One of our very own FReepers owns a rare earth mine.
Care to guess what Gubment regulations did to production?
Sure...China tried to put the skids on our utilization of the stuff we were buying off them back in 2010-11 with their restrictions, forcing American companies to up their production (searches)...But that was, as you recall, stifled by “Uncle Sucky” (our wonderful representatives in this Republic.../sarc)...
I believe back in late 2010, right before the election, Three bills countering China’s rare-earths policies were introduced in the last Congress by Coffman, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Kathleen Dahlkemper, a “D” who lost re-election that cycle introduced legislation to counter these restrictions/regulations that were put into place, via Obama E.O. (IIRC, I stand to be corrected) who favored China’s ability to put a dent in our economy...
Id have to go back a little bit and try to find what happened and how obviously beat that effort to death...But the Legislative branch, once again, tried to do something yet since it wasn’t really a headline issue, it kinda died under the radar...
So yes, it gives more credence to the idea that elections do have LONG TERM effect on our future (socially and economically), despite the narrow minded dunderheads in our midst that do not see past the color of one’s skin, and spend too much time fixating on the twitter trend of the moment...Right???
;-)