Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

On this note, Morgan Stanley released this:

[jk]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

i've read that rare earths are not in fact very rare. the issue is what country will bear the environmental costs of extracting them.

[touchring]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

Problem is that it's a two-way street. Zelenograd can make some ten-year-old military hardware now. But western chipmakers are still running most of the commercial economic applications. True, the rare earths are needed. But so are the finished products. But then again, Russia is not anywhere near the size of a player China is.

Meanwhile, Australia has really ramped up production. Doubled easy in the past 5 or 10 years. Now puts out maybe a quarter of what China does, if memory serves, with more coming online. They've also been busy exploring in Africa. That's probably the place to make a play if you're going to venture into betting on it, I figure. I don't know enough about the industry to feel comfortable playing. But it's probably not the worst bet...

Ok, so RE isn't so rare after all?

Maybe Bitcoin is more rare?

[Techdread]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

Nah, you misunderstand, we're going to mine the rare earths from the private millionaires only mars colony with autonomous mining bots, and we'll send it all back for less than it costs to mine it at home because of fairies and rainbows and the magic of disruption.

That's the dream, though I would cut out the human part until the robots are good enough to run everything off planet.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

Only 16,500 feet below the surface. Should be no problem sucking up tens of thousands of tons of that stuff, lift it to surface, extract the metals of interest and ecologically dispose of the rest. All to make things like government subsidized, coal burning Tesla's for rich people.

Nah, you misunderstand, we're going to mine the rare earths from the private millionaires only mars colony with autonomous mining bots, and we'll send it all back for less than it costs to mine it at home because of fairies and rainbows and the magic of disruption.

[GRG55]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

Just read this a few days ago: Japan evidently has found fairly large amounts of rare earth elements on the seabed of its exclusive economic zone. Digging a lot of earth from the bottom of the ocean is probably going to be far more expensive than above ground mining but at least there's now yet another source of rare earth elements if China decides to cut shipments.

The Japan Times: Japan team maps "semi-infinite" trove of rare earth elements
Nature: The tremendous potential of deep-sea mud as a source of rare-earth elements

There's also MolyCorp, if they're still in business, in the U.S.

Only 16,500 feet below the surface. Should be no problem sucking up tens of thousands of tons of that stuff, lift it to surface, extract the metals of interest and ecologically dispose of the rest. All to make things like government subsidized, coal burning Tesla's for rich people.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

Meanwhile, Australia has really ramped up production. Doubled easy in the past 5 or 10 years. Now puts out maybe a quarter of what China does, if memory serves, with more coming online. They've also been busy exploring in Africa. That's probably the place to make a play if you're going to venture into betting on it, I figure. I don't know enough about the industry to feel comfortable playing. But it's probably not the worst bet...

Just read this a few days ago: Japan evidently has found fairly large amounts of rare earth elements on the seabed of its exclusive economic zone. Digging a lot of earth from the bottom of the ocean is probably going to be far more expensive than above ground mining but at least there's now yet another source of rare earth elements if China decides to cut shipments.

The Japan Times: Japan team maps "semi-infinite" trove of rare earth elements
Nature: The tremendous potential of deep-sea mud as a source of rare-earth elements

There's also MolyCorp, if they're still in business, in the U.S.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

Possible opportunity in rare earth? China and Russia controls the bulk of rare earth production, so just a thought?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-...ump-sanctions/

Problem is that it's a two-way street. Zelenograd can make some ten-year-old military hardware now. But western chipmakers are still running most of the commercial economic applications. True, the rare earths are needed. But so are the finished products. But then again, Russia is not anywhere near the size of a player China is.

Meanwhile, Australia has really ramped up production. Doubled easy in the past 5 or 10 years. Now puts out maybe a quarter of what China does, if memory serves, with more coming online. They've also been busy exploring in Africa. That's probably the place to make a play if you're going to venture into betting on it, I figure. I don't know enough about the industry to feel comfortable playing. But it's probably not the worst bet...

[touchring]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

Possible opportunity in rare earth? China and Russia controls the bulk of rare earth production, so just a thought?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-...ump-sanctions/

[jk]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

yeah, there is no doubt of the dominance of the dollar. it will take time for such large amounts to show change. i tried to find some numbers for currencies used in trade or other transactions, but was unsuccessful. i think transaction use will show change a lot faster than reserves.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

interesting that gold, held by most central banks, is not listed among reserves. or is that "other" but gold is the reserve asset that dare not speak its name. [and if it is gold, what is it being priced at?]

Gold is not the other. The graph is just currencies. Not all reserves. Data is from IMF. http://data.imf.org/regular.aspx?key=41175. There's about another trillion dollars worth of gold reserves, with the US being the biggest holder at somewhere about $370 billion or so worth. So it's maybe 8% the size of forex reserves at current market prices to put it in perspective. Obviously the "insurance value" may be higher in bad times. Of course, sovereign land and mineral rights are worth orders of magnitude more than all other types of reserves put together...

But as far as a "reserve currency" goes, the US dollar share of holdings I figured was germane to the discussion.

[jk]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

% total world forex reserves held by currency.

interesting that gold, held by most central banks, is not listed among reserves. or is that "other" but gold is the reserve asset that dare not speak its name. [and if it is gold, what is it being priced at?]

[dcarrigg]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

what is this a graph OF? currency in circulation? size of bond markets? % of global trade?

% total world forex reserves held by currency.

[touchring]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

A chart pertanent to touchring's point

I don't think there's a need to wait till 2050. There will be more people over the age of 40 in China than below 40 in just 15 years.

There's a vicious cycle when it comes to birth control policy.

The single child will have to support 2 parents and in return, they can't afford to get married, or even if they are married, they can't afford to have a child.

So 2 Chinese in-laws (2 grandpas and 2 grandmas) have 2 kids now in their 30s that married each other and bear a grandchild. 4 grandparents -> 1 grandchild.

After 30 years, the single grandchild gets married, bears a single great-grandchild and with longer life expectancy, the great-grandchild can expect to have 8 great-grandparents and 4 grandparents!

And not to mention China's ridiculous apartment prices. Imagine earning only $1500 a month and you need to buy a $500k apartment so that you can find a wife?

Mix capitalism with authoritarianism and birth control disaster, and the end result will be anarchy in a couple generations.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Fed Raises and Now Tariffs? Have we been in ka--- for ten years?

A chart pertanent to touchring's point