According to estimates, the softwood lumber duty being applied to wood shipped from Canada to the US ups the cost of every house built in the US by $1,000. Based on that, the cost of rebuilding New Orleans goes up by between $500 million and a billion, at the very least.
Just thought I'd point out that while Bush is screwing Canadians with the softwood lumber duty, and with the decision to ignore one trade council ruling after another saying that the duty is illegal, he's also screwing Americans. And it'll have a real cost in the NO reconstruction.
Part of me wonders why the Canadian government was so quick to send that naval group to the Gulf coast to help with the Katrina mess. It's not like the US government gives a damn about Canada in any way, shape, or form these days. Nor is it like we'll get any thanks for the assistance from this administration, just like we were completely ignored for helping on 9/11 and with the military effort in Afghanistan later on. I know, the relief effort is to help the American people afflicted by this disaster, not the administration. But the people elected this regime of corrupt fuckwits, after all.
Because the people in need down there /= the US government?Originally Posted by Brett Todd
I respect Canada (and other nations) for being able to make that distinction, while at the same time feeling ashamed of our government, which probably would not do the same if the situation were reversed.
While I wouldn't put anything past them in the future, there is at least one data point that contradicts that statement. Iran has made its offer of aid conditional on the lifting of US sanctions. When the situation was reversed after the Bam earthquake in 2003, US aid was unconditional.
If you think it's weird that the Canadians would offer a hand, what about all the Central and South American countries offering aid? Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, etc.
Why isnt brick construction used that much in the States? Three Little Pigs n all that.
Brick laying is a skilled trade. Cheap frame houses thrown together on slab =
massive profit for builders.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. American houses really seem to be sliding downwards in quality as the years go by. Getting a custom built home to higher standards is unfortunately very very expensive, so people sort of have to go with the crap the builders serve up.
Did Cuba? I hadn't heard that, but it's very, very interesting. I heard Venezuela was the first to offer a helping hand, actually.
I regrouted and relaid about 30 bricks on my front porch a couple weekends ago. Took me about 4 hours. Admittedly, i'd never done it before and didn't have any special tools.
New houses are almost as thin and cheaply built as apartments these days. I helped repaint my grandfather's family home and though smaller with less closet space was not only only wood framed with thick wood but the indoors walls were actually sided with 1"x12" wood panels, on both sides. Try doing that today.
In a lot of places, actual brick building for a home doesn't meet code these days. Today, "brick" homes are mostly veneer.
I've always found it odd how different house building is between Ontario and the NE US. Here, it seems like every second house is an old brick or stone place. In NY, MA, VT, CT, etc., in communities as old or older than those in SE Ontario, 99% of homes are wood frame, even the old ones. Things change as soon as you cross the border. With all of our lumber, and the much greater cost of building with stone or brick, you'd think it would be the other way around. Then again, we've got the Canadian Shield here, so it's not like there's a shortage of quarries.
I don't think it's weird, I just wonder at the logic of helping out so unreservedly after getting the back of Bush's hand over and over again for the past five years. Doesn't this just say that the US can do whatever the hell it wants to Canada and the Canadian government will still continue to dance to whatever tune Washington plays?
I still fully back helping as much as possible, and yes, Joe Creole down in NO has nothing to do with the whole thing. But at the same time it somehow seems appropriate for the sins being committed by the current US administration to be visited on the people who elected these clowns in the first place. Bailing the US out after being flipped off consistently by the asshole from Crawford is galling, even though I wouldn't have it any other way, because the people in the NO area desperately need help.
Still, I hope this is a wake-up call for a lot of Americans, not just the Bushies. You guys can't go it alone. Nobody can.
Hell, just compare today's drywall with properly plastered walls. My place is only 60 years old, but it was custom built and my walls are so strong that I've got a 20" TV on a bracket that isn't even drilled into a stud. A lot of the time modern drywall will barely hold up a heavy framed print without help. I wouldn't buy a modern home. They're thrown up like shacks.I regrouted and relaid about 30 bricks on my front porch a couple weekends ago. Took me about 4 hours. Admittedly, i'd never done it before and didn't have any special tools.
New houses are almost as thin and cheaply built as apartments these days. I helped repaint my grandfather's family home and though smaller with less closet space was not only only wood framed with thick wood but the indoors walls were actually sided with 1"x12" wood panels, on both sides. Try doing that today.
I'm not sure if we had a thread on this, but if anyone is wondering about the cause of Brett's indignation towards the US about the softwood lumber tariffs, it's because last month the highest NAFTA tribunal made a final ruling that the tariffs were illegal. The US government then stated they were going to ignore the ruling. It's a slap in the fact to Canadians and proves to the world that any treaties signed by the US are only good so long as they serve the American interest. The second the treaty goes against the US, it's no longer worth the paper it's written on. Thousands of Canadians have lost their jobs because of the illegal tariffs. Entire communities in BC have been destroyed because of this. The US government has illegally collected several billion dollars in tariffs which they have no intention of returning to the Canadians who paid them.
Of course the starving homeless man in New Orleans has nothing to do with this, and I'm glad the Canadian government has helped as much as they have, but the US is quickly running out of international goodwill.
And yes, Cuba did offer their assistance. I think they were willing to send doctors and water-purifying equipment.
That's weird, since treaties are enforcable in federal court. I would think a lumber importer could simply not pay it and the government wouldn't be able to get a judgement from a court that the importer had to.
I'm pretty sure the tariff is paid at the border by the Canadian exporter, not the American importer.
As you can see, Bush is a principled free-market conservative.
This is worth a thread in Everything Else by itself -- in Georgia the contractors basically control the government. You can be a GC without having a license. Basically *I* can go around building houses, and I have no fucking idea where to even start.
I was looking at $580K home the other day and its front columns were made of 1/4" MDF. MDF. Outside. In the humidity. MDF. MDF
But the idiot consumers out here just buy whatever is available, and since there's no money in "quality", they get crappy homes. My house wasn't cheap, and I still had to deal with a basement floor that cracked and started sinking because, like every other house out here, it was built on poorly compacted fill dirt.
Foundation warranties are one year. In Texas of all places they're 10 years. In South Carolina I think they're 14 years. ONE YEAR.
If the US tariffs have been proven illegal, why won't Canada just hit back with penalty tariffs of their own? Trade is a two-way street after all.
I know when the Us and the EU get into a trade tariffs pissing match and have it settled by the WTO, the WTO can grant the offended party the right to impose penalty tariffs to a value approximate to their damages on goods from the offending party.
I can't be reading this correctly. Are you saying that Canadian or American authorities do not allow houses to be built with brick walls? Is that batshit insane or what?
They can, and probably will, but Canada is trying to act according to international law and get approval to hit back via the WTO, as you said. Anyhow, I think Bush and Co. should be more worried that this has really encouraged Canadian resource and energy producers to open the market up to China and India.
Construction is still allowed with brick, but it's not traditional brick building. It's brick veneer over wood construction, purely for the sake of appearance. Real brick homes, constructed with freestanding brick, aren't built anymore, and from what I've heard from a bunch of contractors, don't meet modern building codes. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not.
At any rate, the quality of masonry is such today that who would trust somebody to build you a brick home? The thing would probably collapse in under a year.
Found this link just now that explains some of the differences between modern and old brick construction.
http://www.askthebuilder.com/B107_Br...lashings.shtml
Edit: Removed giant MDF picture.
Where I came from, brick houses way older than a century are bog standard real estate. It's hard to find wood frame dwellings of any king -- there's a kind of stigma attached to them.
Ask the people in California, where brick has a tendency to kind of fall down in an earthquake. Wood frame houses just sway back and forth.
You have to consider the relative size of the markets. The way I see it, for Canadian tariffs to have the same economic impact, they would have to be more broadly based. So you have five industries losing 10% of their markets versus one industry losing 50% of its market.
Actually, by themselves they're not. Treates need a secondary piece of congressional legislation in order in order to have domestic effect. Sometimes, that legislation is incorporated into the Senate's ratification. But not always, and when it's not, the treaty in not enforceable in American courts.
As Brett noted, Canada is planning to retaliate, but unlike the Americans, we're going through the proper channels and waiting for WTO approval first.You have to consider the relative size of the markets. The way I see it, for Canadian tariffs to have the same economic impact, they would have to be more broadly based. So you have five industries losing 10% of their markets versus one industry losing 50% of its market.
The ideal strategy from a "hit 'em where it hurts" standpoint is to put an import tariff on Canadian oil and petroleum products (the US imports more oil from Canada than any other nation, Saudi Arabia included). This would have the added effect of kicking America while they're down, driving gas prices even higher. It would leave the Bush admin no choice but to remove the softwood lumber tariffs. The downside to that is that it would put most of the burden on a single province, Alberta, where the federal government is already largely unpopular. The Prime Minister has already ruled out that plan.
From what I've read, the American industries they're considering targetting include Florida oranges and California wine.
Applying earthquake building regulations to wooden houses in hurricane zones 100(0)s of miles away is just as batshit insane. Anyway, no point in arguing with me, its the big bad wolf those fools need to be careful of.Ask the people in California, where brick has a tendency to kind of fall down in an earthquake. Wood frame houses just sway back and forth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/op...10babbitt.html
Well.After the victims are interred and public officials held to account for the destruction of a great American city, Congress must determine what to rebuild and what to abandon to the encroaching waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
New Orleans will survive only as an island surrounded by miles of open water. It will take a national effort, led by our best scientists, engineers and city planners, to achieve even this reduced vision of an American Venice. We must take the time to redesign the city to function as an island, with an island infrastructure, including relocated streets, highways and utilities. The island will need higher, stronger seawalls and levees sufficient to withstand new threats, including the rising sea levels and bigger hurricanes spawned in warming Atlantic waters.
Sea levels are likely to rise two to three feet in this century. Coastal maps drawn from consensus estimates show that virtually all of the delta lands south of Baton Rouge and below Interstate 10 - some 5,000 square miles - will be submerged by the end of this century.
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