Why the cost increase?


I went to buy materials for a speaker project. I also priced some T-111 siding on 8" centers, 5/8 thick, Ship lap.
I hadn’t picked up any sheets or anything in over 18 months.

48" x 96 x 5/8 wood siding was 19-26.00 and on sale 15-20.00 per sheet, NOW 74-84.00 per sheet.

MDF 3/4" 48 x 96" if you can find it. 45-55.00 per sheet it was 22.00 to 27.00 per sheet.

2x4x8 DF stud grade 1.99-3.00 per. Now 4-6.00 per stud,

There is no shortage but there sure is a LOT of price gouging. NOTHING changed. Just the price..

The quality is worse. The workers aren’t paid worth a crap...Why the increase?

I’m getting ready to finish my home out. WOW.. I might have to rethink this a bit..

The price all most tripled in 12-18 months.. This kind of stuff is NOT cool at ALL.

Just my opinion of course. Any projects you’re doing get put on hold or STOPED?

YES I’m very frugal. Money never came easy, and it leaves the same way..

oldhvymec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa1JR-TgPfU&list=RDMM&index=7

LA county, myself...but closer to what Frank has to say about it....just more of similar but mostly trouble of other sorts, unimagined and undreamt of.....*no emoji can infer or begin to*
oldhvymec

I've read where Baltic Birch is a fantastic material for speakers ,
my Thiels used 17 layers of birch veneer to form the curved sides .
Good luck with your  audio project .
I'm not a big fan of Trump's personality but Biden has been a train wreck.  The cost of material good are due to Covid and greed but Biden's policy's are not addressing it and only making it worst.  Unemloyeement payments, stimulus checks and extending the eviction ban need to be stopped.  There was a time it made sense to keep the economy going but that time has passed.  Every where I go there are help wanted signs.  Get back to work America.  
@nonoise,

So the world doesn’t work like you think and you throw your lot in with the radical right because not all left leaning politicians are honest, leaving your with totally dishonest, anti democratic right wingers financed by Putin in his quest to discredit democracies world wide.



I’d like to think I’ve thought it through a little deeper than that.
For instance I was able to observe at close hand the neverending bickering amongst mostly self serving comrades as to the best course of action going forwards.


Then came the schism between the hard line left and the so called Blairite moderates. A schism that continues today with the moderate Keir Starmer heading a Labour Party where many of its communist members are constantly seeking to undermine him.

Most importantly, in over 40 years of consideration I was unable to discover even one viable alternative to the capitalist system that we see in place today worldwide.


I could add that the powers that be in Russia, China, and Cuba etc have also been unable to come up with a viable alternative to communism. We all know what happened to the 5 year plans of Mao and Stalin, don’t we?

Capitalism, for all of its faults, may just be the best way of encouraging endeavour, creativity and drive that the human race is capable of.


Perhaps the real danger for the West is that it may not be able to compete with their less welfare orientated versions.

If there was one thing I could change right now it would be the gross inequalities of wealth between the extreme rich and the rest.

By some estimates, the richest 1% now own over 80% of all global wealth.
That’s not capitalism, that’s something bordering on evil.



’World’s richest 1% get 82% of the wealth’, says Oxfam (2018)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42745853

@kaarmstrong


Yes, there are many jobs but they need to pay a living wage.  Anything less is totally unacceptable.