Why the cost increase?

How does $300/wk work out to $4,400 a month?

It can when the fed adds $600 per week to a state's current unemployment benefits.

buck goes down don't you see?
too much money spent on that crazy WHOever engineer.

My understanding of this rise in lumber pricing has very little to do with the availability of raw lumber.  During Covid shutdowns mills were forced to close.  In many cases the worker bees scattered.  Restrictions are then lifted and not only have some workers fled the area but many others don't want to go back to the mills as they are being paid to sit home.

Then there is a question of a shortage of actual mills, you would expect that with rising prices it becomes a safe bet to build a new mill.  But, that costs 10s of millions and takes a long time.  Whomever is deciding not to build new infrastructure has the reasonable expectation that it won't pay off in the end as we really are in a bubble. 

Same with chicken and pork (my fav) pricing.  Asked my butcher and he
impatiently explained that there are plenty of pigs running around and few
processing plant workers to process them.

Notice the Orwellian \8-) reference (Animal Farm) above.

I crack myself up sometimes!

Regards,
barts

They’ll be back as soon as the money dries up but I wouldn’t hire a single one of them. Prices will come down a little but will never be back to where they were. Inflation will catch up with them.
The funny thing is, we are all being screwed. Left, right. Black, White. All of us. We should all be on the same team not fighting each other. As long as the politicians keep us at each others throats they and their benefactors have total control over us. The American middle class is dying and without it so goes the United States. International corporations could care less. The funny thing is, in the end, nobody will be able to afford their crap.

Covid seems to be a big factor behind recent inflation in general .  Business shut down or scaled back as people began staying home and demand decreased (along with the number of available workers).  More recently, consumer demand has picked up, but supply chains remain disrupted.  Low supply + increasing demand = higher prices.

As for lumber in particular, see:
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1013819703/what-the-rise-and-fall-of-lumber-prices-tell-us-about-the-...