Topic: In a post abundance economy, which commodities and assets would appreciate most (Read 265 times)

Ever since 1962 and the Cold War, but that doesn't mean that something like that will still happen - plus @stompix post talks about the price of gas and avoiding an ice apocalypse, while you talk about atomic bombs and war. In addition, I pay very close attention to what is happening because I am relatively close to Ukraine (if 1000 km from the front line of the war is not considered too far).

From the perspective of someone who lived through the similar war 30+ years ago, I think I understand what is happening much better than someone who only watched the war on TV...

You shouldn't compare a mere wood with a digital currency. Bitcoin is like a special treasure if you don't know this. Firewood replenishes, if the demand for wood becomes very high,in the next 50 years there might be few  wood or forest in the world.
 What should be used to replace this replenish energies should be solar energy, very pure and free of any contamination or waste.

Its just that in the European country there is little of sun over there,if not solar will have been the next alternative. I live in Africa where there is abundant of sunlight. I have a solar panel on my roof,after buying and installation, yours is to enjoy it. It is durable, long lasting and reliable source of energy. In my country electric power supply if poor and everybody has come up with an alternative to have constant power.

Wood prices for heating have been booming in my country(EU). I've ordered wood for heating at the low 2021 price levels and I'm still for my order to get fulfilled.
The wood prices going up is just pure FUD and speculation. The people got scared due to the natural gas price explosion and the constant fear of a "cold winter" being spread over the mainstream media. Everyone started buying wood for heating and the prices went up 3x.
Now the natural gas prices in my country are going down and winter won't be that cold. We have enough wood in the forests, so I don't think that wood is scarce where I live. Everything is just speculation BS and FUD and many idiots are going to buy overpriced wood this winter.

It surprises me that people very easily give up the high standard of living that they had quite recently.

This process occurs in most countries of the world. Some are faster, some are slower. Who hinders the development of nuclear energy? Who hinders the development and improvement of modern technologies? Modern medicine is able to provide people, if not immortality, then at least a very high standard of living.

But people resign themselves to the fact that they will live worse and worse. And it's scary.

Reverse could be possible as well. You are assuming that people who live houses do have spaces but considering how much wood would be required to heat up a whole house, and do that during all of winter, I do not think that they would have enough space to do it, maybe if they close off their entire backyard (and if they have a backyard to begin with) at the top and put it there, then I do not think that it would be possible.

Apartments on the other hand could have good basement for all the people, and also a parking space, combine those two together and then heat the apartment as a whole from within, then you may have that space. We have similar thing, it's heated water running through all the apartments in our building, and water doesn't require space because you can flush it down and get new constantly, but we would have enough space for wood to do the same thing as well.

In both cases, a warehouse specialized in this product could definitely be preferred option for everyone. Still substandard method compared to just using electric heating machines.

Gasoline prices in the USA declined due to strategic petroleum reserves being tapped to -temporarily- boost supply.

Whatever fluctuations in natural gas, commodities and power occur. You have to consider microeconomic vs macroeconomic trends.

Prices can temporarily increase or decrease. There is no permanence or stability without long term sustainability. Supply versus demand is one of the main indicators used with destruction of gas pipelines being associated with diminished supply and higher demand.

NATO and russia are discussing dirty bombs & nuclear war and you're claiming the apocalypse has been averted?

I think you have not been paying attention.





Take a good look at the following image.



Image link:  https://i.imgur.com/Ve9ta2S.jpg

Above image - 50,000 saplings planted as part of an afforestation project in india in 2010.

Less than 2% of trees planted in these massive state sponsored afforestation programs survive long enough to become actual trees.

Which leads to claims of forest regrowth being exaggerated.

Old growth rain forest in the amazon and around the world are being devastated quickly.

With efforts made to grow new trees being poorly structured and designed and generally doomed to failure.




Trees are a deflationary asset, being that they're chopped down at a faster rate than they're being regrown.

But of course markets can be manipulated through supply in centralized industries. We've seen this in past years with aluminum prices being controlled through artificially created supply shortages and shipping delays. The high volatility price chart for aluminum over the past 2 years makes it appear as a scarce commodity at times, even though it is always in abundant supply.

Chart volatility for many commodities and assets has skyrocketed in the past 2 years. Price charts in commodities have shown more volatility than bitcoin and crypto in some instances. Which is extremely strange market behavior. This will stand out more to those who remember when bitcoin's volatility was criticized by banks and others who boasted about the lack of volatility in more traditional markets.

Are all these fears for this winter, or are there expectations that prices will continue to rise for several years to come?
It makes no sense for me to modify my house and buy a wood heater for one winter, especially since it will not be used for the coming years.
Do not forget that environmental legislation will be strict in the following years.

Firewood is a good idea to store if you have the space did it. You need large amounts of wood if you want to use it as the main source of heating during winter. People who live in an apartment and not a house will probably have issues finding enough space. Storing value in gold and silver is probably the best idea, as long as its in small amounts that would make it easy to trade. One thing that I have started to store at home more is food. If things are going worse in the world and we are going to see more wars and crisis than food could become a commodity by itself that everybody will accept for trading. I am a huge fan of the climbing/military food that is packaged without any water. It has no real expiration date if stored correctly and it takes up no space and is light to carry. Together with a water purification system that you can always filter and get clean water, this is great to prepare for bad times. This would also help a lot if inflation keeps making food even more expensive next year.

Nope:
https://resoilfoundation.org/en/environment/eu-forests-growth/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environment/


Let me add something to what Lucius said.
Europe is not the land of reindeer, no we don't have 10 meters of snowfalls, we don't have blizzards that freeze everything for months, and no, no artic nights in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, France > insert all the EU countries except for a bit of Norway or Finland.

Just to throw some numbers here:


Second, stop being so dramatic about everything.
We've been through covid where everyone was hoarding bullets and toilet paper, we've been to another grab-everything food rush and the stores are full, we're going to go through this so-called gas shortage and the ones investing in wood will see they've bought a ton of overpriced wood that they will either see decaying or sell for a fraction of the price.

Remember what happened to lumber prices in the US?
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs

There is gas and it will be enough for the whole winter, and unfortunately you, like many others, are too deeply immersed in the daily propaganda about how Europe will freeze and collapse economically. For someone who is on the other side of the world and lives in tropical conditions, you are pretty sure you know something, but things on the ground are completely different from what you read.

Still don't believe it? Here, read what @stompix post -> Eu gas and electricity prices drop 80% to 2021 level, another apocalypse averted


I am not talking about complete decomposting, but about the fact that wood loses its quality over time - it is a natural material that is subject to various influences even when it is properly stored.


Of course it has to be dry, but you obviously don't know what I'm talking about if you've never made a fire with wood that's been sitting in the shed for a few years and wood that's been cut and dried for a few months and then used.

Firewood alternative for heat is temporary and the people who are benefiting are those who never expected it to become an alternative so soon. It will not remain so and the only alternative for a long time as to it, there are alternatives too, just that some are energy dependent at the moment. One good and ecofriendly alternative to Firewood fireplace for keeping the home warm this period where electricity and gas prices are high and with the energy concerns is the alcoholic gels that do not give out smoke or fumes, and you can form a fireplace for heating your home with them. They can be easily gotten at shops around that sell items for home improvement and they are very affordable.

Dwelling spaces which lack chimneys could simply install a window exhaust vent similar to a window based air conditioning.

Everyone in the EU will know whether gas supply exceeds demand when winter hits.

What's the point in discussing it, everyone will know what the facts are soon.


It takes many years for wood in a natural environment to decompose.

I think most sources you could find would consensus a 5 year minimum.


Wood must be dried to be burned indoors.

Wood containing moisture produces large amounts of smoke.

All wood burned in wood stoves is dry.

There is no sign that you wrote it as some kind of joke, especially for all those who know very well the way you think.


You are living in an illusion created by the Russian sphere of interest, but the situation with gas in the EU is such that there is currently much more than the real needs, and there is no winter at all, so many enjoy temperatures up to 25 degrees Celsius. Firewood is only a transient thing, which cannot be used by a very large percentage of people in the EU anyway, because they live in housing units that do not have chimneys.

Also, have you ever tried storing wood for a long period of time? Such wood is constantly destroyed by pests that live inside the tree itself, the wood dries out and loses its energy value, and in a few years you get wood that literally falls apart in your hands and burns like straw without generating a sufficient amount of heat.

I was joking about firewood being the next BTC.

But as so many want to take it seriously a case can be made for it.

Firewood is the next bitcoin

• Humans have chopped down more than 50% of natural forests in the world to make way for highways, cities, agricultural land, etc
• It takes years to grow a tree and only minutes to cut one down, this makes trees and firewood deflationary assets
• As human populations expand there is less space in the world for trees to occupy
• We may be at peak trees in 2022, the current number of trees may be the most the world will have in coming decades
• Fossil fuel restrictions and nordstream pipeline being blown up could make returns to natural gas for europeans unfeasible, firewood could be here to stay for the long term
• Efforts to replenish and regrow forests have met with mostly negative results

Coupled together these trends could converge to make firewood a deflationary asset.

Firewood may not be produced at a rate faster than it is consumed to suit market demand.

Scarcity could arise which could produce long term tangible gains for firewood markets.

I do not think firewood and wood-burning stoves will be the next Bitcoin.  This problem can be easily fixed if someone or some country devotes themselves to planting the sources of these materials.  In just 5 to 10 years, the problem or the supply of firewood will go up in scale.  This commodity has a possible infinite supply, unlike Bitcoin which has a fixed supply.  So I don't think the current increase in firewood demand is comparable to Bitcoin.



It is also good to invest in lumber and building materials, if nations involved in war increases, we can see lots of infrastructures getting destroyed, so the demand for these building materials will surge.


I agree that firewood and wood stoves is a good investment for short term until countries catch up to producing this kind of materials.

I am very much sure that fire wood is a temporary thing and not a long term solution. It means that even though right now there is a problem in the world with energy and heating, and even though people are finding firewood as a solution for the time being, there will be a period where it won't be as god as it is right now.

We do have electric heating products available, and they work very very well too, but they require a lot of electricity, which means we need to produce more energy. European nations who do not want to work with Russia anymore, went with firewood for now because it's a short term solution, but they will find a way to produce more energy, and when they do firewood will not be needed anymore.

Or alternatively, some of those issues can be mitigated with one of those newer "power stations" which are solar-powered and use batteries.  They'll still make a fair amount of noise, but better than burning fuel.

The consequences of Russia - Ukraine war is affecting the UK nations before with the gas prices now rise in demand for alternatives supplies because it is mandatory to survive the winter or else they would freeze. Recently I saw some article related to this which states UK and Ukraine is going to affect a lot when winter begins and this maybe just a trailer for all of the future consequences.

Or even it can be the beginning of new era in the political and other economical perspective or some conspiracy theory stated beginning of China to be the superpower.

If we are to do analysis of op post and generator investment I will say it is still not putting price down regarding to household expenses to generating energy, electricity and cooking cost. Yes it is going to be shrew for the buyer or user but profitable to manufacturer.

Reasons to be shrew for user is

1. If we are considering cost in the home, the generator use does not cost less. You have to fuel it almost on the daily basis. Money to buy the fuel goes out from the house and regarding as extra expenses.

2. There is time when use for long it started to generate fault and you need to go to generator technician or mechanic for repair, that cost extra fees for the charge for labour and change of faulty parts.

3. Generator is leading to high noise in the environment that disturb your ear and you hear noise everytime and no peace.

4 Risk of explosion caused by the using of generator. This is possible from different angles like filling the fuel to the generator careless way.

5. Smoke and heat in the environment The smoke that come from generator is dangerous , deadly and can cause death


Firewood is not same with bitcoin. The use of wood burning to generate fire may be getting attention and demand for it can be on the increase but not to compare with bitcoin need. Wood burning is already having a limitation because of the global warming and ozone layer that is affected because of the activities of cutting down trees and bush for firewood, building and others. There is a big disadvantage to go back to that time, I don't see the possiblity and there are regulation on that against cutting down trees and bush burning.

For woodburning, the world is changing and major reason is cutting down trees. This can cause natural disasters flooding that is happening in the world is part of it. The US is giving help to some countries on flooding disaster already.

To compare demand and supply, bitcoin is far more in demand and wood fetching is already in disadvantage for global warming, heat, ozone layer effect.

Using of stove to cook is still expensive. You have to use kerosene and that is not cheap. Bitcoin transfer is cheaper, less than $0.1  

That’s too big statement regarding bitcoin to wood conversion and as like @Lucius I’m also disagreeing to the same.

Anyways, we always compare every news to the bitcoin world that is little unwelcoming. Imagine the world without bitcoin or crypto currency’s; you had no option but to live with the grim reality of inflation. We don’t have to burden bitcoin all the time if bomb explodes in the Ukraine somewhere.

Let us accept that we are into recession, we are having worst leaders around the globe who are not handling the situation correctly post covid and in-war situations. They have missed few bricks along the way while building a wall. It was supposed to collapse.

Just save up money, keep bitcoin in HODL position, Stock up supplies and wait for the recession to dilute. That’s what we can do.