What Happens When you Bet Your Industry on a Hostile Supplier?

That country can put your industry out of business on a whim. Auto companies 'in full panic' over rare-earths bottleneck

Politicians, who know nothing about engineering or logistics have mandated that people start driving electric cars, even though they don't work for all of us, and we can't build enough of them anyway.

Frank Eckard, CEO of a German magnet maker, has been fielding a flood of calls in recent weeks. Exasperated automakers and parts suppliers have been desperate to find alternative sources of magnets, which are in short supply due to Chinese export curbs.

Some told Eckard their factories could be idled by mid-July without backup magnet supplies. "The whole car industry is in full panic," said Eckard, CEO of Magnosphere, based in Troisdorf, Germany. "They are willing to pay any price."

China has a virtual monopoly on "rare earth magnets." We could mine some of the rare earths in the US, except for the EPA and the roadblocks, but I'm not sure that they are all available in the US.

That doesn't include other elements, like copper.

You can't snap your fingers and wish an increase, by a couple of orders of magnitude, of an industry. You can't click your fingers and wish that the earth had more copper than it does. That doesn't seem to stop politicians from doing exactly that.

The hat tip goes to Net Zero Quickie: Auto industry in "FULL PANIC MODE" | MGUY Australia. The video is less than 4 minutes.

Supply Chain Woes May Be About to Get Worse

Because the LA District Attorney's Office has decided that this blatant theft is not worthy of their time to bother with prosecution. So, of course, it is increasing. Union Pacific threatens to leave LA, citing rampant cargo theft.

Is the Left doing everything it can to make the supply chain problems worse?

UP has its own police department which has increased patrols. Agents have made over 100 arrests, but UP says it hasn’t been contacted about any court proceedings. That’s because the thieves are rarely prosecuted.

The company sent a letter to LA County District Attorney George Gascón’s office last month about the 160% increase in theft. It wants the DA to reconsider a December 2020 special directive that calls for a number of misdemeanor charges to be dismissed.

The DA's office is in full spin mode, but the images that are all over the place make that a bit hard to do.

The thieves break into railroad containers and empty the goods on site. “Once the goods have been tossed out of moving freight trains, others swoop in looking for the most valuable items,” ABC 7 reports.

The Leftist DAs WANT chaos. It is why they were elected. The new DA in NYC said that not prosecuting crimes will make people safer. From what, he did not say.