A good Christian steward should wisely invest their money and their talents. Jesus told a parable about a master who asked his servants to invest certain amounts of money for him while he was away in another land. When he got back, he rewarded those who had invested wisely but he punished the one who had done poorly. Jesus told this parable so people would know that God also expects His people to be good stewards of what He has given us.
In my opinion, America is a gift from God. I wonder how God feels about the stewardship of American politicians? I wonder how God feels about the way we, the people, elect and treat our poorly performing politicians? By now, the American people should realize that we can neither deny the fact that our government is totally messed up nor can we deny the fact that we the people are totally at fault. We elect individuals who are self-serving … then we re-elect them: we actually reward poor performance! America is a gift from God and we Christians have demonstrated that we are poor stewards of our political system.
To support my position, let us look at a single case of American political stupidity: our total neglect of rare earth elements. Rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements: scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides. Strategically important rare earth elements are lanthanum, terbium, neodymium and dysprosium. These rare earth elements have become an absolute necessity in clean technologies such as hybrid and electric car motors, high-efficiency light bulbs, solar panels, wind turbines and other technologies. They are also essential in defense technologies such as cruise missiles, radar and precision-guided weapons. Yet, our country has allowed the American rare earth mining and processing industry to shrink to nothing. Today, we obtain over 90% of our rare earth elements from a single source … China. And, according to the Chinese, their economic growth could very well consume the majority of their rare earth production in the near future. If rare earth elements are so important, why did our political leadership allow America to become totally dependent on foreign sources?
The American rare earth crisis is not something that has just happened. Experts have been warning us for years that our country needs to get a handle on this situation before it is too late. Well, around the middle of March, this year, congress did do something and it appears to be too little too late. Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman introduced The Rare Earth Supply-Chain Technology and Resource Transformation (RESTART) Act of 2010 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now that the fox is already in the henhouse, our politicians want to assess our nation's rare earth supply chain and determine if any of them are vital to national defense and economic security. Good gobs of gofer gravy; a study to tell us what we already know, may God have mercy on their pointed little heads! On top of this stupidity, the Bill has no funding; what the Bill proposes will have to be paid for out of the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Energy, Defense and the Interior budgets: like that is going to happen at a level required to fix the problem. No teeth in the bill and no funding to fix the problem: aren't our politicians just wonderful?
Rare earth History
* 1950 – 1965: Monazite-placer deposits – production outside U.S.
* 1965 – 1985: Mountain Pass - United States dominates world production
* 1986-1992: China enters the rare earth metals market
* Early 2000s: A Chinese company came in and bought Magnaquench magnet operation in Anderson, IN. Within two years, they had shipped all of the manufacturing equipment over to China. That was our last capability of producing neodymium iron boron magnets.
* By the end of 2009: The rare earth manufacturing supply chain had moved from the United States to China, including metal production, alloying, strip casting, magnetic powder production and, ultimately, magnet production.
* Today, China dominates world production: in 2009 at 95% plus.
Strategic Issues:
* We have one mine in the U.S. today; but there is only one country in the world that can take the oxides (sinter) and convert them to metals, and that's China.
* Between 2000 & 2010 China took a 40,000 ton per year rare earth market and turned it into a 125,000 ton per year worldwide market.
* By 2014Worldwide demand for rare earth metals is predicted to be over 200,000 tons.
* By 2014 Chinese will be internally consuming its production of rare earth metals.
* In the first quarter of 2009, the Chinese export quotas were 25% lower than in the first quarter of 2008.
* There has been no U.S. government policy regarding rare earth elements as strategic minerals!
* There are no rare earth metals in the U.S. government's strategic materials stockpile!
* The rare earth industry has only been able to achieve a 50 or 60% recovery rate; this means a large energy and environmental impact footprint, even with good grade ore.
Implication of the data
Fact:
* Rare earth elements are absolutely essential for 21st century technology.
* China is our only source today.
* China exports will decrease and demand will increase.
Probable sequence of events:
1. China will reduce exports
2. Price of rare earth metals will go dramatically up
3. The world will have to develop new sources
4. China will lower prices; thus driving new developments out of business
5. Prices will go back up
6. China could continue to dominate the rare earth metals market
7. Electronics will no longer be as cheap as they use to be
8. America will develop strategic reserves of rare earth metals: taxes will increase
Conclusion:
Our politicians have had their heads so deeply imbedded in the butt of special interest groups, and for such a protracted length of time, that the lack of oxygen has caused them to go brain dead. Americans have been so buried under Washington bureaucratic doo-doo, and for such a length of time, that the lack of oxygen has caused them to go brain dead.
I personally believe that America was a gift from God, to a people He expected would become and remain a Christian nation. But, we have failed to control our political process and we have failed God! I do not believe that our stupidity will fly very far when it comes to God's opinion of our American stewardship.
American Christians can no longer make compromises when it comes to voting. The lesser of two evils is not an option. We need fundamentalist Christians in Washington!
Perhaps we need a new grass-roots political party!!!!!!