My grandfather sold the mineral rights to his land for $30 ages ago. If the company that owns them realizes there's a vein of richyrichyum under it, and the cheapest way to get to it is straight down, too bad for the family that lives there now.

The colonial cycle:

- Exploit colony for raw materials at low costs.
- Refine raw materials into goods.
- Sell refined goods for a profit back to colony and others.

At *China's* mercy, oh right.

Beat me to it, the US isnt at china's mercy one bit, just like we're not at the mercy of the Arab's like most people seem to think we are, yes we use mostly middle eastern oil, and the us congress wont allow new drilling in anwr or off shore near the coast lines. but theres a reason for that, like said above, use everyone elses resources first... we dont depend on other nations, we're taking advantage of them...

US Rare Earth's website is down due to their bandwidth having been exceeded.

I'm sure the mention of their company here is to blame.

Just like oil. We have huge reserves of oil that were capped by the feds back when we first started getting oil from the middle east. And some day when gas hits $17.99 a gallon, the Bush/Cheany family or HAL (Haliburton) will start selling our oil to us :P

I think the US is relying on their cultis to capture Chinese harvesters for their own good for as long as it takes the Cheese to upgrade to AP ammo.

harassing your enemies harvesters during the game can be very important for the results at the endgame.

The obvious strategy for the US is to use everyone else's rare earth minerals first, at which point they own what's left... then who's at who's mercy?

I already can see, how in "near" future space ships how fly to the Moon, Mars... to dig some rare metals... and i see space pirates flying with modified VIRGIN Space ships...

This isn't ANYTHING like the "story" you did a few weeks back, now is it?

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1592223/rare-earth-minerals-shortage-looms

Thank god that the Americans won't have to put up with the indignity of actually owning the bounty of their land!

Imagine how awful they'd feel if they actually had a right to use the minerals beneath their feet!!!