$4 club

I wrote a post here many moons ago relating the Lynas journey to Charles Dicken's book "The tale of two cities"..It was the best of times and the worst of Times"
If I wrote a book today..I would title it "The richest man in the Village"
The cover would show a Chinaman,knee deep in sludge,covered in mud,carrying a large bin on his shoulder full of more sludge,and heading to his mud hut with boiling tubs emitting poisenous fumes.In the background would be a polluted lake with dead animals floating in it,surrounding vegetation dead and decaying.
Innocent,exploited,villagers getting paid handsomely compared to the rest.
That's why from the first rare earth hobby mining it grew to over a thousand mines...money.
Were these peasants smart enough to know the difference from rare earth to a lump of dirt..no they weren't.
The clever people found the sites/mines..they had the contacts,the know how,and the cheap labour.
Chinese records...lets stop there..knew F all how much the clever people were mining ,exporting,or to whom and at what price.
The other clever people..respectable users of rare earth..knew they were buying smuggled goods..kept quiet..and just stockpiled..knowing eventually this fairy tail price/profit would end.
Well the fairytail took a massive change when Lynas came on the scene.
With that came the start of the Chinese Gov crackdown on illegal mines.
Those who didn't pay of the Gov official sufficiently were the first to be closed down.
There would have been one,two at best cartels running the whole show,so from a thousand or so mines they were still pumping out orders from the remaining 100,s of mines..and still are..Gov. official payoffs now very lucrative.
Lynas will produce 22k tons P.A...
100 illegal mines(still many 100,s operating) producing 1 ton each can export 100 t at the drop of a hat.
Sound familiar..relate a gov trying to stop (a lucrative business smuggling) boat people arriving here.
Supply and demand.
The users of rare earth are as bad as the smugglers.if they weren't they would play by western rules and regulations,and refuse smuggled rare earth..
Our experience with Malaysia has shown us that east and west are as far apart as..well east and west.
Yes you can,and justifiably so,blame wall st,manipulators ,ASIC,but at the end of the day..the smugglers are the ones responsible for this industry being brought to its knees.
While the Chinese Gov.pretends to play the good guy its henchmen smugglers are doing a beautifull job destroying the opposition.
Lynas..on its knees.
Molycorp..on its knees.
New mines..cant get finance.
China 3..rest of world..nil.
This article has been inspired by our warhorse ..Nursery..The last Samurai..