China is Holding Rare Earth Metals Hostage

[Demon_Skeith]

You may not care the China controls over 95% of the world's supply of rare earth metals, but you might want to.

China is putting a squeeze on the export of these valuable raw materials and building up a national stockpile. Funny thing, the communist superpower is not using these metals to make anything. It's holding them hostage so it can control global supply and price. As you would expect, the supply is going down and the price is going up.

Rare earth metals are used in everything from laser-guided weapons to consumer electronics. Manufacturers are paying more for these metals and will pass this cost along to the consumer. It may take a while, but this increase will eventually trickle down to our wallets and hit us where it hurts the most - our beloved electronics.

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like we don't got enough of this s*** with oil.

 

[medyas]

For real?

Metal and China?

More like plastic and China. :crazy:

This kind of reminds me of 2012 when China has been secretly building underground storages for 'those who can afford' it to stay in while the whole world is tearing down to pieces.

 

[Milton]

It's just how the world economy works I guess. There is no right or wrong method - everyone is manipulating prices and manipulating each other in its own ways.
Similar to them undervaluing the Yuan to increase exports, they can do this stockpiling of earth metals (if I'm not wrong, that includes Lithium and metals in the same group), and there is nothing we can do since we still need them for certain industries and to manufacture certain goods, especially semiconductors.

It's kinda like the oil cartel too, like you've mentioned. Since we still need oil for now, we can't do anything much about them.

Retaliation is just going to create a series of problems that would benefit no one and sap consumers even more than ever.

 

[pixelpro]

Didn't know china had 95% of the Earth's rare minerals, Do know. I guess that's why they are in an economic boom!

 

[Milton]

Yeah they are located on a strategic position with a lot of minerals in the soil as well as coal. This is why their industrialisation is costing so much in terms of air pollution, but so little in terms of the energy source (coal).