No concrete in AZ because it's being sent to Iraq and China

[Kimber Scott]

My brother just told me this. He's a construction superintendent and his supplier said they are only selling 10,000 yards a day in Phoenix because they are sending the rest to Iraq and China. Has anybody heard anything about construction materials shortages in the US? This seems pretty crazy. I wonder if it's true.

[movonne]

1. Yes I have....all building materials such as rebar etc, but I heard

Iraq, nothing about China.

[Kimber Scott]

2. That's what the guy told him and my brother also said steel prices are

up by 300%. Said it has something to do with the dam in China and the building in Iraq. Seems like there'd be plenty of concrete making materials in Iraq, or at least, closer to them than we are. Isn't it sand and lime and something else? Hmmmm.... Odd. Maybe, there's another explanation.

[ParisFrance]

4. Not China

I'm fairly certain China is one of the worlds largest concrete producer.

[democratreformed]

11. I've heard China as well.

Their demand for scrap has drove the steel market here crazy. Also, when we had to replace a floor several months back, the lumber was higher because of demand, they said, from China.

[City Lights]

3. Hadn't hear that, but it explains

why I've had such a difficult time getting concrete companies to call me back regarding the resurfacing of my patio.

[Nay]

5. Last year there was a story about China buying up all the US steel

for their building boom. They were paying two or three times the regular price and buying up everything, leaving little for the US.

[hatrack]

6. Scrap prices have exploded in the last 6 months

It's all going to China.

[Swede]

7. Here in Canada ,China is buying up all the scrap metal they can get.

[ParisFrance]

8. Question about China

China is booming as a counry right now. I'm curious with the business we do with them e.g. cars,steel, and more, why isn't the us business sector booming?

[Warpy]

18. We've managed to export our industrial base to them

and to other countries. We make very little fabric in the US, little clothing, little footwear, and now heavy industries are going.

"Factory towns" in China consist of factories and dormitories that are run more like prisons than housing. The jobs, even under these conditions, are sought after by peasants, because they pay much better than agricultural work does and allow them to send money home to aging parents.

China is taking the long view and realizes that the dormitory system won't be the permanent one and is just a stepping stone to making them the dominant world manufacturing center. The products they sell to the US won't remain cheap as more and more of the US manufacturing base is destroyed and gone forever.

The shortsightedness and stupidity of US corporations who export factories and the jobs that go with them while they think they can maintain the US as their primary market for goods and services is staggering. I guess they all think the other fella isn't going to think of outsourcing jobs and that there will always be a market here.

The same shortsightedness applies to a government that doesn't realize that the country will be SOL in the next war, with everything but material from parachutes to gyroscopes for planes and missile guidance systems no longer made in the US. Heck, we're having to import bullets now, as even a limited war like the one in Iraq has quickly exhausted the supply and outstripped the manufacturing capacity in this country.

Think about it, and get angry.

[midwayer]

9. It's been going on here for a few months now

I live in the second fastest growing area in the US which isn't saying much now as there some serious signs of slowing.
I know of 7 small concrete contractors who have gone out of business just within the last couple of months. The Big boys are the only ones who can get it, others are on seriously long waiting lists.

I heard most of the Portland powder that is used to make concrete actually comes from Greece and it is being diverted to China, Iraq, etc. Apparently, There was a huge dam project in China that was/is? consuming the material. Apparently still is.

Sad because it really is affecting our nation in a serious way.

[KansDem]

10. Plywood...

I've heard that plywood is scarce in the US today...well, not really scarce but the price as shot up since the Iraq invasion.

I was at a Home Depot a few weeks ago and it seemed to me that the price for a 4' x 8' piece of 3/4" plywood was a little steep, but I haven't bought any for a while.

I heard it's all going to Iraq...

[frylock]

12. both plywood and osb are scarce..

glad I'm no longer a builder.

[midwayer]

16. Guess the builders will have to "Retrain" themselves

and concrete guys
and carpenters
and
and

and



and





and

[TrogL]

15. Softwood lumber dispute

Dubya won't drop the tarriff so it's too damn expensive in the States to get plentiful Canadian lumber

[Tansy_Gold]

19. There is also a building boom in the US

Remember that housing starts and housing sales have been booming for the past couple years, the infamous "housing bubble." As noted in an NYT article today, much of the refi boom has gone into home improvement. New developments in areas of the country like Phoenix (where the original poster noted the problem) and Vegas are eating up resources like you wouldn't believe. Houses in the development being constructed immediately north of my house use almost no solid lumber; 2 x 4s and 2 x 6s are all "fingerjointed" and there is no plywood, only OSB. There is probably more truth in the shortage being caused by the lack of an agreement with Canada than because China is gobbling everything up. But I cold be wrong.

The U.S. doesn't have much of a steel industry left and probably isn't supplying much of anything to China. U.S. steel companies refused to modernize 30 years ago (I believe they wanted govt. subsidies for their modernization) and the business all went to Japan, where the govt. subsidized the industry. If China were buying up everything and the U.S. had the capacity to turn it out, I'm sure we'd be selling something to China.

One of the "scandals" coming out of the Iraq reconstruction was the cement plant that was going to be rebuilt for $23 million by Bechtel but the Iraqis themselves rebuilt it for a fraction of the estimate.
(see http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/wastebasket/nationalsecurity/2003-12-12iraq.htm)

What puzzles me, in a way, is how the booshies (my generic term for the VRWC neocon greedmeisters) have managed to ignore the very clear and present threat China presents to their plans for global American hegemony. One would think that GHWBoosh would have some better sense of where the real power lies but maybe it's just his generally racist mindset. Doesn't think all them little yeller people amount to much, I guess.


But I could be wrong, too.

Tansy Gold

[midwayer]

13. Here is the China Dam Project

The Yangtze River in China is the World's third longest river. In 1997, that country began work on what will eventually be the world's largest dam and largest concrete structure, when it is finished in 2009. The Three Gorges Dam, in Hubei province, is a massive undertaking, as you will soon see.

The dam will be built across the 3 Gorges section of the Yangtze River. It will be 600 feet high, and a staggering 1.2 miles wide. Requiring 12 years and tens of thousands of workers to build it, the dam will cost $29 billion, and will create a 370 mile long lake, requiring the flooding of thousands of villages, and hundreds of towns and cities, and displacing over one million people.


http://www.wcsscience.com/giant/dam.html

[Trillo]

14. The cost of a bag of Portland cement,

at the local hardware store, doubled about 4 months ago.

Doesn't inflation like this happen when interest rates are low for an extended period?

On edit added "Portland"

[midwayer]

17. It's the Damn Dam and the Irrrevocable Iraq

[Tsiyu]

20. There's been talk of this for months around here

mostly related to wood.

There was also a China-to-Tibet railway being constructed. Any news on that?

[midwayer]

21. Worlds highest Railway Project

Two thirds of Qinghai-Tibet railway projects completed
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200312/08/eng20031208_129876.shtml

Worlds largest Dam and the worlds highest railway

The chinese are on top o the world!

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. That would be a sudden reversal of the last few years

US cement statistics for 2003: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cement/cemenmcs04.pdf

US reliance on imports decreased from 25% of consumption in 1999 to 20% in 2003. Of that, Canada (19%), Thailand (18%) and China (12%) were the largest import sources.

The US only produced 5% of the world's cement, compared with China producing 40%.

According to this industry report (PDF), there's been a recent increase in US demand; and there's a lack of shipping (because it's too busy taking stuff to China) to allow imports to supply the market.

[neoteric lefty]

23. My brother is a plant manager for

one of the largest concrete producers and the U.S. and he says that within the last 6 months or so, there has been a extreme shortage of cement available for a few reasons (if I remember correctly one huge plant had to be shut down for some emergency and some ther means were halted, as well as the huge demand nowadays). His plant has to turn away customers because he cannot produce enough concrete for the customers he already has. And he works in Dade County :(. I do not know about other construction materials, but he has told me about the shortage of conrete and cement in particular.

[DoYouEverWonder]

24. I'm hearing the same thing in Florida

It's very hard to get cement and steel right now.

The word around here is that it's all going to China. In addition to the dam, they are also getting reading for the Olympics in 2008.

Hadn't heard anything about Iraq? There really isn't very much rebuilding getting done there, so I doubt they are having much of an impact.