Economic Conditions - Nashville, TN, U.S., Global

[LA_TN]

@smeagolsfree, that is exactly what I've been saying: those are the people that would have gotten polio 80 years ago. Back then everyone was grateful for the vaccine. What has happened to this world? 

[nashvylle]

2 hours ago, LA_TN said:

@smeagolsfree, that is exactly what I've been saying: those are the people that would have gotten polio 80 years ago. Back then everyone was grateful for the vaccine. What has happened to this world? 

Twitter 

[rolly]

The polio vaccine stopped the disease.  The covid one doesn't.   It's been so politicized by the left as a 'submit to scientific authority' even though we're told you STILL have to mask up (oh, now it's double masks) even after you had this emergency 'vaccine' with a poor track record.  And what's the death rate for covid... less than 2%?

[markhollin]

^ ^ ^ The polio vaccine worked on the macro scale because everyone got it (there is still polio in the world, it's just contained by and large). The same would happen if everyone got the Covid-19 vaccine.  And the Covid-19 shots do not have a "poor" track record.  There are a few tough situations that have resulted....but WAY less than if people did not have the vaccine available at all.  

OK---let's move off of this subject and back to discussing economic conditions as they relate to development in Nashville. 

[samsonh]

1 hour ago, rolly said:

The polio vaccine stopped the disease.  The covid one doesn't.   It's been so politicized by the left as a 'submit to scientific authority' even though we're told you STILL have to mask up (oh, now it's double masks) even after you had this emergency 'vaccine' with a poor track record.  And what's the death rate for covid... less than 2%?

The covid vaccine is remarkably effective. If everyone would get their shot(s) we would be over this very quickly, masks and all. 

[ArchitectBarbie]

31 minutes ago, markhollin said:

^ ^ ^ The polio vaccine worked on the macro scale because everyone got it (there is still polio in the world, it's just contained by and large). The same would happen if everyone got the Covid-19 vaccine.  And the Covid-19 shots do not have a "poor" track record.  There are a few tough situations that have resulted....but WAY less than if people did not have the vaccine available at all.  

OK---let's move off of this subject and back to discussing economic conditions as they relate to development in Nashville. 

For what it's worth... I know one of the women who had a resulting blood clot from the J&J vaccine and she does not regret receiving it.   

I also know numerous people who have DIED from Covid.   

[Nash_12South]

Metro will lift all COVID restrictions, except for masks indoors, as of May 14. Six weeks after metro opened up vaccinations to everyone eligible. 

[markhollin]

Building materials costs are sky-high, marking the latest headache for Nashville’s real estate community.

According to data from Turner Construction Co., lumber costs nearly 50% more than it did this time last year. But that’s not all — the numbers show that every commercial building material except asphalt has seen a price hike during Covid-19.

The phenomenon, driven by soaring demand alongside manufacturing slowdowns and supply chain disruptions, is putting a squeeze on every part of commercial development teams: Developers are redesigning projects or scrapping them altogether, and contractors are absorbing unsustainable costs to keep projects moving.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/04/27/building-materials.html

[MidTenn1]

^^^^Sorry!

We just sold some trees for a very nice price. We got 8 bids on it. Lumber is expensive. 

[Mr_Bond]

To tag onto the article about building materials' cost on the rise, let's talk about steel.  Talking with someone earlier this week I was reminded of the steel shortage in the U.S. that is impacting everything.  Here's an article from an industry rag.

https://metallurgprom.org/en/news/north-america/6432-deficit-na-rynke-stali-ssha-prodlitsja-kak-minimum-do-konca-pervogo-kvartala-2021-goda.html

You can find many articles covering various aspects of the shortage.  Bottom line: steel is hard to get and very expensive.  This has to be affecting commercial construction.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Mr_Bond

[LA_TN]

40 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

To tag onto the article about building materials' cost on the rise, let's talk about steel.  Talking with someone earlier this week I was reminded of the steel shortage in the U.S. that is impacting everything.  Here's an article from an industry rag.

https://metallurgprom.org/en/news/north-america/6432-deficit-na-rynke-stali-ssha-prodlitsja-kak-minimum-do-konca-pervogo-kvartala-2021-goda.html

You can find many articles covering various aspects of the shortage.  Bottom line: steel is hard to get and very expensive.  This has to be affecting commercial construction.

It IS affecting all construction, plus all manufacturing. The car plants will always get their steel first. If you need a part, for example your refrigerator or lawn mower is broken, and that part needs to be manufactured, it will be listed as backorder, with no ETA due to component shortage

I know manufacturing that has less than 2-3 days of supply, and will have to shutdown if they run out completely. One of the airport projects jumped in price by $2 million in <2 weeks before the price was locked in

This is happening because steel mills shut down several big furnaces when demand plummeted when the pandemic began. They are still several months away from having capacity back online, but there should be some relief by the end of summer as output increases in June

[Jamie Hall]

58 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

To tag onto the article about building materials' cost on the rise, let's talk about steel.  Talking with someone earlier this week I was reminded of the steel shortage in the U.S. that is impacting everything.  

Just throwing this in the mix as another potential issue, since I just read it today: The trucking industry is dealing with a big shortage of tanker drivers, which could lead to gas delivery issues this spring and summer as travel heats up. Whether that leads to delivery issues or increased shipping costs for building materials, that's anybody's guess.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/27/business/summer-gasoline-shortage/index.html

[samsonh]

17 minutes ago, LA_TN said:

It IS affecting all construction, plus all manufacturing. The car plants will always get their steel first. If you need a part, for example your refrigerator or lawn mower is broken, and that part needs to be manufactured, it will be listed as backorder, with no ETA due to component shortage

I know manufacturing that has less than 2-3 days of supply, and will have to shutdown if they run out completely. One of the airport projects jumped in price by $2 million in <2 weeks before the price was locked in

This is happening because steel mills shut down several big furnaces when demand plummeted when the pandemic began. They are still several months away from having capacity back online, but there should be some relief by the end of summer as output increases in June

Yep to all this. I believe corporate America will rethink some of the just in time mantra that has been preached the last 20+ years when all this is said and done. 

[Mr_Bond]

There aren't enough truckers, period.  And not enough trucks because of the steel shortage and a shortage of various replacement parts from around the globe.

Trucking activity has a correlation of 0.9 with real-time GDP.  If you follow the truckers, you know exactly where the U.S. economy stands today.  Here is the Cass Truckload Linehaul Index.  The red circle is the tariff bubble.  Many companies ordered extra supplies in anticipation of price increases due to tariffs.  When the price increases did not appear (I can explain this, if anyone wants to know), the companies worked down the excess supply, causing the drop in the index from late 2019 into early 2020.  It's interesting that when the pandemic hit, trucking activity did not drop.  It was already at a low level.  In July of last year, activity took off and it's still rising (the red arrow).  We have a record number of cargo ships anchored in major ports waiting to unload.  Not enough dock workers, not enough trucks, not enough truckers.

 

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/04/20/record-number-of-cargo-ships-waiting-to-unload-at-port-of-oakland-may-delay-goods-for-months/

 

[LA_TN]

44 minutes ago, samsonh said:

Yep to all this. I believe corporate America will rethink some of the just in time mantra that has been preached the last 20+ years when all this is said and done. 

Nope. $$$. A day of people is a fraction of the cost of a day of inventory

2 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

There aren't enough truckers, period.  And not enough trucks because of the steel shortage and a shortage of various replacement parts from around the globe.

Trucking activity has a correlation of 0.9 with real-time GDP.  If you follow the truckers, you know exactly where the U.S. economy stands today.  Here is the Cass Truckload Linehaul Index.  The red circle is the tariff bubble.  Many companies ordered extra supplies in anticipation of price increases due to tariffs.  When the price increases did not appear (I can explain this, if anyone wants to know), the companies worked down the excess supply, causing the drop in the index from late 2019 into early 2020.  It's interesting that when the pandemic hit, trucking activity did not drop.  It was already at a low level.  In July of last year, activity took off and it's still rising (the red arrow).  We have a record number of cargo ships anchored in major ports waiting to unload.  Not enough dock workers, not enough trucks, not enough truckers.

 

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/04/20/record-number-of-cargo-ships-waiting-to-unload-at-port-of-oakland-may-delay-goods-for-months/

 

Exactly!

As for gasoline, obviously it requires a different certification, but those certs are attainable in <2 months

[bigeasy]

The video is 2 months old, but the congestion is still there. 

 

[TheRaglander]

I guess the lumber industry is taking a hit!

[LA_TN]

From conversation with a friend...

Actually, this steel shortage is going to get worse soon. Cummins is shutting down production at one plant for 3 months and Ford is stopping production of minivans, primarily due to steel shortage

Ford, Subaru, Hyundai, etc are all experiencing production delays due to chip shortages, as a result of shortages in the availability of semiconductors. Ford in Louisville is parking cars at the Kentucky Motor Speedway, waiting for chips. Ford heavy truck deliveries are months behind

And, just heard from a friend that is trying to move 20 truck loads of steel, and can't find trucks to haul it to customer, promised date is Friday

Is 2021 in a contest with 2020?

[titanhog]

1 hour ago, LA_TN said:

From conversation with a friend...

Actually, this steel shortage is going to get worse soon. Cummins is shutting down production at one plant for 3 months and Ford is stopping production of minivans, primarily due to steel shortage

Ford, Subaru, Hyundai, etc are all experiencing production delays due to chip shortages, as a result of shortages in the availability of semiconductors. Ford in Louisville is parking cars at the Kentucky Motor Speedway, waiting for chips. Ford heavy truck deliveries are months behind

And, just heard from a friend that is trying to move 20 truck loads of steel, and can't find trucks to haul it to customer, promised date is Friday

Is 2021 in a contest with 2020?

Want me to tell you another weird shortage that’s going on?  I have to take weekly B12 injections due to some odd reason I stay so low.  For the past couple of months, I haven’t been able to purchase syringe / needles anywhere.  Pharmacy says it’s because of the vaccination program going on.  So…people who need to take injections at home are starting to have a hard time finding the syringes.  I have a few left…but have way more vials of B12 than I do needles.

[samsonh]

5 hours ago, LA_TN said:

From conversation with a friend...

Actually, this steel shortage is going to get worse soon. Cummins is shutting down production at one plant for 3 months and Ford is stopping production of minivans, primarily due to steel shortage

Ford, Subaru, Hyundai, etc are all experiencing production delays due to chip shortages, as a result of shortages in the availability of semiconductors. Ford in Louisville is parking cars at the Kentucky Motor Speedway, waiting for chips. Ford heavy truck deliveries are months behind

And, just heard from a friend that is trying to move 20 truck loads of steel, and can't find trucks to haul it to customer, promised date is Friday

Is 2021 in a contest with 2020?

You can trace the underinvestment in commodities all the way back to the GFC and it’s aftermath. These current high prices will stimulate investment and over a 1-3 year period massive amounts of capacity will come back. As to the lumber shortage, similar issues are at play with regard to fewer sawmills post GFC combined with fires in BC that destroyed huge amounts of forest in the past couple of years. Can’t grow a tree overnight, and even if you could the underinvestment in sawmills means more trees right now wouldn’t change a whole lot.

 

High prices will fix high prices, overused saying but in this case it’s certainly true.

[bigeasy]

13 hours ago, LA_TN said:

Ford, Subaru, Hyundai, etc are all experiencing production delays due to chip shortages, as a result of shortages in the availability of semiconductors. Ford in Louisville is parking cars at the Kentucky Motor Speedway, waiting for chips. Ford heavy truck deliveries are months behind

Wife and I have been looking at Toyota and the dealer was talking about all the issues they are having. Tundra/Tacoma are 4 months behind, Rav4 Hybrid 6 months, and then there are particular colors that aren't being produced

[Rockatansky]

Anyone have a comprehensive list of materials or goods currently experiencing a shortage? Seems like corporate America really flubbed up their reaction to the pandemic. Some of these are well publicized, but others are just things I've ran into myself.Computer chips (consumer electronics (PS5) & automobiles).
Chicken, wings in particular.
Cat food.
Steel (automobiles, construction).
Lumber.
Rental Cars.
Needles.
Tapioca.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Rockatansky

[donNdonelson2]

I know Hertz sold off a substantial number of vehicles last year. Other companies probably shed inventory as well. Now that travel is coming back the demand for rental cars is surely exploding. Very bad timing all around, perhaps.

[japan]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-music-city-meltdown-11619649990

[samsonh]

2 hours ago, japan said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-music-city-meltdown-11619649990

An incredibly poorly written and resourced opinion article.