China's trade war hits US & Europe

[Dr Mordrid]

NY Times link....

China Said to Widen Its Embargo of Minerals

HONG KONG — China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said this week.

The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further intensify already rising trade and currency tensions with the West. Until recently, China typically sought quick and quiet accommodations on trade issues. But the interruption in rare earth supplies is the latest sign from Beijing that Chinese leaders are willing to use their growing economic muscle.

“The embargo is expanding” beyond Japan, said one of the three rare earth industry officials, all of whom insisted on anonymity for fear of business retaliation by Chinese authorities.

They said Chinese customs officials imposed the broader restrictions on Monday morning, hours after a top Chinese official summoned international news media Sunday night to denounce United States trade actions.
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[Elie]

Quick answer... stop manufacturing our crap in China!

Done!

[TransformX]

Quick answer... stop manufacturing our crap in China!

Done!

Sadly, it's a little too late now, after the Chinese killed most manufacturing in the rest of the world. Seriously, there's a blog of someone who tried not to buy Chinese a few years ago and failed miserably because there are some things that are now made almost exclusively in China. China = Wallmart = cheap crap that kills local industry. I said it before and now here's the proof.

[Jammrock]

That and some 90% of the mined rare Earth minerals in the world come from China.

[Evildead666]

Saw 97% as a quoted figure yesterday...

So much for going the cheaper route all the time.
China didn't force us to buy their products, they lowered production prices for our Bosses, who kindly took a larger bonus, and shafted us all in the long term.

I think we all need to revalue what we are worth, and stop consuming needless crap that just gets reburied in a landfill.
Not much chance of that though.

How long until we're able to mine 'local' asteroids and asteroid belts (like Saturns nice rings) ?

[cjolley]

Don't everybody get their panties in a bunch.

http://www.slate.com/id/2271817/

EXPLAINER
Has the Earth Run Out of Any Natural Resources?
There isn't much cryolite anymore.
By Brian Palmer
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010, at 6:34 PM ET
China has cut exports of rare-earth metals to Japan, Europe, and the United States, undermining high-tech manufacturers that rely on the minerals for wind turbines and missile-guidance systems. The People's Republic controls more than 90 percent of rare-earth production and now claims that their reserves may be exhausted in the next 20 years. Extinct plant and animal species notwithstanding, has the Earth ever run out of a natural resource?

Sort of. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we have no remaining reserves of cryolite, a mineral that is used in the processing of aluminum. The last active cryolite mine, located in Greenland, closed in the 1980s, and manufacturers now rely on a synthetic alternative. But that doesn't mean the planet has run out of this resource. When we talk about natural reserves of a mineral, we're generally not referring to every last ounce of that mineral thought to exist. Rather, we mean only those deposits that would be worth extracting, given their present value and the cost of mining them. Veins of cryolite are still scattered around the globe, but they're too small to justify the expense of a mining operation at current prices.

Since the availability of a given resource depends on its present value, along with the quality of the technology used to extract it, the total "known reserves" of something can actually increase over time. Indeed, that's been the case for most commercially important minerals. In 1950, for example, the USGS estimated global reserves of zinc at 77 million tons. Yet exploration and improved mining techniques allowed humans to dig up more than 293 million tons of the stuff over the next half-century. In 2000, the government announced that zinc reserves were up to 209 million tons. Tin, copper, iron ore, and lead have all experienced similar increases. In 1970, researchers thought we had only 30 years of oil left. By 1990, the estimate had risen to 40 years, where it has remained. While many believe oil could one day become commercially nonviable, few in the industry think all the wells will have run dry by 2050.

Resource exhaustion used to be a hot topic among economists. Thomas Robert Malthus predicted in 1798 that land shortages would lead to famine and population collapse. In 1865, William Stanley Jevons predicted that Britain would soon run out of coal, bringing the economy crashing down, and others soon joined the gloomy chorus. These days, though, few economists lose sleep over the prospect of absolute exhaustion of any particular resource. For most of the 20th century, coal and oil prices remained constant, and mineral prices dropped in real dollars, indicating confidence in long-term supply. Most experts assume that mankind will continue to discover new deposits and devise substitutes for any resources that become scarce. Of far greater concern than actually burning our final gallon of gasoline or mining the last pound of copper, they say, are the environmental and geopolitical risks associated with resource extraction.

So where will we go for rare-earth metals if China's supply runs low? California has deposits, although production ceased in the 1990s when China started mining the minerals for less money. The moon also has some rare-earth resources, which might be mined within a century or two using some version of a space elevator.

Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks George Brimhall of the University of California at Berkeley, Rod Eggert of the Colorado School of Mines, Kate Johnson of the U.S. Geological Survey, and Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History.

[Umfriend]

Chuck, this isn't about commodity-scarcity, it's about using market power for political gain.

[Dr Mordrid]

More properly; creating an artificial market scarcity for capital gain.

[Jammrock]

Those capitalist...er...commie pigs.

[Dr Mordrid]

A more recent report....

Bottom line: a DoD funded study says there's plenty -

http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2010/5220/

Link....

DoD-funded study pooh-poohs rare earth shortage

At current consumption rates, known deposits of rare earth elements (REE) in the United States are sufficient for 1,300 years, according to the first-ever nationwide estimate of these elements by the U.S. Geological Survey. The new estimate is part of a larger Department of Defense report focusing on the status and security of domestic and global supply chains.

Currently, 96 percent of REE are produced by China.
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