Lacessit

My bad, the author is Thomas Hughes.

Thank you, looks interesting. Is it a spoof of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" by Matthew Arnold?

All of what you say is correct. However, mining and processing rare earths is not like other mines. Iron ore is simple. You dig it up, crush it into suitable sizes, ship it. The only known health effect from iron ore is that doctors in the Pilbara have never seen a case of anemia. Rare earths are an entirely different kettle of fish. Some elements, such as thorium and uranium, are radioactive. Miners are exposed to that hazard plus silicosis. Then there are the acids and solvents used in processing. China dominates rare earth production because it does not give a rat's rectum for its workers. There would be a whole new gamut of OH&S plus environmental regulations to be met if rare earths were mined in America. Unless Trump copied the Chinese in ditching them.

It takes on average 5-7 years to develop a mine, more if beneficiation is required. How cost effective it is, also depends on the ore body grades. No two mines are the same in terms of the treatment technologies required to make the mine profitable. That takes time in research. I was on the ground floor of the first iron ore boom in Western Australia back in the sixties, so I may just know a bit more about mine development than you do.

IMO I am inured to noise in Thailand. Now in the village for Songkhran. There will be announcements from the temple, loud music, roosters crowing at midnight, cats fighting at 2 am, dog packs howling at 4 am. Or vice versa. For the next 4 days, I will only travel in the car. Too risky on the scooter. I will be buttoned up, watching reruns of REBUS and Foyle's War. Occasionally dropping into ASEAN to observe.

Get real. If his grades were straight A's, Trump would be plastering them all over X and Truth Social. He's not known for his modesty. I guess the MAGA's will only get a dim inkling something is wrong when prices go up, and they have no jobs. It's reminiscent of the times when good Catholics could not believe the Church was covering up pedophilia. Just another religion out of touch with reality.

In case you are unaware, China mines 70% of the world's rare earths. It processes 90% of rare earths into usable form. FYI, the richest deposit of the rare earth elements neodymium and praseodymium is in Australia. The mine and processing for concentrate will come into production late 2025. Unfortunately for America, most of its output is forward sold to the EU for the next ten years.

America is only 15% of China's trade in the world. You want to know what America loses? Ask your farmers, the last trade war in trump's first term devastated them.

Really. Please name them. "I'll end the war in Ukraine in one day". The first time in American financial history bond prices have fallen along with share prices. Canada is the 51st state, and Greenland has been bought from Denmark. Trump is winning the tariff war with China. He has strengthened ties with America's allies. His health secretary is handling a measles epidemic with skill, as he did in American Samoa. I'll put in a sarcasm alert here, IMO MAGA s are too thick otherwise.

American consumerism is pigs squealing at a trough. The tit-for-tat between China and the USA has reached a level which means all trade between the countries will stop. So if China bans the export of all rare earths, America goes back to using wall telephones.

Who do you think funds NASA? That's right, a government with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The laws of thermodynamics are not assumptions. There's been multiple attempts to get around them, all have failed. Entropy always wins. No point in asking you to turn on your own brain, it's closed.

You are talking about two different scenarios. Australia, with no tariffs, getting steel dumped by Vietnam and the UAE into the Australian market. The USA applying tariffs to imported steel. The tariffs are supposed to stimulate the US steel industry. Which by now is 70% recycled scrap in electric arc furnaces. The only thing the tariffs will stimulate is a recession.

I have a naval-style beard, which enables me to shave every second or third day.

If any country is showing signs of collapse, it is America.

I did not, that's what you said. I posted the US has a positive trade balance. Manufacturers on the west coast of America want Australian steel, it's cheaper. You probably don't know we make steel from 60% Fe iron ore, not the crappy 30% Fe taconite the USA mines. IMO you are losing the plot with your posts, you keep making claims unsubstantiated by fact.

I'd say it's fair enough, as long as Australia denies entry to Trump supporters. We don't want to place an excessive burden on our mental health system.

Quite unusual. I would have thought normal people would know they had a booger in their nose without needing to see it.

Photos or you have no evidence.

In the 1950's, the USA made over 50% of the world's steel. Now, it makes 10% of what China produces. Making steel requires enormous capital investment. Who is going to want to invest their money in a country that has erratic leadership? The signs are already there, the bond market is tanking along with the stock market. Trust in US treasuries is evaporating. Why not, when the nation has $36 trillion in debt?

I am not sure PVC pipe would have UV stabilizers to prevent breakdown from solar radiation, it is usually buried. PVC gutters may be a safer bet, as the manufacturers would probably have a warranty in place.

Legislated compulsory upgrades to many Florida properties are causing a flight of retirees. It's like being told one has to pay a special assessment of 1 million baht on a condo worth 3 million baht here. Thailand might have floods, but it doesn't have hurricanes.

You don't seem to understand Trump has outraged many countries with these arbitrary blanket tariffs, irrespective of whether said country is an ally, neutral or otherwise. Which is why many people are saying <deleted> America. I am used to more intelligent posts from you.

I don't order by phone. I walk into the restaurant, place my order at the counter, then wait for the takeaway to come out from the kitchen.

Australia can produce flat-rolled steel and ship it to the west coast of America at a lower cost than the Chicago steel mills can rail it there. The ones that are left, that is. If you eat lobster in any restaurants on the west coast of America, odds are it came from Tasmanian waters. Clean food. You are posting blithering nonsense.

I don't have an an epicanthic fold.