General Discussions

[LP]

Yes, as a project manager for many relatively small infrastructure projects well before COVID, 10-20% contingency was generally more than adequate.  It’s a different ball game now but the benefits of these long overdue, vital infrastructure projects still outweigh the increasing costs.

Yes, in reality it's always cheaper in hindsight, our parents or grandparents thought $10K was too much for a house, imagine if they had waited for them to get cheaper?

I've several projects that have spanned the pandemic, the material and labour costs have risen 200%, but mostly in just the last year as supply chains start gouging customers to recoup bonuses lost over the pandemic. We froze many projects due to high freight costs during the pandemic, shipping rates climbed by 1400%. Those shipping rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels now, perhaps in some cases even lower, but the products they ship have remained high.

Oddly, the executive bonuses have recovered faster than expected, despite shareholder backlash, but wages are falling in real world terms.

In China the opposite is happening, the ar5e has fallen out of the market, suppliers are cutting each other's throat with discounts, it's last man standing before they go into full blown recession. Retail products there are 50% cheaper than they were before the pandemic, yet here we pay more than ever for the same sh1zen that gets imported. Historians will be alarmed by that, and they should be given the way socialist countries chose to get out of the doldrums.