http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/busin ... -china.htm
Then I got to thinking of an idea, now I'm not in a position to impliment it myself but
just putting the idea out there...
Since China seems to almost encourge it's "replica coin" industry and it just so happens
that the current rare earth metals policy is creating a very large price differential
between China and the rest of the world for these metals there is an opportunity to
bring the 2 things together to carry out some arbitrage...
Now maybe some enterprising individual may want to set up a "replica coin" factory
in China which makes let's say some beautiful American Eagle replicas out of said rare
earth metals then maybe put a nice silver plating on them to make them look all
pretty for collectors of those beautiful replica coins, these would of course then be
a legitimate end product for export...
These would of course get exported to various countries that are well known for their
love of beautifull 100 mil plated silver coins, a lot of which would be going to certain
"wholesalers" who are of course best skilled at marketing these coins in their local
markets...
Now as we know fads come and go and you never know when a particular beautifull
plated silver coin becomes "like so last week" and these wholesalers will occasionaly
find it difficult to market the ones that have gone "so out of style"...
Of course they will all find a handy "recycler" somewhere that will buy their surplus
coins freeing up capital to buy the "latest trendy" silver plated coins from their
reliable supplier in China, the best part is that this recycler is for some reason
paying them more than their original cost so even their "failures" are profitable...
This recycler will of course separate that now pesky silver plating off the surface
marketing it to important export markets that use a lot of silver in their industries.
(Maybe China for instance) and sell the recovered rare earth metals to industries
in various countries where they happen to be in short supply for some kind of
reason that I can't quite explain since they are so comparitively abundant in China
at the moment.
Of course it would be pure co-incidence that everyone involved just happened to
know each other before hand.
Disclaimers:
-I'm not sure how well the movement and usage of rare earth metals within China
is tracked so that may render the whole idea impractical.
-If you get caught the Chinese government might be "unpleasant" with you, I take
no responsibility for any such "unpleasantness".
-This post is intended for "entertainment purposes only" so if you are representative
of the Chinese government please don't send an assassin after me.
