Actually… what he argues is dumber than just bad policy (subsidies for mining) — it is… lunacy — in that he dresses his pitch up, in “drag“, as it were. Hinderaker offers a false narrative about “liberals” not ALLOWING the US mining concerns (for-profit, all!) to mine cobalt, nickel and copper.
First, US miners do not extract ore from the Earth when minerals are priced at levels that mean the high-cost US miners (due primarily to how much higher prevailing wages in the US are, compared to say… Russia, or China) would lose millions of dollars on every ton of refined copper or nickel or cobalt they mined. That, as John well-knows — is not what capitalism is about. So, either he wants the government (contrary to his 60 years of claiming to be a conservative!) to pay miners to extract these minerals… “because… Chyyyyyna…” or something. Or, he just thinks “liberals’ control” is the reason Tangerine never provided such subsidies, when he was in power. Or Bush (either of them). Or Reagan. Huh. [Nor even Mr. Obama. Why? Because his would be / is… bad policy.]
Hilarious. As I’ve shown John before, our total deposits are a small fraction of what is embedded in most of Central and South America. [And… China’s are a small fraction of Chile’s, in copper, for example — see at right below.] Maybe he thinks we should subsidize Latin American extraction operations — except, of course, several large US public mining concerns already are operating down there — at hefty profit margins, too (again, due in large part to much lower wage costs, down there).
Tellingly, he doesn’t even mention lithium (as he knows we cannot possibly find much of it — even at uneconomic extraction rates inside the US) — because it is needed for batteries, and now in very short supply worldwide, due in no small part to the Musk-ian demand for car battery raw material. He should realize that all of these are like oil, which he specifically mentions (albeit again as the fault of the liberals, that the cheapest extraction points for it are under Persian Gulf sand)… must be sourced outside the US, for our economy to work.
We will break our economic engine if (as Tangerine disastrously tried) we return to tariffs and import duties in an attempt to make non-economic US operations… profitable (Tangerine tried it on a variety of other nonsensical fronts). It cannot be done. The 19th Century called — she would like her failed economic “theories” back, John.
[And as a matter of fascination, he neglects to mention that Putin sits on vast deposits of these, as well — because he’s pro-Russian totalitarianism in Ukraine, and may even take money from Russian-affiliated state actors, for his writings and foundations.]
So — said more plainly — his whole argument is a tissue of lies, just to complain about… our need for Chinese processing of these metals (and minerals). Here it is:
…The United States has massive deposits of many of these minerals, including copper, nickel and cobalt. But the same liberals who insist on shutting down the energy sources where the U.S. reigns supreme — fossil fuels — won’t let us develop our own minerals, and insist that we remain reliant on China for our future standard of living. To go “green” is literally to turn our economy over to the Chinese Communist Party….
As I say… he has no genuine point — the facts do not remotely support his contentions.
Out — be like Rae — let the Fourth awaken, in you… smile.
Powerline Lies... 