It just ain't getting any better is it??
Seems like everyday, there is more bad news.
Hang in there folks!

Always seems like its feast or famine in this industy. Once you get ahead of the game get some money saved up thinking life is good she nose dives. Right now im trying to capitilize on the bottom of the wave watching stocks, business opertunities ect... Getting ready for the next boom but the question here is how long can you ride out the lows and rassion yourself out with out saying "Screw It!!" and move on to something else? Right now our best asset is to educate ourselves to recognize trends in industry and find ways to compensate for the tough times and take full advantage of the prosperous times.

I hear ya northman!
Stockmarket is a good thing to watch right now.
Lots of very good opportunities if you know what you are buying.

You'll never really have any 'economic security' for anyone with 'boom and bust' cycles.

You can speculate, and buy low and sell high, and think you're getting ahead. As an individual who guesses right maybe you do make a buck sometimes.

But if you look at the 'big picture', what you're really doing is destroying the purchasing power of your country's currency.

In the long run,everyone, including you is getting poorer. For your 'money', whether made by 'effort' or speculation, is only good for what it'll buy. And speculation makes money in general buy ever the less.

When you put your money in a stock it should be for 'investment' purposes, not 'speculation'. Speculation is just 'inflation' in another form.

Did you ever consider that the most prevalent comments on here whenever some mill shuts down are all suggestions to find the employees more "work"?

But what do most people, including any of us that play the stock market, or even buy 6/49 tickets really want? Isn't it to secure an "income" WITHOUT "work"?

Aren't we really confusing 'means'(work) and 'ends'(income) when we call for something to be provided that really is something completely different from what most people need and want?

Especially when it should be obvious if that more "work" were necessary to make something we're actually short of, someone would already be doing it. And still getting an 'income' from it. We don't really 'make' money by our efforts, we make some good or provide some service first that has to be exchanged for 'money'.

Our problem isn't going to be solved by producing 'more' because it isn't a 'production' problem. It's a problem of how to get an 'income' to those who need one without disadvantaging further anyone who already has one.

Hmm, said time and time again. So heres the question again. Why are we allowing US companies to control and operate in our forestry business? Perhaps a little more Canadian intervention may be the solution!!

Even if all the forest companies were completely Canadian owned we'd have the same problem, pisspulper. It's a 'money' problem, though not in the way as generally viewed by most people.

And it's not a problem unique to Canada. The USA has, ( and has had ~ many of them have completely disappeared as corporate entities now), many forest companies that have foreign ownership too.

A goodly number that are even Canadian owned. And that's been the case long before the recent rash of aquisitions of mills and timberlands in the States by Interfor, Canfor, West Fraser, and other firms which are controlled from Canada. It has little to do with the nationality of 'ownership'.

The real 'problem' exists in every industrial country. And is with us even when there are 'good' times in our forest industry. And virtually all other industries, too, Though it's not so readily apparent then.

"Labour displacement" (through automation, greater mechanisation, outsourcing to 'cheaper wage' countries, etc., etc.)has gone on continually. But the 'machine' that does a hundred men's work doesn't PAY a hundred men's wages. Nor does 'outsourcing' provide the 'incomes' here that have to buy the products shipped back to us.

And that's the origin of what's wrong in regards to its effects on the amount of 'money' we receive as 'incomes' in TOTAL. No matter how many "jobs" that are 'displaced' that are 'replaced' by other ones.

Loggers and sawmillers here can, and do, produce far more per man/hour now than ever before in history. Often with poorer timber to work with, too.

There is no 'production' problem, our existing mills are as good as any other country's are, anywhere on planet Earth. And far better than many found in the places overseas to which our timber has been, or will be, ever increasingly, shipped as 'logs' for supposedly 'cheaper' milling.

Physically, an "hour's labour" is an "hour's labour". Whether it's carried on here or in the States, or Mexico, or China, Japan, Korea, or wherever.

We, in our industries here are already giving more for that "hour's labour" in actual production than are workers in virtually ALL those other countries. Yet we're being told we have to "work harder", "work longer", and "work cheaper", to 'globally compete' with them.

"Monetarily" they're said to being doing the job 'cheaper'. Now how can that be? It can only be if "money" is not truly representing actual FACTS. And it isn't. But our 'politicians' aren't telling us that. None of them, whatever their "Party".

Part of the problem is if other jobs here are absorbing the workers that are 'displaced' we don't notice how what is happening. How that affects OVERALL 'incomes' in their relationship with the OVERALL 'prices' of everything we need to live that have to be purchased from those 'incomes'.

Because we've been conditioned to be too busy focusing on having 'full employment' to realize what's actually happening. And that's why ALL "Parties" put such emphasis on 'jobs', and "more work".

Instead of doing what could easily be done instead, make and keep OVERALL 'incomes' always equal to the OVERALL 'prices' of all consumable goods those incomes are going to have to liquidate. And establish the 'economic security' that's so sadly lacking, even though it's completely 'physically' attainable without disadvantaging anybody.