2018 Retail Outlook Survey Results - Comments

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1 Retail Outlook Survey Results - Comments Q9 What changes, positive or negative, have you noticed in the overall business climate resulting from President Trump s first year in office? Positive, but starting to wane. People seem less worried about immediate, short-term economic conditions and seem more hopeful about long-term economic prospects. Overall, the building and construction market seems to have a good vibe as people are staying busy and continue to have good prospects for future work as new construction and remodeling stay strong. I'm a fan of President Trump, but the SLA has had an effect on small and large companies. The issue would be that the end user is going to be affected on how much they can purchase. I hope the new tax plan does go into effect with reductions on business tax levels. No significant change, but long-term confidence seems to be better with market stability. Not that I would attribute any differences to the Trump regime, but there are less constraints/regulations to domestic businesses and more of the same aimed at foreign businesses of imports. Farm prices are down, our county is down in new housing starts. Been a down year all around. We do not need the duty on Canadian forest products, it has only driven the cost of housing up. Wow--did anyone see the forest products markets doing what they've done these last few months? We have not yet overcome all the determinants of credit, labor, and regulation, to name a few, that have threatened the building industry, but now there will be the inflation of cost to challenge the consumers of the future.

2 2 Overall business climate better. Forest products/lbm supply business climate worse due to fires, hurricanes, litigious nature of cross-border trade, logistics challenges, but still better than 8-10 years ago. Overall, very thankful. No changes resulting from Trump's term, but our rural economy has no buoyancy. No effect. More activity, much better. More businesses are willing to expand. The negative was going to be the case no matter who was in the office: failure to get a Softwood Lumber Agreement signed caused too much instability in the market. Too protective of US mills that can't supply all our lumber needs anyway. Punishing Canada just allows other countries to supply our needs that we can't supply anyway. no changes I feel the duties that are being put on imports, especially lumber, have affected our bottom line. Also with the price adjustments of almost all products the cost to build is more expensive, which has some projects being postponed or cancelled. I would say that in general the building climate is more positive in our geographic than it has been the last several years. I haven't seen much change yet. Happy Thanksgiving! All the mergers and buyouts are leaving a greater percentage of production by fewer mega companies. This is not good and mega size will be followed by decreasing values for all downstream entities.

3 3 Our sales come from retirees building retirement homes on the area lakes. When the stock market is up they feel that they have more money and spend more. The past year the stock market has been strong resulting in good sales for us. I do feel that President Trump has improved the business climate and will continue to work to improve it. Anything and everything that has been done has been the president alone, the Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate seem to have their heads stuck in the sand. It would sure be nice to replace all of them! HOPE for small business. Less red tape, lower taxes for ALL, eliminating the inheritance tax, robust stock market, strong resolve in defense. They have botched the whole immigration matter. We NEED legal immigrants to stay in the labor market, we NEED to have a pathway to citizenship for those non-felons who have worked here for years while our government looked the other way. Never mind what any pundit says. Positive or negative. There are just more orders going out the door. Builders in our area seem to be a bit more optimistic. More vibrant economy. Nothing that has helped. The offensively aggressive direction of the current US administration toward North American trade agreements has had a chilling effect on the overall business climate. Still waiting to find "an adult in the room." The new tax bill has to include relief for pass-through taxes.

4 4 Positive, just the tone in general. Most of what I hear is positive. He's a businessman not a politician, Supreme Court appointment was important to free market system so that's a positive along with regulatory reform, tax policy, and although he failed to get Obamacare repealed his efforts have helped. Washington hates him so we like him! We saw business pick up right after the election last November and we have experienced increased business (20.8% over 2016) this year (over ). We have seen a good pickup in new-home construction and also commercial construction and we're encouraged by this new activity. Now, if Congress would do anything in the realm of tax reform and repealing Dodd-Frank Act, we believe the economy would start growing at a much faster pace and we would see even more new starts. Mostly positive due to increased business emphasis. We have noticed a positive change. It seemed to happen the day after he was elected. The builders just seem to be upbeat and positive about the economy. We had one customer who told us to beef up our inventory because the economy was about to get rolling now that Trump was in office. We're back in growth mode! We're investing in new warehouses, equipment, personnel, and additional locations. We've experienced the best new-home construction in 2016 in the last eight years and we think its going to be even better next year. The problems that we have to overcome in our business is finding adequate help, especially professional truck drivers. We could handle a lot more business from the order entry, order pulling aspects, but getting material to the jobsite is another story. In the old days we'd just go 18 hours a day until we got it all shipped, but that's not an option with the new rules and regulations on trucking. Do you have any suggestions on how to solve driver shortage? Bit more optimism. Uncertain... Well it looks and feels positive. But high price may enter into it before it's over.

5 5 I see a lot of bluster, but can't tell yet that we've seen a real change at all. More optimism from contractors, better climate for business, hopeful for tax reform, better overall outlook for the future. None in our area. We are not affected much from Federal rules. We are getting killed daily from California's state government. 20 cents a gallon plus 4% new tax on diesel. And having to replace all our trucks and forklifts with more modern engines as required by the California Air Resources Board. Plus the 1% special tax on lumber. Too early to tell. But with unemployment down, more jobs generated, need for housing has increased. I'm not sure he is much of a positive force in this way but time will tell. Inflation in commodity prices is the main reason this year has been so profitable.