Investing in Rare Earth Supply Security, Now or Never?

Rare Earth Deposits & Mining / Rare Earth Exploration, Mining, Processing, & Uses

Date posted: 08/04/15

Jack Lifton reports that Deng Xiaoping put China on its modern trajectory by inverting the path chosen by his well known predecessor, Mao Zedong. Deng chose to advance the trek towards communism by adopting a form of capitalism, but, as he said, one with Chinese characteristics. From that time, the early 1980s until today (Summer 2015) capitalism advanced in China almost entirely without a stock market. At least not with one open to the retail (general public) investors and traders. Many pundits see Capitalism with Chinese characteristics becoming indistinguishable over time from American free-market capitalism. But at least in the both the major and the minor (including technology) metals industries this is decidedly not true. The state owned enterprises (SOEs) do not need to raise money in the stock market nor do they manage their businesses so as to ensure good quarterly results to support their share prices. The Chinese realize that their advantage of low-cost skilled labor and non-capitalization of environmental costs is rapidly coming to an end. The remaining question is - Will non-Chinese capital and national and regional security considerations finally go to the creation of total rare-earth supply chains outside of China, or will Chinese capital and national ambitions simply re-structure the rest of the world to accommodate China? We will have the answer surely by 2020.