Bad habit

I went to check on my father in laws house he passed away in Aug. went down 2 alleys found lots of shred items... As I am picking them up I say not worth much & not worth taken in... but as my father in law would have said "for free take it"! I did...

Free is good.

Sirscrapalot - If it's free, you should be able to bring a profit.

I don't know what the 'take' (concept) on this is now.
For some reason that's got absolutely nothing to do with us. 'They'' decide that the only way we are going to move Ferrous is for us to actually GIVE it to them.
Whereas, last year they were PAYING US to collect, sort, clean, transport and deliver it, along with our time and hard expenses.
And it WAS worth it, just. Even if it was a byproduct of what else we were doing.

Its as if someones shifted 1/2 of a car into reverse ...

In reality, we should be going to Scrapyard's and have them fill up our vehicles with scrap for nothing. (Some would probably do this...but)

So, has the finished metal products shown this new development?
Is finished steel only worth 25% of what it was 18 months ago?
Are things cheaper?
What's happened to the export $ that were being earnt?
Should we just find a 100 acre spot that's not being used a make a huge pile of scrap until we do start to get paid for it again.??

Every ton given away equals a ton loss, never to be made up for, and another ton or two between the chance to get paid for it, and actually getting paid for it.

'Atlas shrugged'

Nope, nope, and nope. Finished steel consumer retail products will never come down in price because of low to no steel scrap prices because most of the money for the product is tied up in labor of the manufacturing company and what the retailers get. And the retailers costs of doing business haven't gone down. Gasoline here in the States is down to around $2 or a little above in a lot of places so that should mean diesel has come down as well (although typically doesn't fall as fast as gas). Has anyone seen retail costs of consumer products drop because of lower transportation costs?? Doubtful. Lots of games are played on how things are priced. Buyer always beware...

What i'm seeing here in the states:

The cost of living went up. People are finding that they're " locked in " with their present job. They get an annual raise but it's not keeping up with cost of living increases.

The only way to keep up is to leave their job for something that pays better.

When their employer has to hire in somebody new the starting pay has to be much higher otherwise nobody will be interested in it because it's not paying a living wage.

Labor is one of your biggest costs when you're running a business.

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Where global consumer demand is off they're probably stockpiling the scrap metal in China. It makes sense to buy it & stockpile it while it's cheap to buy.

Consumer demand will have to pick up AND the big players in the game will have to work through all of their stockpiles before steel prices start to come up again ?

If that's right .... then the steel you're bringing in now will help delay a rise in price ?

Everything used to be made of steel. Now it is all plastic.
I wonder if we could see a point where it is cheaper to manufacture with steel than plastic. Probably won't happen because that would require new manufacturing processes and equipment.