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Comment by apetresc | Hacker News Reader

From the article:

> “I think the price decline is tied to the DIY (do-it-yourself) sector slowing down due to high lumber prices, with people spending their money on other things like travel,” said Russ Taylor, president of Russ Taylor Global in Vancouver.

So their expert analysis is that lumber prices are falling because lumber prices are high?

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Eh, I could see it. A lot of the lumber price increases were due to logistical issues up and down the supply chain, those same issues would cause this kind of lag. If supply adapted fast enough it wouldn't be an issue, but if supply adapted fast enough prices wouldn't have gotten that high regardless. Besides, things are weird right now, consumers aren't as able to act rationally because they aren't used to it.

It actually stops mills from working if high prices stop people buying, which turns the price down until mills can restart operations.

The best cure for high prices are high prices

Reminds me of an old joke - the more suicidal people there are, the less suicidal people there are.

That isn't always obvious to people, but it's true, even with things like housing.

Sure. Prices hit an unsustainable level, soaked up the small bit of demand at the peak, and then declined to find more demand. Econ 101

In all fairness to OP, Econ 101 would hold that for the price to change you'd need a supply or demand shift. So if prices got as high as they did, the prices alone wouldn't bring it back down. By 102, of course, slight (or in the current lumber market, enormous) lag in the supply chain and largely habit-driven consumers make for more bumpiness on the way to equilibrium.

Lumber production responds slowly to market demands, as it takes a while to cut down, mill, dry, and transport lumber. It’s entirely possible that rapidly changing consumer demand causes wild cycles as the supply chains struggle to scale up and down in response to consumers who are likewise reacting to price changes driven by their own behavior.

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