I'll See Your Earth And Raise You A Rare.

Houston, we have a problem. Rare Earths. Who what? Rare Earths. The problem is that China controls 95% of the Rare Earths on earth. That doesn't mean they have 95% of the Rare Earths (R.E.s). Which is what I thought they've been saying. They do have something like 35% of the stuff. But America and Canada have a lot of the stuff too. So what's the problem? Well Houston, the thing is, China used it's favorite tactic to garner control of this important market. They mined and sold the stuff cheaper then anybody else could. Then as soon as everybody else went out of the business, they started limiting the amount of R.E.s they would export. This accomplished two things for them. First it raised the prices and second it gave them more, cheap product for their own industries. Now they can, and do, use it as a hammer against anybody who messes with them. Japan found that out the hard way a year or two ago when they argued with China over some islands in the South China Sea. When they claimed they owned the islands, China suddenly could no longer ship R.E.s to them. It seemed there was some sort of problem. Now if you're sitting there wondering what in the world are Rare Earths, they're metals that are very rare, hence the name (Rare) Earths, but are needed in almost everything electronics related, like car batteries, solar panels and also flat screen TVs and so on. Without these metals, you just can't manufacture any of these high tech products. So Houston, what do you recommend? I'd say it's time to restart production in countries like Canada and the U.S. The problem is, China can always flood the market with cheap stuff again. That's what put us out of that business in the first place. Well maybe it's time for the U.S. to subsidize it's R.E.s mining and production and pass the savings on to the rest of the world. We'd come out looking like the good guys and we'd have a good safe supply of quality stuff. So would the rest of the world. China would come out the bad guy, but so? It seems to me that's exactly what they've been for some time now. Of course they'd complain to the World Trade Organization (WTO), but so?