East meets West: China, exotic rare earth metals, and the Empire of the West

You may have heard rumblings about China cutting off the West's supply of exotic metals. Recently, China restricted the export of some metals to Japan and prompted Hilary Clinton to quickly seek assurances that the same would not happen to the US. Chinese officials told her they would remain a “reliable supplier” of the minerals. This is an important issue because the West needs these materials to manufacture high-tech gadgets for consumers, business, and the military.

Article: http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/30/china-assures-clinton-on-rare-earth-ex...

Why would China cut the West off from certain exotic, rare Earth metals? Simple, China is going into the electric car business and taking the West out of the exotic weapons business.

Despite the economic woes in the West, the rest of the world is not doing so badly right now. Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) and to a certain degree Japan are all going concerns. A Western collapse will not help the East (at least not now). Therefore, they are countering the slide of the West (US, UK, EU, A/NZ) by making investments, buying up bad debt at reasonable terms, and allowing Western investment in their growing economies. By taking the economic lead globally, China, is essentially calling the shots. They can now afford to not-so-subtly let the US and her allies know what time it is.

Without batting an eye, the Western power and money people are lining up at the Chinese teat as quickly as they can. Western tech/business savvy combined with Chinese tangible money, cheap labor, and non-existence environmental or industrial regulations is simply too good to pass up.

For an example of this trend, check out a company called CODA:
http://www.codaautomotive.com/

Last year, I sat in on a focus group for the new CODA EV sedan. Since US auto makers canceled all the electric car initiatives earlier this decade, CODA represents the first practical attempt to create a mass-adoption, fully electric car (essentially, an electric Honda Accord). The people running the focus group were very eager to understand the American consumer’s reaction to the fact that the car will be produced entirely in China.

They also wanted to know how CODA could revolutionize not just the
automotive industry, but society in general. Their follow-up survey asked if I
volunteered and organized people at the local level or if I wrote to
newspapers and congress to foment political and environmental change.

CODA's management team is a grab bag of car people and Wall Street types. Names like Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Toyota, Lexus, Texaco, Intel, McKinsey, US Government, Tony Blair, and the UN come up repeatedly. The Board of Directors is a batch of industrialists (along with more Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley). Finally, the Board of Advisors includes none other than Henry Paulson, Jr., former Clinton Chief of Staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty, and electric vehicle people from Ford, GM, and Lexus (basically an EV cross-section from Detroit and Japan). Quite the group...and NONE of them are Chinese. The NWO flavor of this company makes me a bit queasy I must admit.

Isn't it interesting, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, one of the largest
private equity funds, a gaggle of heavy industrialists, a former Clinton
Chief of Staff, and former US Secretary of the Treasury (and architect
of the bailouts) all suddenly interested in green products, pushing a
Chinese manufactured electric car, and testing the waters for
non-traditional consumer support for political and environmental
agendas?

Maybe Wall Street has figured out a way to pay back all the dough they owe the Chinese? Perhaps "What's good for GM is good for America" is being replaced with "What's good for CODA is good for The World."

And it just may be the tangibly rich East is propping up the theoretically rich (but actually broke) West to keep the world from collapsing to a cycle of chaos that would suit the Western Division of the New World Order.

Will young Turks from both spheres of the planet get together to replace Big Oil and the Old Guard? If so, will they continue on the totalitarian path? Anyone wanna bet on when electronic vehicles are mandated by law and consumer debt is loosened to pay for the switch?

Time will tell.