L E T    'E R      R I P !!!

Is this a business opportunity for BC?

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World faces hi-tech crunch as China eyes ban on rare metal exports

Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons.
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China mines over 95pc of the world’s rare earth minerals... The move to hoard reserves is the clearest sign to date that the global struggle for diminishing resources is shifting into a new phase. Countries may find it hard to obtain key materials at any price.
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terbium, which sells for $800,000 a tonne.
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China had put global competitors out of business in the early 1990s by flooding the market, leading to the closure of the biggest US rare earth mine at Mountain Pass in California.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6082464/World-faces-hi-tech-crunch-as-China-eyes-ban-on-rare-metal-exports.html

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Seems to me that this is a key to the economy of the future. I wonder if there's a way to source these materials locally and ensure that they're transformed locally for the end product needs prior to export? It would be a captive market much like the oil economy of today, or the printing of dollars is for the banksters, but rather this new economy would bring a better more sustainable world... and we could be at the heart of its development....

I think the new circle intersection is alright so far. I still think there'll be spin outs heading west from pulp mill road in snow storms... lifting off on a slope is bad enough, but if you have a trailer twisted and dragging behind you its like having brakes on and the combination will get some people upset I'm sure... in the right conditions.

So does anyone know when we will be getting another area code? I was under the assumption the we had to start 10 digit dialing to make room for a knew area code in BC, BUT........there is not one that I am aware of? Not that I could care about 10 digit dialing, but I do kinda hate doing things just because?

There are curently 3 area codes for the province of BC. They are 604, 250 and 778. Area code 778 may occur for new listing anywhere in the province.....

Yeah, 778 numbers are already being given out, but prelimarily in the 604 region. It was brought in because they are running out of 604 numbers, but they know that eventually they'll need more 250 numbers and making 778 province wide prevents them from having to bring in a 4th for awhile.

"terbium, which sells for $800,000 a tonne" ... and costs how much per ton to produce? I doubt it is $1,000 or $10,000, or even $100,000/ton.

In other words, how net profit is there at that price?

And so that we know whether the wealth can be spread around, where are those production dollars spent? Large capital investments such as might be there for any nuclear industrial process, or large manpower investment which would help the country that can produce terbium, for instance, to spread the income among the general population?

"to spread the income among the general population?"

That just doesnt work. If I can sit at home on my but and wait for someone to "spread income to me" then how hard is the average person going to work?

People who dont contribute dont deserve a return. That is why countries like China and Japan have become so powerful, they have savings that are used to invest. Canadians and especially Americans spend everything and then wonder why we are falling further and further behind.

Here we always hear that governments are giving our natural resources away but people dont understand the massive costs these companies have to fund to get to profitability. The oil sands are a great example. Now that they are profitable everyone wants a piece but when they needed $10 billion in investment no one wanted a part of it. In Canada you always here "the government should do the mining" or "the government should start an auto company." Government owned companies are a huge burden to taxpayers and the only beneficiaries are the overpayed employees.

You get out what you put in. That is a universal truth.

You get $800,000 per ton for something that is extracted and refined.

There are two key expenses I want to refer to as an example.

- equipment - which in the case of heavy mining equipment is made in countries other than Canada, so Canadians do not gain from that unless they build their own heavy equipment.

- people - which come as those with technical skills, operating skills, and unskilled labour.

If we hire technical skills from China, in this case, we get little in return. The Chinese will benefit.

If we use Canadian equipment operators, we spread the wealth to Canadian skilled labour and spread the wealth in Canada.

If we use Canadian unskilled labour, we spread the wealth among the general population of workers.

If we use Canadian investors, we spread the net profits to them.

The more foreigners we use, the less we make from the $800,000 per ton. The only thing we might be left with is some sort of royalty payment to the governmetn.

Thus, any kind of venture like that, we should be following the Chinese proposed example - they want to keep the product instead of exporting it since they need it themselves to use in high tech products they want to produce for their own citizens as well as sell that finished product to other countries. In other words, they want to add value.

In my case, I am referring to internalizing much of the extraction and production of the raw material rather than using foreign made equipment and importing foreign labour for professional, technical and general labour.

Of the $800,000 we need to keep a good $700,000 in this country rather than spreading $700,000 to other countries and keeping only $100,000.

The Roundabout seems to be working OK at this time, however there are some problems.

(1) Westbound traffic especially trucks have to stop for Northbound traffic off the bridge. For trucks this usually means a full stop and then a slow start when they find an opening.

(2) Some traffic is stopped on the Bridge Northbound when Eastbound traffic to Pulp Mill Road blocks them from entering the roundabout.

Considering that at this time there is very little traffic using this bridge, these problems are not significant, however if the traffic increases then of course the problems will increase.

Its to early to tell how many vehicles will actually use this bridge, however if the first week is any indication they are a long way from getting 8000 vehicles per day, let alone the increase to 14000 predicted by the City.

If the traffic should increase to 8000 vehicles or more, you will most certainly have problems, especially during the winter.

Doesnt Westbound traffic have to stop for Northbound traffic in every traffic circle in the world? ;-)

I made a special detour to drive on the new bridge and to try the roundabout coming from different directions.

It's a very good alternative to a regular intersection with lights.

I have no complaints. I wish there were more roundabouts in town and I can think of a few locations where they would make a huge difference eliminating most of the present idling and collisions.

Let's look at this first regular single lane roundabout as an opportunity for people to learn how to use one.

Should have been a two lane roundabout (my opinion in 20-20 hindsight) although I am not sure that there is that much space available. Having heavy traffic come to a complete stop at the roundabout is not something that any of us want, especially in the winter.
metalman.

This story is asking about the spelling of CENTRE at CN CENTRE.
To me r,e spells re as in tree,so that would make it CN CENTREE.
To me e,r spells er as in enter,so that would make it CN CENTERR.
CENTER is in the Webster's Dictionary-a building/place----centre is not.
Centre may be a French way of spelling things in Quebec or France but why is that here ?
Has no one even noticed this before ?

Hey Lou, it's "Canadianized" spelling & yes, it's idiotic.

Of course we have noticed the spelling of centre, but there so many other more worthy issues to complain about first!
Oui, I tink she is the french, dat word.
metalman.

Why can't we comment on all the hokey country acts being plugged in the "Entertainment" section?

Is Centre French or English??? Center is American. Color is American Colour is French or English. There are a lot of variations in spelling, however none of them are really worth much discussion.

Yes I suspect all Westbound traffic, stops for Northbound traffic in a roundabout, and therefore these trucks, especially the tankers loaded with gasoline and diesel will have to stop and then get going again. This will make it diffcult in the Winter, and will cause some back up for Westbound traffic.

Metalman. The original plans for the roundabout called for TWO lanes, however the plans were changed. Probably because of the cost.

800,000 dollars per ton, must be pretty special product. However there are metals in the world which is trading for over twenty million dollars a ton.

Centre is the UK (original) English spelling, while center is the US variant. It is possible, I suppose, that it derives from the old Norman French during the invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066, but I doubt it. Its basic meaning is "in the middle", of course. I thought couleur was French, not colour.

Ammonra. Maybe colour is English only and Color is American.

CENTER is in the Webster's Dictionary ...

and the Webster's Dictionary is a US Dictionary ...

Look in the Oxford Dictionary ....

Canadina spelling typically follows the Oxford Dictionary. If there is an interpretation required in a legal matter, the Oxford dictionary is the dictionary of record as to definition.

Webster
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/center

Oxford
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/centre?view=uk

http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm

How about a discussion of "less and fewer?" Less people talk about fewer and less placements. Or is that fewer people talk about fewer placements?"

I know, $800,000/ton sounds like a lot ....

platinum price is around $1,250/ounce or $40 million per ton (the 2,000 pound kind)

rhodium is around $1,680 per ounce or $53.76 million per ton.

Put that in the back of your pickup and drive off, eh???!!!

Imagine the problem with two lanes with that tight a circle and the length of the trucks. The vehicle entering thecircel and needing to get out on the third turnout should technicall move to the inside lane and then back out. That would allow a truck to enter the outside lane and squeeze out the inside passenger car which is trying to get back into the outer lane so it can turn off to the right.

You think there will be problems there now. That would have been a nightmare.

"That just doesnt work. If I can sit at home on my but and wait for someone to "spread income to me" then how hard is the average person going to work?"

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The 'average person' would work just as hard as he or she does right now. The "income" that's spread to you "sitting on your butt" wouldn't do you any good otherwise, because there'd be little or nothing to BUY with it.

The point you and others are missing, Born in BC, is that waged 'labour' is a continually diminishing factor in the overall 'costs of production' that are constantly impressed into product 'prices' at the point of final retail.

This is because the constant advance of technology is continually displacing CURRENT 'labour' costs with 'capital' costs, (which are PAST 'labour costs', once distributed as 'money', at some point in the PAST, and for the most part spent as received by the recipients. Though the 'costs' it has created on its journey from the Bank into industrial processes remain, the 'money' itself has already returned to the Bank through this spending, and can only re-appear as ANOTHER set of 'costs'.)

The flow of 'costs' entering 'price'therefore continually EXCEEDS the flow of 'incomes' distributed capable of fully meeting those 'prices' at any given point in time.

Increased spending on new 'capital' goods, (or stimulus spending by the government on infrastructure) bridges the "gap" temporarily, as does an increase in exports over imports, when foreign credit is received for the difference.

Both, however, tend to raise prices, which then remove already insufficient consumer incomes even faster, widening the "gap" even further.

To make any modern, industrial, "free-enterprise" economy function as it should, where financial "costs" can be fully liquidated through "prices", all citizens should receive a "debt-free" augmentation to their "earned" incomes based on the overall difference between the country's total "productive capacity" that could be drawn upon if there were any possibilities of selling all the product it could make, and what amount of the overall products it does make actually are "consumed" over an equivalent same time period. The statistics to do this are already all collected, and the Bank of Canada could quite readily issue each and every one of us either a monthly dividend, and/or a rebate on all consumer purchases. Without increasing the country's overall "debt" one iota.

There is no taxation, or re-distribution from 'rich' to 'poor' involved in this whatsoever. It can be done by utilizing a technique of credit, which would enable "finance" to properly do what it says it can do, but currently can't. Reflect actual physical reality on an ongoing basis.

"Ammonra. Maybe colour is English only and Color is American."

That is true. There are quite a few words like that. In Canada both seem to be used, even in the same text. Another is the British words which end in "ise" which the US spells "ize" and I always use "tire", not "tyre", and "zed", never "zee".

In Canada, we use neither American nor British English. We use Canadian English which is consistent with British English most of the time and American English some of the time. If you use either an American or British dicitionary you will, at certain points, be incorrect in Canada.

What you want to use is a wholly Canadian dictionary like the 'Oxford Canadian Dictionary.' This dictionary is used by most major Canadian newspapers and by the federal government (claims from the dictionary's publisher). I keep the full, hardcover version at home and have a paperback version in my office.

Please quit arguing over American versus British spellings and look up the words in a Canadian dictionary.

God Save The Queen!

zeeeeeeeeeee!
Canadian English should be considered a regional dialect. :-]>

I just came back from a Holiday traveling through the Okanagan, I looked to see what their Downtowns looked like. They sure do not look like ours, they looked healthy and vibrant. You could walk around without being nervious, no one was loitering around. Maybe vagrency bylaws might help. The first thing I saw when I got home were two young Hookers. We have services here for everything, even pedophiles are sent here , do they stay here after treatment? What about the drug addicts? Aren't Northern Health and other service providers just great. WE NEED TO TAKE BACK OUR CITY.

Uhhh....westbound or northbound it doesn't matter really. No matter where you are, traffic yields to vehicles already IN the roundabout.

I took a drive around the new circle on Wednesday and I would have no problem getting a truck and trailer around that sucker at all.