Another mill to be liquidated

[stavebuyer]

I got an auction flier for another local sawmill liquidation. Going from memory that makes over 35 mills gone from west of I-75 in the last 25 years or so and I no doubt probably missed several I didn't trade with. I can only think of 3 that were started and 3 more that were expanded in the same time frame. These were all million bd/ft a month plus operations.  The list of loggers no longer logging is even longer and the remaining mills are traveling farther to source logs to run.

[mike_belben]

Im gonna do some basic assuming here and claim that one of the major issues is a dwindling supply of suitable quality logs to mill, meaning rising input costs..caused by a wreckless culture of high grading and moving to the next stand with no followup stewardship thereafter.  Clearcuts woulda been much better but theyre socially unpopular.  Instead we select cut our way into a dead end. 


Ive tried to sell timber management for 3 or 4 years and the only calls its ever generated amount to residential chores. Well.. Suit yourself landowner. 

[Old Greenhorn]

And yet, the price paid for logs never goes up.  >:(
 Mike you need to think about the marketing model you are working with. I have found the small landowner, especially the city dweller who has finally bought some land with trees is anxious to look for guidance. I am not a forester, but these folks don't need that. They need somebody to sit with them and find out what they would like to see and what they would like to do with their property. After you explain that they just can't keep it the way it is (because it is always growing and changing on it's own and will soon be overgrown or worse), then you can walk their property with them, explain what trees they have and give them options to consider. "You can do this.., or you can do this...., or you could do this... What would you like best?" Those folks who have never owned a wooded lot are looking for a place to start. Those little one shot (or more) consulting sessions can add up to a bit of grocery money and there is no labor involved. Keep a list of folks you can refer them to for particular types or work, or take that work for yourself if it fits your profile. Intuitively these folks don't want to cut 'pretty trees' and it becomes your job to show and teach them why cutting certain trees opens up others for proper growth. You become and educator. I know we, here, think this stuff is basic common sense and very logical, but consider your audience and their education. They need help to get started. Folks with 2 to 25 acres should be your target group.

[BargeMonkey]

The list of loggers no longer logging is even longer and the remaining mills are traveling farther to source logs to run.

The rumors floated around here for a while that IP in TI will slow down or close up at somepoint basically leaving Finch. To explain to the average person the amount of people that make a living directly and indirectly due to the wood market 🤦‍♂️ The guys NH / ME know this already. You go up north in certain spots it BARE, and what's not hammered is forever wild. 

Im gonna do some basic assuming here and claim that one of the major issues is a dwindling supply of suitable quality logs to mill, meaning rising input costs..caused by a wreckless culture of high grading and moving to the next stand with no followup stewardship thereafter.  Clearcuts woulda been much better but theyre socially unpopular.  Instead we select cut our way into a dead end.

 I'm just on the fringe of where guys are hungry enough to cut 8' wood. Typically the low grade markets aren't there, 90% of the guys I know who cut for the mill cut GOOD wood only, girdle the rest and get back on the trailer. The straw hats are digging in deep north of me now and you can see from one band mill to the next along the roads. 

[stavebuyer]

And yet, the price paid for logs never goes up.  >:(
Mike you need to think about the marketing model you are working with. I have found the small landowner, especially the city dweller who has finally bought some land with trees is anxious to look for guidance. I am not a forester, but these folks don't need that. They need somebody to sit with them and find out what they would like to see and what they would like to do with their property. After you explain that they just can't keep it the way it is (because it is always growing and changing on it's own and will soon be overgrown or worse), then you can walk their property with them, explain what trees they have and give them options to consider. "You can do this.., or you can do this...., or you could do this... What would you like best?" Those folks who have never owned a wooded lot are looking for a place to start. Those little one shot (or more) consulting sessions can add up to a bit of grocery money and there is no labor involved. Keep a list of folks you can refer them to for particular types or work, or take that work for yourself if it fits your profile. Intuitively these folks don't want to cut 'pretty trees' and it becomes your job to show and teach them why cutting certain trees opens up others for proper growth. You become and educator. I know we, here, think this stuff is basic common sense and very logical, but consider your audience and their education. They need help to get started. Folks with 2 to 25 acres should be your target group.

I don't think they quit because they ran out of storage space for $$. The bank forced out more than a few as did heirs who wanted to sell milk without feeding the cow. Competition for logs is pretty keen; especially the good ones and as Mike noted their ain't many good ones on the market. Despite the short term pine market anomaly last year there seldom is much room between log cost and lumber price and the only time it exists is when the log supply is limited. The lumber buyers regulate supply by wild price swings that catch producers every time. Prices never drop in a wet year when logs are in short supply. They drop after the big price raise to stimulate production and as soon as the shortages are met the price goes the other way. Problem is the market changes weekly but the supply cycle from buying a standing job to moving the last of the lumber is months to years if you maintain a suitable inventory of logs and timber.

[nativewolf]

Like Barge we see tons of over harvesting, just really terrible management.  Log prices themselves are strong except for some cherry but even then the veneer is moving here.  Cherry and Walnut are cyclical so you expect some ups and downs.  

I've heard from our buyers that 3 of the large logging outfits in northern WV have wrapped up.  Log supply in mills is short, exporters are screaming for logs and we really don't have a functional pulp market.  Pulp mills are crying for trucks. 

I'd actually like to go see one of the sawmill auctions.  Just sort of curious who is buying the saws and resaws etc

[Firewoodjoe]

Busy here. All mills buying. 

[mike_belben]

Our problem is one of cherry picking.  Ive never seen a girdled woods tree, that would indicate someone with a saw had concern enough for the future to take 10 seconds to castrate the firewood tree.  

What we have is such extreme twizzler overstocking that prime fiber just cant get ontop again.  Plenty of woods.  Just that every generation has taken the staves and left the ties. 

[IndiLina]

Like Barge we see tons of over harvesting, just really terrible management.  Log prices themselves are strong except for some cherry but even then the veneer is moving here.  Cherry and Walnut are cyclical so you expect some ups and downs.  

I've heard from our buyers that 3 of the large logging outfits in northern WV have wrapped up.  Log supply in mills is short, exporters are screaming for logs and we really don't have a functional pulp market.  Pulp mills are crying for trucks.

I'd actually like to go see one of the sawmill auctions.  Just sort of curious who is buying the saws and resaws etc

For an amateur, could you describe how pulp mills are crying for trucks when pulp prices are so low? 

[mike_belben]

The same way beef prices are through the roof but the 2 or 3 packing plant buyers make sure not to outbid each other and raise the price at the sale barn. 

[nativewolf]

Like Barge we see tons of over harvesting, just really terrible management.  Log prices themselves are strong except for some cherry but even then the veneer is moving here.  Cherry and Walnut are cyclical so you expect some ups and downs.  

I've heard from our buyers that 3 of the large logging outfits in northern WV have wrapped up.  Log supply in mills is short, exporters are screaming for logs and we really don't have a functional pulp market.  Pulp mills are crying for trucks.

I'd actually like to go see one of the sawmill auctions.  Just sort of curious who is buying the saws and resaws etc

For an amateur, could you describe how pulp mills are crying for trucks when pulp prices are so low?

Mike has it about right.  There are so few mills around in most places they can have dirt cheap pulp pricing and still put loggers on a delivery quota.  However, like everyone in the business world there are not enough trucks.  Pine sawtimber is the same, @wudman could tell you about his experiences with large contract pine harvest teams in NC and VA.  Fedex has the same issue.  You name an industry and trucking is in short supply.  

[Southside]

The problem with commodities, be it lumber, soybeans, beef, milk, cotton, etc is that by definition if you are a producer then it will always be a just about break even business venture.  With enough volume you can make a lot of money as the pennies add up, but the little guy who thinks he can buy a dozen stockers in the spring, toss them onto his un-manged fescue pasture for the summer and sell them in the fall for an actual profit "on the gain" is just spinning his wheels.  

[Kodiakmac]

The problem with commodities, be it lumber, soybeans, beef, milk, cotton, etc is that by definition if you are a producer then it will always be a just about break even business venture.

Aye, indeed.  I used to sell firewood from my own bush.  The way I looked at it, I was getting paid for my labour, or my wood, but I bloody well wasn't getting paid for both.  And after trucking costs, my return on hardwood logs was pretty well in the same category.  If you are lucky enough to have the trees to supply a specialty buyer you can turn a decent buck ... till your supply runs out.
As for mill closures, the number one killer in Ontario over the last 15 to 20 years years has been prohibitive costs of complying with insane provincial environmental regulations.

Attach documents and other options

[mike_belben]

Close friend of mine back north is a 100% cash only, zero debt industrial business man.  Has 25ish employees needs 50, we talked yesterday. 

Over 4th of july shutdown he advertised help wanted.  28 emails.  Starts trying to schedule interviews for tuesday, 6 answer the phone.  Only two have any intention of coming for interview.. "We need a drug test on day one."

"I cant pass that, pot is legal."  


Yeah, not with my insurance agent.  So the lefty legalizers arent doing industry any favors.  The other applicants were just complying with their welfare requirements. Send a few emails, get your pay in the mail.  Friend says youve gotta pay about double of welfare/Ui to get someone off the couch.  


Down here in middle TN theres one operator with two mills, one tie and one grade.  Theyre 16 short on crew and moving them back and forth to run one mill at a time but the scalers stay at each all week hoping to get enough logs.  Prices are up and they can still only get enough logs to saw a few days.  Id love to send some just to help keep them in business but i need to grow these out for my own construction, and the big truck is down anyways. 

[barbender]

Mike, you have to wonder about how good those employees would be if it took twice of UI to get them off the couch? I'm thinking they'd have one uniform, no matter the job- sweatpants and a dirty t-shirt😑

[mike_belben]

What do you got against my sweatpants bro, its legal?

[Wudman]

The fast food joints around here have cut their hours as they can't find enough employees to stay open.  We have a convenience store just east of me that I regularly patronize.  They have a Pizza Hut, Arby's, Long John Silver, and Subway inside the convenience store.  I stopped there a few weeks back at 6:00PM on a Saturday night to get some fish at LJS.  A sign was taped to the counter, "We now close at 4:00PM due to lack of employees".  The Hardee's just up the road has changed their hours.  They delayed opening an hour and cut two hours off the closing time.......except on Sunday when they close at 3:00PM..........get your chicken early for the late kick-off.

Wud

[stavebuyer]

The labor issue has been getting worse over time but in many rural areas any factory that paid much over minimum wage really didn't hurt for unskilled help. That ended the day the Covid shutdown started and has yet to rebound no matter how much the starting wages have been raised.

[Tacotodd]

Just wait until the respective corporations go away and bellyup. Bound to happen eventually.

[mike_belben]

yeah thats the cloward and piven plan.  get everyone on the dole.  then govt tells them what to do to stay on the dole when the option to work has been offshored. 

[mudfarmer]

What dole though? Fed bennies expired a while back and in some cases months ago I believe?

There is something else going on but don't ask me what, can only speculate. Possibly a bunch of these people got better jobs? Maybe learned to live more simply? Invested in paying off debt and now don't have to choose between a roof over their head or three fast food jobs @ 65hrs per week to come out even or behind? Sold their house at hilarious peak pricing and retired early to a van down by the river?? Bought too many drugs w stimulus check and OD'd behind the Wendy's? Died of covid? Moved back in with parents or children to shift back towards multi generational homes?

I was on UI for a little while after a layoff during a recession. Here if you are offered an interview or job and turn it down they take away your benefits. Most people think it is a joke but I had to physically go to UI office 45min away every single week to prove that I was trying actively to get another job. This is someone with a "professional career" not a min wage job. The dept of labor ended up auditing my claim about 2months after I took a garbage low paying job to get back on my feet. This required me to prove with paper evidence that every single week of my claim I had been meeting the fairly stringent job application requirements as well as attending the weekly meetings with a "career counselor" that took one look at my resume the first meeting and said that he could not help me find any job nearly close to what I had. I have had jobs that were way easier than being on unemployment.

[mike_belben]

every one of the meth heads i have given free church food to has foodstamps and a check, you hear them screaming about it all the time.  across the street are all able bodied. there isnt any room to put a jug of milk in the fridge and no one in the house has worked in the 5 or 6 years ive lived here.  

they seem to afford staying high really really well but i guess im not that interested in asking them the secret. 

you can save 50% on groceries by purchasing their EBT cards at half of face value.  thats how they get cash for smokes

[Southside]

@mudfarmer the Cash for Kids program that began on July 15th replaced any lost UI income that expired.  Are the school kids still getting the automatic monthly EBT cards?   You know the ones with multiple hundreds $$ on them each month.  Those kids must eat a lot.  

Within two weeks of that program starting I had an employee suddenly have a "schedule issue" and could no longer work weekends - even though that was exactly why she was hired.  School starts and more "schedule conflicts", can't work these hours, or these.  Now the other day I get a text message telling me that she has started going to the gym on whatever days and whatever times, so can't work then either.  Oh, and she wants a raise.  In the midst of this my wife pointed out that this employee has zero Federal taxes withheld, so the money she is getting each month because of her kids comes from me.  They drive two new vehicles, go on multiple vacations each summer, and get paid for having kids.  Burns me, absolutely burns me.  Needless to say there won't be a raise or an accommodation for the special hours.  

Notice how the media isn't talking about this at all?  Until we crash so hard that folks have nothing to eat and no bread line to stand in things are not going to turn around, the on-goings of the past two years have ensured that.  

[kantuckid]

The labor issue has been getting worse over time but in many rural areas any factory that paid much over minimum wage really didn't hurt for unskilled help. That ended the day the Covid shutdown started and has yet to rebound no matter how much the starting wages have been raised.

In very recent KY news: over 50% of working age adults are not working in this state. They are all not in ECU's or hurt or whatever.
 They go to the lake and fish, buy stuff like there's no tomorrow, etc., etc.. 
 And we all know hiring signs are all over the entire USA.
 The middle sized sawmill operation less than 3 miles from me mostly logs the owners own lands using contract loggers he keeps busy. The labor all comes from Vera Cruz , Mexico and the skilled mill service and head sawyer, truckdrivers, secretary are local yokels. Meanwhile locals drive by and sit on there porches, so on... One of those Mexicans is nearing 40 and been there since his teens. He married a local girl , drives a nice truck, owns a home andworks long hours. meanwhile locals often don't work.
Yes, it ticks me off to no end! I cannot stand lazy people. 
Over they years I've learned that some loggers are simply not good business minded and their own worst enemy when it comes to profits. Like any self contracting business in reality. Throw in that logging is heavily weather factored along with being a very dangerous place to work and often loggers work safe yet sustain body damage over time. Even part time like myself, it's not any secret that our bodies suffer from hard work and logging is exactly that. 
My last career was in the KY tech schools and I really know the labor market here well. it's no secret why jobs decide to locate here and it's not based on high educational levels (we continue to have 1 million adults who lack a HS credential) . Those factories nearest me almost all pay relatively poor wage scales. The Morehead hardwood industries all benefited from low wages and low educational attainment as thats mostly who they hired unless they needed skilled electricians millwrights, graders etc.. There are sad reasons that area, the 2nd largest hardwood process area in the world behind Hickory, NC was able to create a number of rich, millionaire families yet not until recent years do anything toward developing a secondary finished wood products industry such as seen in NC. Imports and rough sawed & pallets was pretty much it until very recently. 
Potus bucks continue to erode the labor force IMO. Now we see skilled medical as potentially getting much $$$ as a bonus while others plan to fire them over their personal choices. What a weird world we live in huh? 
 Much current talk about skilled worker shortages and plowing covid monies into a fix- guess what those shortages are old and common knowledge among job training facilities. 

[nativewolf]

I dread having to hire someone but it might have to happen.

[stavebuyer]

I heard a radio ad today from Toyota at Georgetown, KY needing workers starting pay was $21.00/hr plus all the benefits. If you have to pass a drug screen that eliminates a big chunk.

As per North Carolina; the furniture boat sailed right behind the sewing boat.  Lots of government talk about "creating jobs" on one hand while they expand every conceivable regulatory hurdle they can dream up to prevent anyone from doing anything constructive on the other. Nothing left but a shell of manufacturing jobs in this country. Education is great but we only need so many executives. I'd advise any young person to get into the skilled trades as they will be the secure six figure jobs of the future. The rest will still rely heavily on family or fraternity-sorority connections as they always have.

[mike_belben]

nailed it. 


my life long bestie up north is a union HVAC tech, no college, learned it in a trade high school and thats all hes done.  theyre paying $45/hr plus full benefits, retirement, anuity, medical.. you name it and he says thats ONTOP of the hourly rate.  and cant get people no matter how far and wide they advertise.  

statistically, peak employment is always the condition that comes just before a crash 

[Stephen1]

We have the same issue north of the border. Help Wanted signs every where. one thing I bleieve has happened is the part time companies, walmart homedepot and others that use the same format. People are not going back to them. They hav lerned to live without those small amount of hours, the retired people tht were filling thier day as theyhad nothing to do, they are now afraid to go to work. Covid. Not worth getting covid for minimum wage, or they need to have the vaccine and they don't want that either. Stay home, keep your distance and let this all play out. We have been hit with this Covid Passport up here, and most people around me are not vacinated and the ones that are are dead against the passport and unwilling to get it also. 

[mudfarmer]

Thanks @Southside no kids so I forgot about the free $$$ there and you are right nobody is talking about it. Guess it is time to get to work  ;D

[kantuckid]

Have you seen the federal program called Loggers Relief Act? $200 million for loggers/harvesters who suffered during covid. I wonder if it won't be like many other programs where the big guys collect and the little man gets nothing? We had a seriously bad flood here this summer in my tiny burg and the feds told them it wasn't bad enough to qualify. We locals think it was based on who voted for who not how much damage was done, plus that fact that this isn't a high pop. area either.
I see Walmart mentioned often as an employer paying low wages but truth be known it's a decent job in my area that holds onto workers for many years. For those who lack education level or skill sets it pays well over time in comparison to our other local work. I have not seen one business that lacks a hiring now sign. Those millions of people who quit their jobs are buying stuff hand over fist. This is one screwed up economy...

FWIW, there are various types of "executives", two of my sons fit that bill. The nuclear/civil engineer one manages a group of engineering offices while also overseeing many large construction projects. His twin, a chemical engineer is the CEO of an energy start-up company with Euro partners and he also has much hands on experience in both the science of energy and climate and power plants-FWIW, neither of them belonged to frats or got their jobs via  the good old boy network-they flat out earned them. Their older brother, also a trained engineer, has been a professional pilot (Marines first) his entire after school work life and same thing, he worked for what he's been able to accomplish! 
That stuff still happens but not nearly so much as nepotism and political influences in my life's educational work experience-after my skill trades and military work. 

[mudfarmer]

One of the old closed down paper mills around here just made the news again the past few days.

For some backstory:

Since 1978 when Diamond International closed the paper mill and
                    laid off 265 workers, the plant has had two subsequent owners with
                    three separate periods of operation.

[/pre]
Some of you guys will get a kick out of the back story for the 1978 closure:
Diamond Meat?Tray Manufacturer Closing Upstate Plant in Wake of New York City Law on Packaging - The New York Times

New York City consumers probably did not know they were eliminating the only biouegradable meat tray from their market when they lobbied for 100 percent visibility in meat packaging a decade ago.
They probably did not Know either that their action would contribute, ultimately, to the elimination of the largest industrial employer in this St, Lawrence River city of 14,000.
The phased closing of the Diamond International Corporation's fiber division mill here between now and Sept. 1 will leave 300 employees out of work, will cost the community an annual payroll of $2.5 million and will deprive local governments of almost $100,000 in taxes. The announced closing has already threatened the economic futures of the local rail industry and Ogdensburg's second‐biggest industry, the Standard Shade Roller Corporation.

[...]

"But you can't keep a production line going when you have no marketplace to sell your product," a spokesman for Diamond said, noting that Diamond officials blame the plant's decline in large part on the New York City ordinance "which took away a major market for the molded fiber trays that we produce."
In effect, New York City's 1968 Local Law 27 turned the tray market over to petrochemical producers by requiring that consumers have 100 percent unobstructed view of both sides of tray‐packaged meat and produce.

The city took over the property in 1992, and has spent since then on environmental remediation of it and neighboring formerly industrial parcels:
Decades of pollution, then decades of cleanup | News | nny360.com

But taking over the paper mill site, which was home to a variety of manufacturing uses during the span of more than a century, was just the tip of the iceberg for city officials bent on restoring their waterfront along the St. Lawrence. It was also the beginning of the municipality's deep dive into the complexities involved with trying to remediate one of the largest patches of contaminated shorelines in New York state.

It is on the St. Lawrence river, so now suddenly two separate development companies want to turn it into this:

Director of Planning and Development, updated the City Council during Tuesday's meeting about two responses to the city's request for proposals for possible development of the 24.21-acre Diamond National site, 1 and 2 Madison Ave. The city took possession of the former paper mill property in 1992, and almost $3 million has been spent on cleanup, with most of that cost paid for with money from the state's Environmental Restoration Program.


[...]

Ms. Smith briefly described the two projects, which she called two "vastly different proposals."
The first calls for mixed-use development over a three- to five-year span. It would have three phases, the first of which would be establishing a marina, followed by a residential development phase and a lodging and hospitality phase, according to Ms. Smith.
The second proposal calls for residential development that uses a homeowner's association model and would include a private marina for the residents and their guests.

HOA and private marina? You have got to be kidding!

Population, percent change - April 1, 2010 (estimates base) to July 1, 2019, (V2019) -6.2%
Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2015-2019 $67,900
Median gross rent, 2015-2019 $627

Median household income (in 2019 dollars), 2015-2019	$41,965
Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2019 dollars), 2015-2019	$21,485
Persons in poverty, percent	 22.7%

There is no market for what these "Developers" are trying to sell, it is another boondoggle. They will suck up grants, tax breaks and economic development incentives until they dry up, and then move on to the next scam. In fact it is already beginning:

[One]developer has also requested that the city pay for road and sewer infrastructure into the project.

(The HOA and private marina project, of course.)

In other business Tuesday night:
—J.E. Sheehan, Potsdam, was unanimously selected to perform the installation of a new 8-inch water line to service the former Diamond National site. The contract is for payment not to exceed $251,850 for what is being called the "St. Lawrence Shores Water Main Project."
Costs for the project will be covered by two grants — one from the Northern Border Regional Commission, which will take care 56% of the project costs, and a State and Municipal Facilities grant for the remainder.

So the developer tells the city to build water and sewer so they turn around and get grant $ to pay for it and the "developer" never even has to lift a finger but gets roads and water for their private property. Nice :

[Plankton]

It's disgusting really. Industry being turned In to suburbia and money making for "investors" to own more homes and jets and vacations. All the while removing jobs for people who are the backbone of america.

[mike_belben]

Hey all those foreign oligarchs gotta have somewhere to stay when they visit the new colony. 

[kantuckid]

My state of KY made one of the more noteworthy bad investments of taxpayers money when they handed over $15 million bucks for an alu processing plant in Ashland, KY (a formerly robust steel & rail town and mostly dead now business wise) that involved our favorite folks-the Russians. This was 4 years ago and nothings happened. The CEO then became a B of Directors member, then yet another one got appointed who just happened to be the old guvs director of economic development who'd pushed the project to begin with. They changed names but fact is they've raised $165 million so far yet are unwilling to return KY's money. The first CEO got pushed out for blowing $330,000 on self gifts, travel, meals, unauthorized private plane charters and awarding himself bonuses against company policy.

 Apparently it's legal to steal from your employer here? as you'll see both in the alu CEO and regular state merit employees below-

Here in KY recently a long list of unemployment state employees were caught cheating the state from the funds they were supposed to be getting into the hands of the real unemployed. Most all of them who were deemed guilty got minor days off w/o pay and kept their jobs and have gone un-prosecuted! 
Most all stole felony levels of money. Our guv was a deciding factor in their non-punishment.

Sadly these type of uses for taxpayer monies are not direct taxpayer voted people who decide who or how much to give-it's a loose cannon event. Fact is that mostly these companies know where they will go based on facts they've sorted out before we threw money at them. 

As too defunct industries like the paper mill above we have many KY coal mine sites that get taxpayer money to reclaim based on bankruptcies and no company left to make claims on. The law says they bond money for reclamation which often never happens. The current guv of WV is one of those coal company execs who left behind a mess. Others are scattered around KY doing more business but not paying for their old messes.

These senarios are often lawyer food fights that end poorly for the taxpayers always. Sawmills get less notice than mining but KY has many old mill sites that have immense piles of mill waste left behind with little notice.  

[mike_belben]

WV/KY have been an ideological battleground since lenins day.  Energy, steel, trucks, ports,highways.. They all fuel the capitalist war machine that the communist war machine had to kill or be killed by (in a leninists mind, communism cannot work until capitalism is dismantled. Dismantling the #1 capitalist - america -is the sole purpose and identity of a red)

So thats what the entire cold war was.  A headfake move on the line of scrimmage. A stiff 40 years then a fake friendship so they can come in, advance their people and those they can discreetly influence by any means available, to the top. To the unelected heights of all sectors of the american way of life.  Our money, food, industry, culture.. Everything. Corrupt and dismantle from the inside while exporting our wealth and impoverishing/radicalizing/reeducating our citizenry for an eventual goliath bureaucratic dictatorship that is coming into focus now *coughgoogleblehkweezeahem.

Look up any of the "labor organizers" of the coal wars era, youll always find ties to moscow.  Look at our most corrupt business leaders and politicians, youll find ties to moscow. TN has little pockets of reds hiding in the hills.  They were originally sent to target oak ridge atom bomb project and still at work today, 3 generations later. "The highlander school" is still operating but now its just ya know.. Community organizers working for social justice and inclusivity and climate action. Its not readily apparent that this new normal is just a bunch of leninist worms devouring the flesh of a capitalist enemy and calling it progress.


You will never see an end to big top down promises that put the middle class further down the ladder of poverty.  It is active measures and asymmetrical warfare. Not just plain old corruption and greed.  Its using the corrupt and greedy useful idiot american to carry out a slow and steady communist program for victory over USA.  We LOST the cold war. It just took 30 years to see the evidence start stacking up.  The entire world is saturated with plain old wickedness, selfishness, corruption and greed but some of it is very much coordinated and targeted at all western nations. USA, britain, europe, australia etc. The more militarily developed, the higher the priority.