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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: KyrosL who wrote (66368)9/23/2010 7:03:02 PM
From: TobagoJack  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 217588
 
<<I see the USA as a major net winner in a full scale global trade war, just on the basis of what the USA really needs (as opposed to wants) to import. 20 years ago the US imported 10% of its GDP (most of it oil) and had a thriving middle class. Already oil production in the US is increasing, oil consumption is decreasing, and the new natural gas reserves will last more than 100 years.>>

... i do not, cannot, because it makes no mathematical sense and defies common sense logic.

the usa has an absolute and overriding imperative to import financing

once it cannot do so or chooses not to do so, its debt-bloated gdp implodes by way of starvation or hyper inflation, because it has effectively nil true savings, only false paper

the disease has already run its full course, the patient is on bed of destiny, but surprisingly, the patient does not know or refuses to recognize or not cerebral enough to care

else why is usa officialdom sacrificing you and yours in such a diligent fashion ?

sincerely, save yourself, kyrosl, you are critically wrong in your read

burnable rocks and flammable gas has $%#@# all to do with anything when 'expensive' energy is plentiful from sun, uranium, and whatever other sources, incl. shale and such

china has plenty of expensive energy as well - sinkiang and tibet and inner mongolia are barely explored, and the stuff in outer mongolia cannot go anywhere else but china

also, china is happy to depend on russia on goodies, and russia is happy to depend on china to mind its own business

recommendation: getgold gambit, stacksilverwager, pileplatinumhedge

[ key words for search: save yourself ]



To: KyrosL who wrote (66368)9/23/2010 8:13:11 PM
From: energyplay1 Recommendation  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 217588
 
The US imports about 75% of it's oil, that's where the main problem lies.

There are critical imports of
-
*Cobalt - from the Congo / Zaire - multiple wars fought over this
*Tantalum - Australia, China, Africa, Malaysia, Thailand
*Tungsten - China 75% S. Korea, Vietnam, other places
*Lithium gets mined in Chile and Argentina and the US, then sent to Japan to become batteries.
*Tin - China 43% Indonesia 43% Peru ,Malaysia ,Bolivia Now has expanded use in solder because of the stupid European RoHS rules.
Titanium - Russia, also US sources.
Nickel - Russia, Canada, Australia, Indonesia
Bauxite (Jamaica) and Aluminum (many places, including China)
Copper - from Chile, US, Peru, Indonesia
Steel - Many places, but a lot from China
Uranium - from Canada, Kazakhstan (ore) and Russia (concentrated form)
Chromium - South Africa, India, Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, Finland

I think that is all the critical ones.

All the other elements (except REs) fall into 3 categories -

1) US is the or a major producer Helium, Molybdenum, Beryllium and a few others ... and copper.

2) US not a major producer, but many producers world wide with lots ore, not shortage. A good example of this is Zinc. It is cheap, because there are a lot of fairly good ore bodies all over the world, and it is a by product copper or lead mining .
In this category are Zinc, Lead, Antimony, Mercury, Bismuth, Manganese, Vanadium (by product of some Uranium ores).

An analogy -
Some could corner the market on wheat. With the above elements, it would be like trying to corner the market on crabgrass. Every other lawn has plenty.

3) Key byproducts - Indium (used for LCDs) and Gallium (used for Leds) are both Copper byproducts, and Chile is a major supplier. Also Germaium, which has been replaced by silicon.

So there are maybe 5 elements which might be vulnerable -
Co, Ta, W, Li, Sn.

And China has leverage over Tungsten W and Tin Sn.

Rare Earths Production over time -
en.wikipedia.org

China currently produces about 97 % of world RE

There are deposits that have produced in India, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. There are some large Canadian deposits.
The Brazil and Indian deposits are placer sands, so maybe they can be dug up, run through a sluice to separate the heavy sands (just like gold) and then the heavy sands sent to Japan to be refined.

*****

Back in the Cold War, the US had stockpiles of every critical mineral, and kept a number of mines going to provide back up supplies in case all foreign trade was stopped.