"Globalization, Goldman-Sachs, Rare Earths, American Security, and the blind wise men of the Potomac." (MCP)

From RareMetalBlog:

The Thursday night before Good  Friday the DoD released its latest and long-awaited (by a very few people, most of whom were stock promoters) “report” on the military’s appraisal of its situation with respect to the supply of the  rare earth elements it has determined that it needs for its current weapons systems.  This kind of “report” is usually issued on a Friday night so that it will be forgotten by Monday’s news cycle. But this being a holiday weekend even release times purposely chosen to minimize the readership and the impact had to give way to the very few religious people in Washington who still believe in God and the DoD even had to pretend to respect the vast majority of the mainstream newspersons who believe in taxpayer funded holidays for servants of the people. I am trying to say that releasing the document on the eve of Good Friday/Passover was equivalent to not releasing it at all with regard to the impact it would (and in fact did (not)) have on the news cycle for Easter/Passover weekend.

Anyway I got an email on Good Friday morning from a procurement department person at a large defense contractor who asked me if I’d seen the “report,” and told me that the reaction of his colleagues, who had seen it, was of the type, “We waited a year and a half for this!”

My observation is that the idea repeated in the report that the US military uses so little and their belief that a certain high market capitalization company, herein to be referred to as HMCC, has told them that it has mastered the total supply chain for rare earth permanent magnets is so great that “the” problem is solved.

Bullshit like this is pervasive in Washington, which uses blind wise men extensively. If there isn’t a low GSA rating for such a job there should be. No one can possibly be paid little enough to justify the skillsets required to research and draft this quality of sycophantic nreport.

The high market capitalization company, HMCC, recently offered to buy (as of this writing I do not think the “deal” has closed, because the “fully funded” high market capitalization company now has to raise the capital to do the deal) a Canadian headquartered company the largest and original operations of which are in the Peoples Republic of China. This acquisition, the HMCC, management assures us, will give the HMCC the wherewithal to produce commercial magnet alloys in China of the type that the US Military does not use, and through the commercial offshore operations of the foreign companies who are signatories to  its most recent and still active letters of intent and memoranda of understanding  will be allowed and enabled  to somehow also make the type of magnets that the US Military does use. I have to say that I am having a problem understanding the HMCC’s story that its (Canadian)-Chinese operations will be able to get the raw materials necessary to produce the type of magnets that the US military actually uses when last year the Canadian-Chinese company’s CEO told me he was having a problem obtaining dysprosium enough to fill the demand he had....MORE