seahorse wrote:On a personal note, I talked to a logger today who is interested in buying walnut off of local properties here, bc it's in high demand in China. Maybe they need walnut stocks for their AKs?? At any rate, just a very local example of our resources being exported abroad to emerging economies.
The US certainly appears to be heading toward Second World status, with Third World perhaps not far behind. May have already achieved the former, at least for a large proportion of working slobs.
Here in my corner of Cascadia the hubbub is that the trees feeding the mills in my little village are going to China. Milled at least, not raw logs, but still. I'm not real happy that our trees are feeding the Chinese beast, but I bet the millworkers aren't too worried about it, especially after the lingering collapse of the US housing market. I recently heard from the local storeowner that they're renovating the old rail line that goes to a coastal town with a big port. The mills in my village are built around the line, I'm sure they'd be happy to have a more efficient way to move logs to Asia.
But what happens if China collapses along with the rest of us? Not something I hear discussed much around here. I really have no idea how China will react to peak oil, catastrophic climate change, and the collapse of the global economy. But somehow I doubt they'll want our lumber any more.
As for AK furniture, most is made from plastic these days, even the folding stocks, which used to be steel. Definitely something appealing to a wood stock, though, even on an AK. Old school.
A garden will make your rations go further.