How High Can You Handle?

You may not have noticed this as much as with petroleum and resins, but the costs of basic metals such as copper and steel are also through the roof and headed for the sky. Solutions do not abound, so I suggest we either tighten our belts or find some conservation measures soonest!

Very true, construction costs are through the roof. With the rising metal prices, steel bridges are being stolen at night, people are walking onto construction sites and taking copper pipes and the most distressing element of all, is that the canadian penny is worth less then the copper it is made of! On a serious note, i can see more and more recycling companies being created to salvage our waste and sell it at large profits. We throw out so much useful stuff, it's unbelievable!

I must be psychic - I was telling people 25 years ago that we would see the day when landfills were regarded like ore bodies and would be mined for recoverable materials. Oh, how they laughed (most of 'em)...THEN! Not so loudly now.

Hehehehe, too true, too true. I wonder how long till we here of companies claiming mining rights in dumps. Itd be interesting, and very awesome

154% inflation in six months for asphalt shingles!

Construction material prices, across the spectrum are rising at rates that take away the breath. After getting an astounding competitive set of bids to repair my roof and re-shingle my modest home of advancing years I decided in January to take on the project myself; and I began the project about 2 1/2 months ago; I buy a day or two of materials at a time as my vehicle can't accommodate much more than that and my old joints limit the number of hours of work. Three weeks ago I noticed that the price of asphalt shingles had, once again, made a major leap upward. I happened to have had the pocket notebook in which were jotted the cost, at that time, of these basic building materials while estimating the repair project costs, so the project could be done from a set aside budget. Six months ago they were $9.33 a bundle. Now they are up to $14.33... Galvanized nails, lumber to repair a half dozen joists, tar coating for flashed in protrusions and other items related to roofing... All have jumped up in price, considerably as well.

Simple arithmetic makes that out to be an inflation rate of 154% in six months. When discussing how to get ahead of the curve with the desk service folks at this home improvement supply - they would not quot me a price and delivery guaranty lasting longer than 24 hours; stating that the delivery price has already been announced to be in the cue for a 13% rate hike and that asphalt shingles are on a volatile hot list as a result of oil being in play by speculators at this time (Delivery was too high six months ago and now it's up 161% from then. Both diesel fuel for delivery and asphalt used to make shingles, comes from $140.00 a barrel oil.).

The latest inside data from market experts in the commodities market and especially on fuel (and other materials derived from crude oil) is that unless the price of oil drops below $124.00 per barrel, the end users (consumers) cannot expect any serious reduction or relief in the price of goods made from crude oil.

And even with a serious drop in oil prices, it will not signal an immediate downturn in prices for everything else. Some of the high priced material inputs will still have to be recouped 6 months later. And some prices, the manufacturers having gotten used to charging more, will probably never drop, at least not to previous levels. That will mean windfall gains, but that's nothing new.

dadw5boys-you "hit the nail on the head"! Oil speculators on Wall street drive these crazy prices. Not demand. James

You hit the head on the nail about futures and hedges. 'Course, now the Short Futures "investors" are in liquid gold.

I asked my ex father in law Poggie Roberts of the Roberts Clan in Florida if the shallow water tankers were lining the biou's, just off the inland waterways along the eastern length of that state, like they did when we used to go flat boat fishing in the 80's. We knew then that the oil shortages and long lines at the pump were bogus because these tankers were sitting on the bottom, full to the gunnel's with oil. They took the screws off of them and tugs would drag them in, barely able to stay unstuck from the bottom mud, at high tide and tie them up, one next the other in pods. Ole Poggie replied that, "Yep, they're back again."

I looked up some data on an investment site and found that old tankers that are no longer sea worthy but are still holding valid licenses from Liberia and the like, but are all used in reserve for oil storage, now. There are thousands of them it would appear.