All;
Good morning to you all, I hope that wherever this finds you that it finds you well.
During our morning walk earlier today, my wife and I were chatting about an exchange I'd watched on legacy media where the host mentioned that "even experts" can't find a direct link between increased carbon taxes and higher costs of food.
That got me to thinking of a few of the different businesses that I'd managed and/or helped keep the wheels rolling over the years and how increased energy costs would have effected them.
For 27 odd years I worked in various capacities in a cabinet, cabinet door and furniture making facility.
When the cost of diesel would go up, we'd get a "transport surcharge" and while we might not be able to pass it onto the consumer for the set of cabinets we'd already started, you can be sure the next set they bought was going to cost them more.
Even back in the '80's we had a natural gas bill that was shocking because as anyone who has worked with wood knows, it needs to be warm and dry in order to keep it stable.
Also wood glue works best at from about 20° up to 40° max.
Most commercial stains and any commercial clear coats we used were happiest at 35°, not much more or less.
Even back in early 2000's when we looked at more environmentally friendly waterborne finishes, we couldn't afford to use them because of the increased energy costs required to keep both the temperature and humidity VERY controlled.
Later on I managed a storage facility where we provided frost free inside storage for RV's, boats, motorcycles, classic and exotic automobiles and some other misc. stuff.
The fixed overhead costs there were municipal fees and taxes and the cost of heating the building. If I had to pay a higher carbon tax, you paid more to keep your wake board or fishing boat from freezing.
If one is reading this and thinking to oneself, "Well I don't have a boat in storage and am not buying new cabinets anytime soon", let me float this thought out for you.
Suppose you do want to move at some point and either need to spruce up the place before putting it on the market or would like to get into a new house for whatever reason.
Can one just imagine now with me attempting to plan a new place when all the local cabinet shops can only operate in warm months of the year?
Well, you say, we'll buy cabinets made offshore in places that are warm year round then.....
Which is happening for sure, but when we push work to other countries, there are less people putting money into the kitty that hopefully will be supporting Canadian infrastructure.
Little things we've become addicted to such as functional roads, water, power, the little things in life, much less a government pension, cannot exist if not enough are paying into it.
That's just simple math.
I'll let the gentle reader imagine the downward spiral to whatever depth they choose, but historically speaking functional societies have the majority of it's people working towards a common goal. The successful ones figure out how to have achievable goals that many if not most can attain, for fairly obvious reasons.
Anyways all, I've intentionally not gone into how increased energy costs ALWAYS make for increased production costs on food, both because I've stated that in other posts and to me it is a given truism, regardless of what any talking head in any university or legacy media desk believes otherwise.
Again I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but perhaps the choir can use some of my random thoughts to convince a fence sitter of their acquaintance how math actually works.
All the best to you all out there.
Dwayne
