ROBIN: Holy flatulence, Batman. Those trolls sure keep repeatin'.
BATMAN: Witless stoicism, Robin.
ROBIN: You mean doggedness, Batman?
BATMAN: Yeah! That, or Nembutal.
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Five centuries ago, Copernicus argued that you won't see past the horizon. If you stand 6 feet tall, you'll only see for 3 miles. Beyond that horizon, what's there has dipped out of view.
Flat-Earthers believe none of that. It's flat, so you can see forever (with a good telescope). But in 1962, JFK's vision called a mission for the decade. Before the 60s were done, NASA had proved the flat-earthers wrong.
The West has a vision. Fifty years on, in 2012, Prof. Dudley Kingsnorth articulated the vision that the West be free of the shackles of Chinese RE Supply Chain by 2020. Realistic? For sure. Refer JFK.
Free markets work best. The free market Supply Chain continuum has to be reconstructed after the fractious market-cornering that led to price spikes in 2011. The profit/reward motive is imbued in capitalism. The West wants a free market in the RE Supply Chain. ASAP.
Free markets are like water. The Supply/Demand mechanism works to deliver economic price levels.
Knowledge-driven economies benefit most from the profit-reward motive. The West shines with examples (until financial repression took hold after the GFC). Think Hitachi, IBM, Daimler-Benz, Samsung, Nokia and so on.
It's axiomatic that inventiveness creates wealth. (Let's not discuss who siezes that wealth.)
In 1965, Gordon E. Moore at Fairchild Semiconductor, speculated that by 1975 it would be possible to contain as many as 65,000 components on a single quarter-inch semiconductor. Moore's vision opened the West to the world of the miniatures.
Futurologists have taken Moore's Law to posit an outlook template for the West's inventiveness. (In a word, it's 'jaw-dropping'.)
Jack's essay closes with this: "Devices enabled by the electromagnetic properties and the alloying properties of the rare earths make our life style and our safety secure. Don’t let either one of these slip away from our control."
Consider the RE Supply Chain:
1. RE Miner >> 2. Refiner >> 3. Alloy Foundry >> 4. Gadget maker >> 5. Product.
Moore's future is embracing an avalanche of products at the end of that chain. And need we be reminded that it all starts at a mine.
Jack says: "No one anywhere is going to build capacity to make rare earth metals and alloys and REPMs until and unless the supply of neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, and dysprosium is assured and secured for a reasonable foreseeable future."
And this ...
"There simply isn’t enough terbium and dysprosium being produced, and it looks like China cannot and will not increase the production of these. In addition it also even looks like there isn’t enough neodymium and praseodymium to meet the projections of future growth in demand for them."
Say that again. Just for the 'flat-earthers'. Not enough Tb, Dy, Nd and Pr. (Tip for trolls: there's room for all at the top.)
Do you take a cue from the Copernicus magic or do you doggedly gnaw away at the mundane arithmetic of counting beans, marbles, bleeding knuckles and shredded skin in the game?
If you doggedly gnaw away at the latter, Lynas reported a Net Operating Cash Flow loss of $10.85 million for Q3 2014. Total Cash at end of quarter was reported to be $16.9 million.
If you were a financier, would you stick with Jack's telescopic vision? Dudley's mission? Moore's phenomenon?
Or would this sway you? http://www.thebull.com.au/premium/a/49661-18-share-tips---27-october-2014.html "This rare earths company (LYC) continues to raise capital. It’s hardly surprising given last quarter’s negative cash flow of $11.6 million. This can be very dilutive for shareholders over the medium to long term. Until positive cash flows emerge from its primary mine (Mt Weld), we view this stock as very high risk." Those are tough bones for the 'flat-earthers'.
I'll stick with the vision-empowered. To appease some attention-deficit cases, you'll only need to wait about 4 months.
Who wants to buy a Jetpack?
KEEP YOUR EARS TO THE GROUND.
NTU Price at posting:
26.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)