Rare Earth

By Rich Kozlovich

I received an e-mail from Sandra Wirtz of the American Resources Policy Network alerting me to this. Although this has been an ongoing problem, the majority of the people in the nation are completely unaware of what is happening. First of all…I can’t find fault with the Chinese for promoting their own best interests. That is what they are supposed to do. The problem with the Chinese is that very often their own best interests are in violation of things they agreed to in order to gain benefits internationally.

It has to go both ways so this issue about World Trade Organization claims regarding China’s illegally restricting export of metals should be a wake up call. Why a wake up call? For a number of reasons. The first and primary one is that they have an almost complete monopoly on rare earth metals; around 97%. What is the big deal? If we become primitives it isn’t any big deal at all! However, if we wish to remain an advanced society we have to understand that these metals are used in “mobile phones, automobiles, televisions, fluorescent lighting, fiber optics and most of our advanced military hardware require rare earths.”

Trillion dollar industries are in effect at the mercy of the Chinese government because they can create a multilayer pricing structure to ace out competition and restrict exports in order to raise prices. Once again…isn’t that what competition is all about? Yes, but that doesn’t allow you make agreements to enter a competitive market and then violate those agreements to control that market. They have forced up prices by restricting exports and guess what the excuse is? To protect the environment! Amazingly green those Chicoms.

So what is to be done? First of all, stop listening to these irrational misanthropic greenies and develop and utilize our own resources!

Isn't that better than a WTO court case that could easily be a Pandora's box? Everyone gets worked up because the Chinese have a monopoly but at the same time refuse to generate their own resources. These countries sound like a bunch of whining cry babies that have had their rattle taken away from them. Please view this video for insights that I think represent a common sense approach.

You may wish to view these also because each deals with more issues.
BNN News Network
McGroarty talks to CNBC about Copper and China’s desire for it.

There is one thing I absolutely disagree with and that is the contention that conventional energy prices are going to increase. That is going to change as everyone wakes up and realizes that we have plenty of those resources and we need to develop them…and that includes rare earths.


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