On Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:48:21 -0500, Richard
wrote:

On 3/15/2012 4:46 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:

There aqre something like 500 mineable sites in the US, Richard. And
there are a number of mines that are shut down, ready to go if the
economics swing in their favor.

I'd have to go searching for the numbers and I'm not that interested,
frankly.

Make of this what you want, but I worked alongside of Forbes
reporters, years ago, on steel industry press jaunts. Most of what
they knew about the steel industry they learned from me, and they
still got a lot of it wrong. d8-) I don't have very high regard for
their industrial reporting. They're mostly good writers, though.


Ed, your ego is down right amazing...

As I said, make of it what you will. A young female reporter from
_Metalworking News/American Metal Market_ tailed me around on another
press junket. They were supposed to be the industry experts on the
metals-producing industries. I thought she was hitting on me. No such
luck...she just wanted to be sure she heard the questions I asked of
the industry people. And I didn't learn that until I'd bought her a
couple of drinks. d8-)

If you knew the reporters who get stuck on the industry beat at news
and business magazines, none of this would surprise you. We had a
really vile nickname for the top industry reporter for _The New York
Times_. He was hopeless.

Forbes is expert at finance and at corporate soap operas. End of that
story.

BTW, if you remember back around 33 or 34 years, you'll recall we went
through this exact situation with cobalt. The USSR produced most of
the world's supply, and they were squeezing us hard. It all blew over,
as this situation probably will. We may have to rattle China's windows
with some WTO action.

--
Ed Huntress



"A man sees what he want's to see and disregards the rest"