How Canadian tariff Spat Impacts Twin Falls and Idaho

We used to cut down more trees in Idaho.  Then the Clinton Administration gutted Idaho’s lumber business with environmental regulations.  There were other factors you can blame.  Demand for wood cratered when the housing market cratered almost 20 years ago.  When sales rebounded during a decade of low interest rates, Canada filled much of the lumber quota.  It’s a country of vast size and with wide swaths of forests.  Housing costs on both sides of the border are high (Canada’s housing crisis is worse than ours), and now, with the trade war, are expected to go even higher in the United States.  What has been called the affordability crisis probably will last for many years, or the trade disputes will cause a recession, and if a nasty one, reduce costs drastically, but at the expense of your job.

Some Problems Won't Go Away Soon

Trade wars and tariff spats eventually end, and this one may only be a sideshow.  That’s because the bigger shoe hasn’t dropped.  The media’s chattering class is acting as if it just noticed the debt crisis in Washington, D.C.  Apparently it wasn’t a big deal at 39 trillion dollars, but when the odometer passed 40 trillion, the end is somehow near.

Some of the Solutions Begin at Home

What can you do?  Pay down personal debt.  Because your share of what the country owns is going to come calling.  A local law enforcement agent told me a couple of months ago that complaints about the homeless are going to increase in the Magic Valley, and that we need to understand many of those people did all the right things before they found themselves on the streets.  I’m an old man, and the worst may come after I’m gone.  Sadly, beyond avoiding debt, there isn’t much advice or comfort I can offer the young.