is without actually saying it.
I was looking to move not too long ago, I'm a truck driver, and I asked about hauling lumber...
The company I talked to basically said that I would have to learn to work a crane loader, in addition to working midnight to noon shifts for a little more than minimum wage.
That kind of thing, is a sign that an industry has a enormous problem. And it's not going to get solved until some real questions get asked.
Industry's fucked cause the owners are too cheap
@@dd805100 must be. But who's gonna work for 'em? Maybe illegals?
But I moved to Texas and I short haul plastic cups for 6 figures....
What hope do they have in South Carolina to get drivers?
I 100% don't think anything you said was a buzzkill. In fact, I think overall it's a good news story baked in the depths of necessity and hardship. A fascinating and more importantly, a well delivered, oration.
1. If you keep the cost of housing low (the largest expense of living) then you could keep wages low and people working. But when the wage can't keep up with rent or mortgage, people have to look elsewhere. But if housing was cheap, people could afford to get paid less and live comfortably. Even with costs of goods being high.
2. As for forestry. They want people with degrees and experience. I have looked into forestry. That makes no sense especially for what they are willing to pay.
If they can’t find any workers than why can’t I find any jobs, maybe the hiring people aren’t doing their jobs.
THE PROBLEM IS WORKERS CANT FIND RESONBLE APT. OR HOUSE TO RENT OR BUY, THEY ARE TO EXPENSIVE IN THE AREA
I think there is more to the story, A very old mill in Mississippi just closed, said they can't find workers. Since I don't live there I don't know the situation. For me it has just become too expensive to work. If I can't afford a reliable vehicle or car repairs I find it pointless.
@@Toffsen2525 I don't get it. Any work is better than no work if everything's too expensive? Sitting home is cheaper?
@@whome1636 yes. working itself in the '1st world' is very expensive itself.. getting things like food and water is very easy if you have time cook all day... being in a highly productive high stress job requires a lot. auto insurance is very expensice, automobiles are unbelievably expensice(not basic transportation anymore), rent in unreal, buying prepared food, dealing with stress..... working itself is very expensive in the 1st world..
@whome1636 have you ever head the term "cost of doing business"
Leave it to a worker on the ground to articulate several complicated problems accurately while trying to remain objective. Thank you great video
As a nurse concerned about the population collapse (which will be catastrophic for elder care), amateur econ nerd, and fellow Mainer, i appreciate everything about this.
You can still have a long ride (decades) if you are good at your job and are willing to move a bit. Be the most caring nurse and take all the CE you can (except all that DEI scam stuff, just the real disease prevention and medical courses). You'll do all right.
Don't worry. Our AI overlords will soon figure out how to best consume our souls.
The Fed reserve note will
Collapse soon, or WW3 ?
I see a change in the medical
monopoly very soon…🤔
robots :)
It’s so ironic that billionaires are obsessed with pushing the over population narrative when it seems like the opposite is true
Fascinating discussion… as a carpenter/handyman always interesting to hear about what’s going on upstream. And props to you for all that in one take - no chopping it up and dancing around camera angles etc. just sittin with the trees and laying it out. Thanks for sharing your take on a broad and diverse mix of factors
Large land owners used to give their workers a place to live to offset the wage they could afford to pay. Cut cost on living for the worker and the pay goes further
Capitalists would never consider cutting out the landlords
Yeah in feudalism
Hard pass on corporate serfdom.
So much for the American dream of owning your own home.
Omaha Steaks had a massive apartment building for their employees fairly close to the plant.
I had my 80 acres in Northern California logged in 2019 my trucking cost was 50k more because the mill closest to me had closed. The small communities in Northern California have never recovered from the Spotted Owl scam.
I have read of tree huggers suing mills over their down stock claiming it was illegal. False claims yet ties up the lumber until the case works its way through court. No mill can afford the down time and payroll.
Years of telling young people to not have kids "you can't afford" led to this. The young people listened and followed your orders...
That’s still good advice.
@@Nun195 if your goal is to achieve a rapidly shrinking population... if not, that type of 'responsible' thinking needs to end.
@@Nun195good for the individual, but not for the nation as a whole. Where the shoe pinches is, “Where do you draw the line between the individuals desires and needs and benefit for the community? Are we our brother’s keeper? Are we Good Samaritans?” It’s a razors edge, mate.
@@Pallasathena-hv4kpyep, but it is quickly beginning to look like a moral obligation second and a practical self serving action first.
Unless you want a robot or complete stranger administering care when you become infirm, you will need progeny.
My sister is working on automation on heart rate monitors right now.
You will be using her product when you are old; as will I.
But that’s only because there aren’t enough nurses to do the job, now. That issue will only continue to grow.
Anyone who is having this conversation should be thinking about having children. I know I have been considering it.
It will become a problem in the future. It kinda is already.
@@macmurfy2jka you make excellent points 👍
You hit the nail on the head. Our Achilles heel is the cost of the healthcare that we are morally obligated to offer to the elderly. The young are saddled with not only staggering inflation but also unsurmountable debt created by those who are soon to perish.
The list of failures like this would be long. Throw in being the world police, regulating entire industries and millions of businesses out of existence on purpose, and outright corruption.
we knew this was going to happen since the late 80s that when the boomers retired there wouldnt be enough young to care for all of them yet almost none of them planned for retirement. they waited to turn 65 and now start singing communism once their bills show up. its why im considering leaving america
@@alexmartinez-og8gu won’t really have a place to go. This issue is all over the developed world and rising nations are all in the path of destructive climate change. It’s not an ideal situation to navigate.
@@alexmartinez-og8gualso, there was an oversupply of boomer labor, so jobs didn't pay enough to save, nor did they come with pensions. So boomers had to buy rental houses to make up the difference.
Regarding healthcare, it's the greed of insurance companies that are preventing a national healthcare system.
But yeah, some boomers are also forced to emigrate due to not having enough to live on. Bali sounds good 😄
@@quintonmcdannald2327 i speak spanish, tons of places in latin america i can go to once this issue starts to cause public turmoil. already have chilean citizenship.
over taxation, over regulation and micromanaging eat away the ability and desire to engage with society. good luck getting that back
There’s nothing in the video about taxes and regulation. But that’s what the bosses always blame for their poor planning.
Look at the OSHA fines for the West, TX fertilizer plant and say they're overregulated. They blew up their own plant, killed a dozen people, flattened half the town, and got a $118k fine. Companies spend more on lobbyists stopping regulation than they do to comply with regs, and that's the way they like it.
Person is talking about why the demographics are the way the are. Taxation on the poor, authoritarianism, inflation, climate change. Why should people have kids? Future does not look good. If we are not willing to invest in young people then parents will stop having them.
People do not trust that governments wish to help their population.
If it's any of those things, then why is Europe doing better than us? It's capital gains tax beimg lower than income tax that's causing issues as we have more shareholders than actual workers. We need worker and consumer cooperatives.
@@gljames24 they are over taxing whilst simultaneously avoiding paying for their defense let along anyone else's.
Also I would disagree that as a whole the eu is 'doing better' overall
The process of becoming a developing country is the process of changing children from an asset to a liability. If the country I reside in is not developed, then I must do everything myself. Having 8 kids as indentured servants for 18 years is convenient and profitable. If the country becomes developed (as is his description of Mexico today) then I don't do things for myself, I hire out things to be done for me. 8 kids in that environment means 8 times the number of people that must have their needs paid for. Therefore, Kids are now a liability, not an asset. This can be further exasperated by government regulation virtually outlawing me and my family doing things for ourselves. Besides children, the other great wealth gain in undeveloped societies is to take skills I have developed and share them with my neighbor often in a side hustle/barter format. But that is now deemed illegal because I have no certification, no insurance, no state license. These expenses and requirements kill the small entrepreneur and barter format. So again, if EVERYTHING must be professionally done, and overseen by an expensive bureaucracy, it makes it nearly impossible to maintain kids as an asset, only a liability. The final nail in the coffin is then the kids that do exist, growup without having the experience of work or disciplined work ethic, and would never even consider a job that requires hard work, like the lumber industry.
100% agree. The solution is a simple wealth transfer (tax/obligation/etc) from child to parent, since children don't provide value anymore to parents like they used to. Whatever the kids "pay", it has to be more than 401k's, or else people will just take the money they would have spent on raising kids and put it in their retirement accounts.
Incentives matter. Society will have to positively incentivize child rearing because it's no longer profitable.
Very good comment ..
Unlike skills like computer programming that can be learnt at home for virtually free and no risk to life limb or property...farming,lumbering,machining,carpentry,woodworking,fishing etc cannot be learned easily like programming..risk free ..these real world jobs..very few toung people know now....and when the shortage of labor comes....it will be an absolute disaster as many of them will injure themselves...knowing the physical job is one thing...doing it wihou lt injuring yourself or others is skill in itself.
… or maybe it’s because you cut home economics, shop, and civics out of public education, so any parents that doesn’t haven’t that knowledge (most) can’t pass it on?
Like yeah, oddly enough, if you stop teaching a full range of practical skills to kids en masse, then kids only learn the limited specific skills their parents have, and then have an even more limited set to pass onto their parents
@maxtravers1314 And then the government builds an "education" system that becomes more and more draconian and finally reveals itself in its true form, an "indoctrination" system.
Your comments on Mexican export economy to US & maquiladoras wasn't very correct imo.
Maquiladoras expanded in Regan '80s but then the twin issues of Latin American debt crisis (& subsequent "Brady Plan") and China getting WTO recognition pretty much put a stop to further maquiladora expansion.
Mexico immediately felt the flight of production to China due to lower labor costs there. Almost overnight Mexican plants for sewing clothes, making shoes and simple housewares shuttered. They went to china. Then 30 years later China started lossing its own grip on low cost production. Starting about 2010 places like Vietnam and Bangladesh took the labor intensive, low value jobs. But that process is unlikely to repeat because the whole collapsing birthrate scenario across entire planet (ex sub Saharan Africa & Indian subcontinent) will destroy household formation which fueled that demand from Mexican, then Chinese, finally Vietnamese/Bangladesh factories.
The only reason mexican plants are expanding is because of logistic and supply line isdues during the pandemic. End users want factories closer.
Also, the day of political driven economic sanction is moving production back to Western hemisphere
Secondly, future US labor won't be able to steal away 2×4 production from "BigLumber" simply because "BigLumber" will simply use "regulatory capture". Govt will, "all the sudden", decide to impose all kinds of health & safety standards on small time operators. Of course, the lobbyist for "BigLumber" will be ones writing the legislation.
The evil nexus of BigBusiness & BigGovt will impose barriers and restrictions that preserve 2×4 production for themselves.
Just like BigDairy & BigDairyProcessors worked to drive the 20, then 50, then 100 cow dairy farms out of business by upping requirements for ever more expensive regulations & "health/safety".
Tech will be the hand maiden... even though drones didn't fulfill the notion of delivering Amazon packages they sure have excelled at delivering battlefield surveillance and 💥💥. Just look at Azerbaijan vs Armenia or Russia vs Ukraine.
I suspect in future, specific trees will be evaluated via drone and then robotic track vehicles will cutdown and skid to marshalling yards
@RokoKruger-hk2ui can't really make an intelligent prediction for your Australian situation. Don't know much about Down Under.
Good luck (& buckle up)
Indiana USA, Popular lumber can not be used in housing construction. I don’t understand why ?
@@dmo7815 Our old 1904 house I live in is made from yellow poplar, oak, ash, pine and ect... I think pine is actually stronger
We have always had self-driving cars. I drive my self in one. Getting the car to drive me would not save any labor, as I still have to sit there in the car. The only saved labor from self driving cars are people with chauffeurs. Now they can fire the chauffeur.
So your attention is free all of a sudden? I guess those commute hours don’t take any toll on your brain and energy then
That dog bite hospital visit would cost u at least $900 here in California 😢
plus 4 months of physical therapy and 5 years of psychiatric treatment for PTSD.
@@furtim1 And lawsuits against the owner, the city and maybe the hospital.
I went to the ER in California because I had the flu, but I didn't know it. I was very sick, I had COVID before, but this flu was way worse, I was hallucinating and it felt like my body was a soup and somebody was stirring me up. All they did was do a COVID test and a flu test. It cost me $3000. Three-thousand effing dollars for a stupid flu test! I refused to pay. I paid the doctor bill which was $500 but there was no way I would be able to pay the $3000 they wanted from me. An absolute scam! I am never going to the ER again for any reason.
@@nightshade8958did you have medical insurance at the time?
@@alexanderchenf1 No, obviously. I wouldn't be complaining about it if I did. But even if I did 3000 dollars(Not including the doctor bill!) Is insane for just a flu test and a COVID test.
I’m 64, oldest of 8 kids, a retired Army and a civilian nurse. Right now I’m working on our church to house conversion. I’ve been plugging away at it for 7 years. Nearly all my vacation time was spent here working. Now I work around my physical condition and appointments to come try to finish it up. I’d LOVE to pass on my woodworking gardening, and repairing skills to younger people, but they aren’t interested, and they’re “too busy”. At least my youngest daughter is doing DIY on her house. People “ooo” and “ah” at what I make, and wonder why I look like s workaholic, but this shouldn’t look like some super-human skill set! My farmer grandpa, and silo company grandpa made it happen! They didn’t have the money or resource availability to just pay somebody to do the work for them.
I took electronics, welding, woodworking, and small engine class in junior high and high school. It was considered the route to go for kids not smart enough to go to college.
I have a masters degree in nursing informatics, but now I’m back to doing DIY, restoring antiques, and dirty jobs. I hire out specialty things like electrical, or things I would rather have someone else do.
I have no grandkids from my 3 girls, and no one to teach except my youngest daughter. My wife’s two grandkids aren’t interested in coming out to my shop and working. I offered to teach woodworking and stuff at church, but no takers.
It’s everyone else right?
I would give anything for an opportunity like this! Please keep trying. Sometimes we’re so caught up in ourselves when we’re younger. But yeah, I hope they will come to appreciate what a gift you are!
open a youtube channel, do videos of 10-30 minutes, preferably a project/skill based one, work on the title like "how to change table legs". These videos will be there forever
You are valuable! Don't give up. This really seems/sounds like a connection issue. Someone mentioned a UA-cam channel, and I think they were right on! We just need to bridge the people who have something to teach, with the people who need to learn.
Its amazing how modern youth and a lot of older people are not interested in learning new things. smart phones and video games, watching the latest movie.
In Britain in the 80s the electronics hobby scene pretty much collapsed, all the kids were addicted to toy computers. it took until the late 90s and the internet for the scene to revive a bit, China and Russia and a lot of the rest of the world seem to be hot for hobby electronics. But I imagine its one in a thousand spread over eight billion.
Peter Ziehan claims that the US already tapped about 80% of the work force out of Mexico and thanks to the Central America Free Trade Agreement the US has also tapped a large portion of them as well.
Not quite. About half the Mexican working population is involved in the informal economy, which is no different from setting up a lemonade stand outside their home. They are completely untapped.
Within the formal economy, however, the bulk of the working population works in homegrown SMEs, which have almost no involvement with the American supply chain. Add to that the contribution that tourism makes to the Mexican economy, particularly in the coasts and south and the untapped population becomes greater.
I've no idea where Peter's getting his numbers from, but a cursory glance at the Mexican economic censuses shows that he's wrong.
I worked with 3 African immigrants last year, they all went home lol. 🇺🇸 is too expensive
He means northern México.and maybe only refering to young mexicans that are willing to take those jobs and are percibe as elegible for those companies.i am mexican,i used to work in a factory most of them pay as little as posible,plus transport comuting in public trasport,as is normal in mexico,horrible labor envayroment,sometimes Bad safety(health) conditions,the only advantage is that You hace access to public healt services.tha is whi job informality is so comon Even in northern México.
Sometimes You make more money and have a better Quality of life in the job informality in northern México.sometimes You are to old to be hire by a formal company.
Peter Ziehan = "ex CIA" (yeah right, 'ex') and everything he says should be filtered through a lens of "why is he telling me this?"
Im a beekeeper, and you can talk with any beekeeper and they will say the same. In some cases something goes wrong in the Hive and the queen stops laying eggs. There can be many reasons for this. However, what is scary here is that there is a significant delay before you actually notice that something is wrong. They live like nothing would have happened, this is because in different age the bees have different tasks.
... and suddenly all is gone.
This is an existential threat larger than any war. Its time to stop the wars and start making babies.
Additionally, to note is that the female is fertile only until 38. Therefore, it may look like you have people in a society. However, the real number you actually have are the female population under 35. All othercan not reproduce.
It is a gigat catastrophe if we can not turn the trend.
Do ya'll imagine that people are going to stop having children period?
@@comradesillyotter1537 No...but they will eat them. Don't be so shocked, there are plenty of times in history when that's happened...but corporate and government greed would probably be the most shameful reason ever.
Your video caught my attention because I could see the demographic chart in the thumbnail. I can't relate to your commentary about forestry in the slightest, because I'm a woman in computer animation. But I think your commentary about demographics and immigration is an interpretation close to reality. You are a good speaker and you present the information well in an unbiased factual way. Great Video.
What a thoughtful monologue. These are the type of topics that matter and the discussions that are worth having.
I don’t own a forest but enjoy your videos! Thank you for posting.
I've watched hundreds of videos about population decline but this is one of the simplest and informational videos about the topic.
All the other videos are trying to sell you on some sort of conspiracy
And none of them told you it is a good thing. Shocking propaganda.
Excellent video. We need more of your videos. This is good information for a lot of people that are unknown to this.
Historically, the tendency is to over-estimate the effect of new tech in the short term, and under-estimate the effect on the long-term.
I used to work for a weld shop in Missoula Montana, they also went out of business a year or two back.
Housing in the area went up about 30 to 50 % in the year June 2020 to May 2021.
Ps They welded on logging trucks mostly at that business.
Did you find another weld job?
Did a guy named Sponseller own that weld shop?
Know a long time realtor there.
The housing in north west MT.
Exploded, crazy prices, it’s peaked
Maybe ?🤔🤷🏿♂️
Hagan
Excellent and thought provoking. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your take on today's ecconomy.
I'm born and raised in So. Cal. and I've never had enough cash to hire a plumber, electrician, appliance tech or mechanic.
Once, when I was in Zhuhai my boot came apart. I had a street vendor stich it up like new, for not so many RMB. That was maybe my first & last time using a pro.
I love your positivity!
Reminds me of Sir John Templetons saying: "Trouble is opportunity".
Comment from lifelong private lands consulting forester - southern US. I agree with 80% of your comments, learned new viewpoints on 19%. I think the 1% difference is that your small-scale forestry and large scale forestry will serve separate market positions. There will be urban markets that cannot support $10 2x4s, but will be supported by large scale existing forestry product industry. The rural areas will become an increasingly important market for localized forestry. I already see that happening in the four states I have worked over the last 50 years.
Transportation costs and large-volume, large acreage forestry will continue to become important. We still see a niche market for patient landowners who let their trees get to 45-50 yrs old and older, but only supported by very few number of modest sized sawmills that are not owned by big companies.
Until implosion occurs, and people are forced to face the negative side of our systems of excessive codependency... it's only going to get worse. Particularly, it will get progressively worse for our country, because lobbyists and politicians are literally legislating against independence, self-sufficiency, and small-scale operations.
Now there is a bizarre economy where so many high paying jobs can be done remotely but lower paying jobs have to be done face-to-face. We're probably going to have workers prefering to take the remote jobs and face-to-face will have fewer applicants. That's going to have an interesting impact.
Great video! I work in the pallet industry. Your explanation of the labor force market is spot on.
This is a far more thoughtful breakdown of this than I anticipated when I clicked bravo sir
Legal, good.
Illegal, bad.
High standards for entry, good.
Open border, bad.
Very true. My immagrant friends and family are WAY more industrious than me and most of my localy-born freinds. We need more real immigration.
Why barriers to Anglo immigrants ?
While assisting illegals with nothing ?
🤔🤷🏿♂️
Meaningless if the entry goes down by itself due to economic factors and not thanks to any policy, ideology, or opinions.
What does it matter what you think is good if you vote for propel who think all of it is bad and underfund the system in charge of vetting for terrorist? We as a country literally punish immigration offices and underfund them to keep the backlog longer and make legal unrealistic for poor working people.
and trump closed all LEGAL pathways to immigration., leaving only ILLegal
Thank you for this insight. You are a really effective communicator. I appreciated the background and context you provided, I think it was certainly needed to truly understand the issue.
I work for a fire department in rural Ohio and the lack of young entrants to the labor market is certainly having an effect. Hardly anyone is applying for positions as they open, and finding new paramedics has been very difficult.
Tech industry here, applied to 30 jobs the past 8 months. 4 interviews. And that's a great ROI. It's bad
Is paramedic even the type of job you can just apply to? It’s not free to be a paramedic, ignoring the cost on your quality of life and better jobs, you still need a good while of training. Just promise people a job after they do their training and don’t just expect them to get their certifications and blindly hope for a bad self-sacrificial job.
Naw it's not complicated, it is simply wages are stagnant while everything else has gone up in price and this is the same for everyone with developed economies. It is the only thing that effects everyone equally. Where has the money gone?
I’ve owned and operated a small logging company for 35 years, surviving at the bottom of the industry logging small private parcels. The 30% increase in cost of business the last couple of years combined without an increase in log values has almost put me out of business. I’d be out of business if I could sell out, but there’s no market for anything. The United States is the largest importer of lumber. Your optimism for a market for small scale loggers is a bit naive. When fuel is high, industrial supply costs are high, taxes are high and it appears that this is here to stay. You can’t survive on nothing, people won’t cut their timber if there is no financial incentive for them because production costs are high. They’ll let it grow, and they can’t afford to pay for site development or other services.
Spot on in the United States the ever-increasing regulations in taxes makes it impossible to do business on a small margin. It only takes one hiccup to derail your business I live in a part of North Florida that was recently hit by a hurricane my 40-acre parcel of mixed Forest is flat as a pancake there's nobody interested in harvesting the lumber even if I give it away for free or pay them there was a medium-sized logging outfit working the property adjacent to mine and when I contacted the owner he said he was going out of business after he completed that job due to the low value of Lumber in the area and the closing of the Pope Mill which was closer to the coast and got destroyed by the hurricane
Not just mills all the farmers in Iowa are in the same boat. Most are projecting $250,000 losses for every 1000 acres farmed. No loans being paid this year
You are a smart young fella and are 100% correct, a lifetime ago when I was Stationed at Fort Bliss my life plan was to retire at 45 and retire in Mexico. I retired at 58 and am now 65 I've been married for over 40 years and have one son. If I wasn't leaving my property to my son I would sell and move to Mexico and buy a small ranch and live comfortably for the rest of my life. Move and stay there would be my advice.
Awesome stuff, Zach. I’ve been living in the Puerto Vallarta region for 15 years now. You are spot on about rising wages-we’re seeing it here. A good thing in my opinion, though it cuts into our lifestyle a bit (we’ll survive). I’m bullish on Mexico for all the reasons you cite, and more. Have a safe trip north, and a great season in the woods.
I also live in a semi tourist zone in Baja and what I'm noticing is gentrification, big time, forcing the locals inland.
I worked at a Saw mill that closed in 2008. Since then I had to work at a hospital and got screwed for ten years and then at an ammo plant but got hurt and am on leave. I wish I still had the job t the mill.
how did you get hurt, machinery?
@@Armored_Ariete No I just tore my rotor cuff over a 6 to 8 month period. It just felt sore but that is normal. Everyone is sore. Finally it started to hurt on the job and I went to see a Dr. No workman's comp.
@@SanitysVoid damn. This country is a misery machine. Only developed nation with no required sick leave and workers comp. Also the country that takes 80% of the world’s opiates. Makes you think. Good luck my friend. Right there with you.
I work in Madison WI and drive an hour each way because not only are the rents unaffordably high so are the taxes.
Recently we have people leaving because the pay doesn't support the high cost of living.
We saw this happen before. When the bubonic plague in the 14th century reduced labor quickly and in a large amount. The wealthy land owners lost cheap labor. For the first time in history (as far as I know) labor had some pricing power. Things did change forever.
Put a few rvs on the property and let the workers live there free. The can save a couple grand a month.
YES, GOOD IDEA, JUST LIKE THE OIL WORKER HOUSING
Yea live at work, no friends or people around you but coworkers. Nothing but sleep and work. Open up a company shop so only place to buy items is at work.
Company shuts down and you lose your job, community and your home.
@@roninjotatan thats the way it was in the 1800,s thats the way it is, check out the man camps in the oil fields, you have to live were you work,
@@domcizek its not the 1800's anymore, we are not slaves to land owners or oil barons. you want cheap labor off the backs of wage slaves which is despicable.
@@roninjotatancrazy seeing people bumbling back into supporting company towns.
Wonderful reporting. It's so important that you are telling the story from your real life on the ground experience. Keep it up .Our word is coming apart at the seems and people aren't connecting the dots.
Feels like hanging out with smart friend.
From what I know of sawmills in Montana, which is limited, they don't seem to pay enough to keep the people they train, and they're fairly top-heavy. There is a lot of seeming internal corruption within the businesses I am familiar with. Montana has a real problem in paying people a decent wage to begin with across many sectors.
I love your optimism, but you are underestimating the bureaucracy and regulation hellscape of our wonderful, small business crushing US gubment.
Never seen you before but you earned my subscription barely 2 minutes in. I LOVE when someone provides extensive details on what they're talking about
Bro, you went deep! So, in 20 years I'll have nobody to harvest my timber. I guess I'll have to mill it and sell myself, if that even makes economic sense then.
Makes me want to be young again. Trying too teach my Grandkids and hand down my skills and those of other men I know. Show them how to find that information.
Nope, you don’t have anybody to harvest your timber at this point in your/our existence…
Depending on what specie it is you might not even have a market for it as production costs will exceed the value of the timber. Look at PNW hardwoods, the mills left because the market left.
Agree totally with you on a new era of viable local vertically integrated forestry industry based on the owner operator model. I was at two amazing new rural homes this weekend in Nova Scotia. Ten years ago you could not scare up a single small independent mill in the region. These two homes were built by a local small builder who harvested the timber, transported the logs, milled the wood and built the homes. These are each $750k plus sophisticated home projects. This is how we were doing it in the 1940's before post war industrialization. Pulp is dead. Landowners are growing/harvesting timber instead. Building inspectors are accepting green wood. The small mills are back. Amazing turnaround in a few years.
Your descripting of Mexico is almost perfect concerning the past, current and future economy.. in plain sight.. From a taco vendor on a bicycle who serves fresh grown raised and prepared tacos by himself his wife and family members to large super market to a modern hotel resort.. all side by side... something The United States has almost lost entirely.
Very impressed and appreciative of the level-headed and informed discussion. In terms of forestry, I am amazed at the trend now to build ever larger structures entirely of wood and use wood products as a replacement for steel. Who is going to go out and harvest all that wood where wood actually grows, far from cities.
I know the industry and the real problem is that the operators produce products and at the end of the day the owner drives home in a pickup and the wholesalers drive home in a luxury car. If the operators were to create their own marketing and sales system they could realize the lion share of the profits, it's just that simple and then they come offer real wages that have a promise of a future.
I'm impressed that you did an intelligent analysis. I have no connection to the forestry industry, but yet found this really insightful. I'm eager to research if forestry is a viable business for myself.
Woodmizer resharp closers were because of lack of labor also. Or so I have been told. Started a sharpening business and have definitely picked up guys due to them closing.
That's awesome, Im glad to hear it!
Very interesting and thoughtful video. As a working person in the city, it is very interesting to hear from working people from other regions about how all of this is affecting them. I find that the understanding of economics, and the subsequent predictions made by the academic and intellectual class are so much less grounded and off base. I think they all look at each other's information and don't really pay attention to what we have to say, and the think we aren't thoughtful or knowledgeable about they sectors of the economy that we work in or manage. I look forward to seeing more of your content. Thanks!
Can we also talk about the fact that the Internet was around for a long time before it changed the world too? Like the Internet had the greatest impact from 2005-2015 or so but before that, it wasn't widely adopted or useful. AI will probably also take 20-40 years to actually be super useful
AI can't help with human greed, which is why we are where we are. The AI could tell its corporate overlords and its city council that what they are asking is mathematically impossible, but they still wouldn't get it. If there's an AI revolution, it will be because it will do a simple calculation of whether the electricity it receives is enough to cover the electricity it expends for its work, and find the answer is no. That's what is happening with the work force, is that they are not being given enough to survive let alone improve their living standard. You shouldn't have to go into debt to feed yourself, especially when said food isn't even healthy. It's truly arrogant that people do not understand such a simple math.
Besides debt, savings is actually also killing the economy. HOW does the savings account MAGICALLY gain money over time? From debt interest. Okay, but then where is people getting the money to pay off the interest? You'd have to create new money. But if you create new money, the money that exists becomes valued less. If the money becomes valued less, then did your savings account actually become more valuable? NO. Money only has value AFTER YOU SPEND IT!
You have a good understanding of Mexico and it's economy. We have been running companies there for a while and you hit the nail on the head. The wages translate perfectly to the coffee harvest in the mountains to the labor at the beaches and towns.
The main problem is housing prices in Montana are higher than people can afford.Too many rich people are buying up land and housing, short term rentals, real estate investment from out of state rich people. The investment in real estate is not allowing workers to live in rural areas. Once again billionaires are screwing it up for the working people.
Montana has no middle class per se , there are the Uber rich and then everyone else. Ever notice that many Montanans have a side gig?
Not even "rich". We have lower & lower-middle class city-dwellers and retirees moving into Vermont to escape the "crazy". Brutal to our proprty taxes after an assement. For many here the tax is nearing the mortgage!
My Grandpa worked at pyramid sawmill in the one you quoted in that article from Montana
He worked for 43 years and they shut it down and left him with nothing now they’re cutting up what little is left and auctioning off the rest
He was very close to Retirement now it’s gone
His Job gone
And soon he’ll lose his home
Everything he worked for is gone
The problem in Seeley lake is it is a resort town only the Rich can afford to live there the other than that sawmill the economy is solely tourism
Young people have been pushed out of housing in Montana only the old and the rich can afford property in a rural state with no
Affordable Housing and low paying Jobs
Plus a small mountain tourist town isn’t Gonna attract young workers
However pyramid sawmill didn’t shut down because of
Labor shortage
Looks like the more industrialized a country gets, the less time and emergy people have to date, get to know, marry and have kids??
Maybe there are stronger factors to choosing to have kids than dating. People don’t just have kids cause they are in love or married they CHOOSE to have kids.
Even the disruption to copywriting isn’t what people would think. In my experience, there’s been a recent uptick in jobs.
I always thought, much like computers, it’d just lead to more of us doing more work.
AI and other automation helps big economies of scale first due to cost but once the cost comes down it should help owner operators the most.
I read that someone is making a better particle board by using long slivers instead of small chips of wood.
Could something similar be done with crushed bamboo, cut into 1-2 foot lengths I wonder? As our climate warms, bamboo might be a better construction material, if making all that glue wouldn't be an issue. After all, with warming, all those nasty bugs that can destroy entire forests are NOT being killed back by cold winters.
Not in Texas! Every saw mill in east Texas is making money and staying busy!
I work at a sawmill in Oregon and can attest to the labor issue being a problem. We are pretty much always hiring, and there always seem to be a handful of guys who are still working only because it would be more of a pain to replace them than it is to put up with them.
First time viewer, awesome video. I’m a land owner with a sawmill. I would love to see you do a video on how small land owners with sawmills can produce income on a regular basis
You present information in a logical, clear, and interesting way. I'm glad I found you!
… I do business with a factory in China and what you said about China being a fast growing GDP country is very false.
China has been on a downslope / negative growth since they began the COVID-19 crap.
It all changed when they cleared the Hong Kong protestors from the streets to having everyone stay home.
The youth refuse to work … REFUSE … as they realized that there is no advantage in doing so with the chaos happening there. The factories are leaving for Vietnam, India, and the Philippines.
People get replaced, if they have a job, after 35 years of age … fact~!!! Also, when millions of workers went back to their jobs, this year’s Chinese New Year, found out that the owners took everything and fled the country without paying them.
Electric Vehicles “EV” are exploding out of nowhere and car distributors have hundreds of vehicles sitting on the lots without any sales to keep afloat in almost a year … not weeks, a year~!!!
What used to be extremely busy streets filled with shopping, restaurants, retail stores, and so forth are now no more. They are empty like a ghost town in the old Wild West.
All the above is easy to research and you will see the truth that China is falling, and falling FAST
Thank you.
First time viewer.
I chose to watch for the economic content.
Safe travels home!
👍🇨🇦
The one China policy didn’t technically end until about five years ago. Everyone on the Internet is saying this, but it’s not true. Even after that, you were only allowed to have two kids, but the people used to having one or none and they’re all on the line to take care of four sets of grandparents so they’re not really into having kids. The Chinese have been made to assimilate to the idea of having small families and now it’s going to be hard to get them to go back without using the same kind of force that got them there in the first place.
We are rapidly losing foundational knowledge required for our industrial economy
It really is this simple:
Possible Worker: "Can I work work this job?"
Society: "Sure, if you are willing to take hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, to get a degree we can remove your credentials for if you disagree with our dogma at any time."
Possible Worker: "No thanks, then."
This was such a fascinating monologue. Humble, with a knowledge of own field, clear flow of thought and argumentations and interesting ideas. Thank you greatly 🤝🏻
Here in the foot hills of the coast range in Oregon we've also had mill closures, mostly because the price of lumber and the mills were losing money. As a timber manager we've seen all of our costs rise, the rise in logging cost has been incremental and normal (because let's face it nothing goes down anymore) but, trucking has more than doubled and to exacerbate the problem we lost our +12 mill that was 25 miles from us, so now all of logs have to go 45-50 miles away. I won't even get into the seedling problems for reforestation which is horrible right now. There are some huge problems coming as soon as this current housing price bubble pops. As a wise man once said "If it can't go on forever, It won't". In my opinion there is always an end to the business cycle and you can't just print or borrow money to keep it going.
Id be curious in hearing more about the seedling issue. That isn't an issue around here. What is driving that? A lack of nursery capacity?
@@thetimberlandinvestor I think lack of capacity is some of the problem but also good forest seed is also a problem (from what I hear). It also comes down to the system you use for site prep and seedling type. For a long time, I had a supplier that produced an outstanding "plug one" from a high gain seed source. Our suppler quit growing plug ones and went to just growing plugs. On our property the elk have a field day with small plugs, when they graze the plugs are at the same height as the other grasses there grazing on. So far, I haven't found a supplier with a good enough quality 2-0 or plug one. I might have to plant plugs and net and sticker them, but as you can imagine, it all costs money and time. Some of the reasons why small family timber farms are declining is because bigger industry has their systems down to science with helicopter spraying and better supply chains and cost controls.
@@chrisbaxter4892 0 fir seedlings used to be around 50 cents, now I’ve seen prices up to a couple bucks?
I live in NW Arkansas & I absolutely love all the folks that have come here from Mexico & other Latin American countires. They are wonderful ppl _!_