As a farmer, we aren’t seeing any uptick in grain prices, despite inputs being twice as much as last year. So if prices go up, you can rest assured it isn’t going to the people producing the food. As is tradition.
locally we have passed that time of year where trucks drive fields endlessly spreading fertiliser to help destroy the eco system and we’re at endless heavy trucks taking away potatoes right now. Interposed with the all that is dairy and forestry trucks carting logs all year
it’s endlessly depressing
About a year ago I did a deep dive on some of the economic aspects of the logging industry. There is a major study on the USA industry put out by the USDA.
What I was going to mention was that logging had a particular situation where credit was pretty cheap at a moment in time, so big expensive machines were basically the way to go.
Most logging companies went into debt buying logging machines, trucks etc and it was all managing well until FUEL became more expensive. The cost of running the machines essentially squeezed all the profits out of the business and a lot of companies were basically just squeaking by and paying loans and not much else. I think the entire usa had only about $1B in total industry profits.
This report came out BEFORE diesel doubled in price. It’s going to be like the fertilizer / farming thing where the costs of energy will absolutely cripple the industrial Timber businesses also. They could raise prices and pass along the costs only if consumers have the ability to pay.
I think it’s likely that the marginal timber companies will simply fold. Timber sales that have too great a hauling distance to a mill will just be uneconomic.
If there are shortages of both diesel and fertilizer (and costs go up), it’s hard to imagine this won’t spike food prices.
But if both inputs are not JUST expensive, but unobtainable, it’s a worse problem than prices.
we will be having another world food price crisis if things dont change really soon or we will have a farmer bankruptcy wave. potentially both. if we get a couple more years of this high input cost and/or shortage environment we will have a true global catastophe. im waiting until the numbers are in for carryover stocks available in 2027 before i call it.
I think it’s baked into the cake at this point since there is little chance of a resolution for the Hormuz situation. The empire seriously underestimated Iran’s resolve, and agency for that matter.
Domestically there is going to be trouble too. From where I sit it appears that the MAGA coalition is fragmenting - farmers and working class supporters feel betrayed for example. And there are whispers that Trump is being blackmailed by foreign governments, took part in various disgusting acts, etc.
The US regime appears to be oblivious because they believe their own propaganda now despite wildly inaccurate numbers on both inflation and unemployment for years. They seem to actually believe the economy is doing well because they are richer than they’ve ever been. But the conditions on the street are closer to revolution than I have ever seen in my life. E.g. I see “86 47” graffiti around and so on, everyone’s pissed off and complaining about being broke, etc.
Needless to say, I’m very concerned about the next decade.
