Nic you make some valid points.Just a couple of points on...

Nic you make some valid points.
Just a couple of points on fact.
China the central figure in "The Story".
Have been dropping their quota over a number of years..fact.
Will continue to drop..but by a lesser amount next year..fact.
They have a window of opportunity to get their decentralised,uncontrolled,bandit mines,smuggling,pollution riddled,into some semblance of order...which they are doing already and effectively,before the rest of the world starts producing.
One of the keys that LYC has is its State of the art operations..non pollution..which has plagued the industry in China.
Even the residue that LYC will have from the LAMP will be utilised.
Molycorp will face stringent greenhouse,anti pollution,rules before they start production as will as any other operation.
China has made it clear they are going green..Wind turbines,electric cars etc.
Ree mining is the dirtiest,polluting rivers etc,to get China to a state of the art industry..which they will..costs big money.
To sell REE,S at current prices while this transition takes place would be financially unviable.

I repeat that its a window of opportunity for China..
If in 12 mths time..they are still smuggling,polluting,decentralised,they are going to look like a backward,unprogressive,basket case (no pun intended).

Is there any other Industry as exspensive and complicated to set up ..no..so when we look at the basket price rising so quickly ..look where it came from.
A smuggling,polluting,decentralised system,selling at any price possible...as one Chinese official stated..selling at the same price as "raddish".
My point..if China had hushed up in July about their quota,and were going to do what they now are going to do,the basket price would have been creeping not spiking up weekly and would be above what it is now.Had they announced the quota drop today..the price would spike to over $100.