Banter and General Comments, page-9163

Trust me MD, I am ..ABSOLUTELY.. under no illusions, ..AT ALL.. about China, and, I am also absolutely a fundamental, ..realist..!

As I've already said more than once on here before, the two (current) most powerful economies in the world are now engaged a financial struggle of absolutely Titanic proportions, with literally multi-Trillions of already sunk dollars at stake, in a battle to determine just who will win, and who will lose, in this contest for economic dominance of the world, during the remainder of this Century.

We, all, have only two options, either they wage, a 'real-war', or, they wage an 'economic-war'. Make your choice...!! Which, of those two available options, would you, prefer...???

The 'real' version would certainly be decided within just the first two hours, but, there will definitely be no winner/winners, because, as Albert Einstein said in his address to the UN just after the end of WW-2, "I do not know precisely which weapons will be used to fight WW-3 but, I am certain, that WW-4 will be fought with rocks and sticks." :eek

The 'economic' one, will definitely take a bit longer to decide a clear outcome, and there will eventually, be a winner and a loser, and the world will then, still go onwards, but maybe not under the same "leadership" as now, and I do, use that term, quite loosely.

French Emperor Napoleon at least had the good sense back in the 1800's to tell his Generals to "Let China sleep" but good ole President 'Tricky-Dicky' after his US military mob had their arces kicked well and truly out of Vietnam by that tiny impoverished 3rd world country's determined little peasant-rice-farmer-army, (armed with the aid of some powerful communist friends) couldn't but help himself, when he then decided along with his good mate Kissinger, to hurriedly go visit China and simultaneously "poke the sleeping Giant" back in 1972.

Anyway, enough of the history refreshers, the point I was actually trying to make was that the rest of the (free) world now only has itself to blame for themselves sleepwalking into the current situation where they are now so dependent upon communist China for supplying them with the Lithium chemicals and batteries required for them to transition their own national vehicle manufacturing industries over to EVs.

It is IMHO the lack of (sufficient) alternative Lithium chemical refining processors outside of China that has afforded the Chinese this window of opportunity to now financially screw the West, and they have 'been allowed to do' exactly the same thing with their simultaneous domination of the refining and global supply of Rare Earths as well.

And so, we must ask just who, 'is to blame' for this situation...??

The Chinese, who have had sufficient foresight to clearly see what must seem to them, an almost unbelievable economic opportunity, and have eagerly seized it for themselves, or, the West, for having, although being well aware for decades now of the "Peak-Oil" theory, all, never-the-less collectively had their own heads stuck so far up their own fundamental-rear-orifices, for so long that they have only just now, finally, belatedly, realized far too late, just how far they actually are all now behind the 'Middle Kingdom' in this race for domination of ownership the 21st Century's new clean green energy supplies, and infrastructure, and economy..??

Hell, even the Arabs have woken up to what's happening, and are working on building themselves the world's largest Solar power generation arrays, with, ..Chinese supplied panels..!

So, it's no use just crying about it now, because the "clean green energy milk's" already been well and truly spilled by China.

The thing the West must do now though, is ..WAKE UP.. to all of these "new clean green global paradigm realities" and stop procrastinating, and ..decide.. if they too, want to be a part, of the new 'clean green energy driven' 21st Century global economy, or, instead, just be left in the dusty annals of the history books, wallowing on the economic wayside.

The sooner, Elon Musk actually gets into Lithium mining and Lithium chemical refining and ..his own.. battery manufacturing, the sooner, the rest of the West's 'dolts' might, ..finally.. wake up, to reality and pull their own fingers out, instead of just focusing their financial energies upon still fighting what will ultimately prove to be, simply a wasteful, protracted and losing, rearguard action .

It's no wonder to me, at all, about just why Wall St dislikes Mr Musk so much.