While we engage in petty bull****, China has

[Boris Godunov]

eaten our lunch. They've successfully outplayed us. I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords.

[SlowwHand]

You give them way too much credit.

[Dinner]

China has it's own big property bubble though they're much less leveraged than us so it won't be quite as damaging still their banks are often under capitalized (the state requires them to keep lending to money losing state owned industries to prevent wide spread unemployment) so it will take fewer losses to bring them down. On the upside China is sitting on $3 trillion in capital reserves so while it will hurt they do have the assets needed for bailouts if such is required. It will still hurt though.

One big plus for the US is that many of China's new millionaires don't feel that their money is safe in China so they're trying to immigrate to the US and Canada where they think there are better protections for property rights. That means a good share of China's new wealth is going to end up in North America either because rich Chinese immigrate (taking their money with them) or because Chinese invest more in foreign markets to lessen their exposure in China's domestic market. All those capital inflows will help the US economy.

[Boris Godunov]

China has cornered the market on rare resources. The resources needed for renewable energy. We're toast.

[Dinner]

They did subsidize the **** out of REEs and thus drive the competition out of business. The problem is the Chinese government then tried to use that as an economic weapon by withholding it first from Japan over the Spratley Island issue but now simply refusing to export most of it as a way to force companies to relocate to China. As a result of that REE mines around the world have now reopened with the Japanese opening a massive mine in Malaysia, the US reopening another giant mine in California, and with even the Turks and Brazilians reopening REE mines. REEs just aren't that rare and the Chinese are going to find it hard to keep the market cornered.

[SlowwHand]

They have lead.

[Dinner]

If the Bolivians ever got their collective head out of their collective ass then they'd quickly become the world's largest supplier. The problem is the current government of Bolivia is insane and keeps nationalizing, without compensation, foreign owned companies in Bolivia so no one wants to invest in Bolivia. Sadly, Bolivia doesn't have the capital or the skills to develop their REE resources on their own so they just sit there while the people get poorer and poorer. If they got rid of their worthless President and enacted laws to protect property rights then they'd likely see a flood of foreign money & expertise flooding in which would result in these resources being utilized, employment greatly increased, and tax revenue hugely increased. That remains a what if though since Morales is a dumb ass.

[Kuciwalker]

China has cornered the market on rare resources. The resources needed for renewable energy. We're toast.

How, exactly, have they done this?

[Dinner]

Subsidized the **** out of their state owned rare earth element mines so that they under cut the other producers and drove them out of business. It helps that China has no environmental standards so production costs were kept rock bottom. Believe it or not they are still using 19th century hydrolic mining techniques in outer Mongolia where they just use high pressure hoses to wash all the soil off of hill sides and then sluice the soil to separate things out according to density. This doesn't even get the hard rock deposits and only recovers the surface deposits but I guess it's profitable enough in China even if it does make the land completely baron (no soil left) plus it uses huge amounts of water (much of which is then fowled with metals or high turbidity) in an area which is borderline desert.

[Kuciwalker]

Subsidized the **** out of their state owned rare earth element mines so that they under cut the other producers and drove them out of business.

So what you're saying is that there are actually plenty of rare earth metals in other countries that just aren't being mined right now because China is exporting theirs at a discount?

[Kuciwalker]

baron (no soil left)

No. A baron is a low-ranking member of the feudal nobility. "Barren" describes land that is not arable.

[Az]

So what you're saying is that there are actually plenty of rare earth metals in other countries that just aren't being mined right now because China is exporting theirs at a discount?

I believe that was has happened was that this was followed by Chinese interests going and buying those other mines.

[dannubis]

So what you're saying is that there are actually plenty of rare earth metals in other countries that just aren't being mined right now because China is exporting theirs at a discount?

Not quite but a combination of several things:

1) Rare earths are indeed not rare. They are in fact quite common

2) However, rare earth mining and processing is very polluting (one of the main by-products is radioactive Thorium - a lot of other toxic stuff is found as well). This caused "the west" to rather close its own captive mines and go for (at that time) cheap chinese supply

3) As time went by the chinese became the only supplier of rare earth elements

4) 2004 Boom in commodity demand has increased prices times ten.

5) People are reopening mines because of huge margin potential but it takes time to get the necessary environmental approvals and rehabilitate the mining pits.

So for the moment, the chinese are the only exporters in times of high prices. This will in a few years settle down once the other pits start producing again.

[Dinner]

So what you're saying is that there are actually plenty of rare earth metals in other countries that just aren't being mined right now because China is exporting theirs at a discount?

Yes, I believe I have said that multiple times. China put export limits in place last year in an attempt to force electronics makers to relocate to China if they wanted access to REEs but the moment they cut exports several other big mines not only reopened by greatly expanded their operations. Stimulus funds were used to help finance the reopening of the Mountain Pass mine here in California which is one of the world's largest REE mines. That mine used to supply the majority of the world's REEs and can easily ramp up production as it's reserves are so large and so close to the surface.

[Dauphin]

No. A baron is a low-ranking member of the feudal nobility. "Barren" describes land that is not arable.

Given how many spelling mistakes he makes (e.g. immigrate vs emigrate is annoying me) it seems futile to correct just one.