china's rare earths

china's cutting back on exports for rare earths. http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2010/10/28/chinese-rare-earths-less-muscle-more-growth/

the western response has been that china is playing with them politically, to exert dominance. but maybe china wants the rare earths for themselves too! haha. so if the west perceives that it's good to export to them, then consumerism in the west is acceptable but not consumerism in china? also, a lot of the old mines for rare earths in the west closed when the prices dropped, so that was really short sighted for the long term because now china exports 97% of the rare earths. this has huge impacts because we are increasingly becoming dependent on electronics.

i say recycle and reuse old electronics more, instead of re-opening and starting new mines. and start designing electronics to last longer, that you get the bang for your buck, and break the culture of having to buy the newest gadget, or even the newest version of the gadget. what do people do with their iphones when the next version is released? a piechart of the breakdown would be interesting.