Timber!

I watched a show on the government channel last night that dealt with the destruction of the wood products industry in Oregon. The show was clearly from the early 1990's, and all the participants lamented the shift from selling processed wood products to whole raw logs led to the end of a once vibrant economy. The blame was placed on short term quick profit motives of big logging companies.

Of course the proper analysis of what went wrong will start with management costs. Japanese and Chinese managers cost less when producing finished lumber products than big business managers in USA. Whether in Asia or USA, wood processing is mechanized intensive. Labor costs matter little.

If the USA did not have the policy of "get big or get out" timberland would be owned by countless small foresters, who would put a natural break on clearcutting and whole log exporting. Such small businesses would be competitive on management costs, so the Asians would gladly have the logs processed here.

The entire national forest movement was motivated by a desire to steal treaty lands from the Indians, and keep the rest out of homesteading, so it could be reserved for big business. The federal government land should be limited to WAshington DC, and everything else is state or private. There is the solution.

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