In this book, Mattey studies the unusual movements in the price of federal timber over 1979-1981. Wide differentials between the price of timber, future contracts, and the price of delivered timber threw the Pacific Northwest into a recession in 1982-84 when timber buyers delayed harvests in order to postpone the realization of their losses on their contracts. Mattey shows that it was not so much the actions of the Federal Reserve - which was widely blamed for the crisis - but the actions of the buyers themselves that caused the recession.