Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 10:20AM

The hand-wringing on this one has been so boring. The world allows China to become the near monopolistic supplier of rare earths because nobody apparently wants to spend the money and suffer the environmental hassles of keeping their own mines open. Then China, as it moves into higher-end production modes, starts, with its usual backward attitude, to obsess over the security of supplies. Export controls are discussed and then implemented. Then the West is shocked - shocked! - to discover this huge vulnerability only a couple of decades in the slo-mo making, and op-eds are cranked ad nauseum about this significant national security threat.

Predictably, Congress blows hard on the subject, and voila! The owner of the once-booming US mine is now seeking investments for "secure" supplies. Rest assured this is happening pretty much anywhere else in the world where not-so rare earths are actually found. Crisis averted! Whew!

Now, pontificating types are opining that rare earths symbolize America finally waking up to being "disemboweled" by China and India all these years and finally starting to take back those jobs!

It is all good theater, and Molycorp Minerals should clean up on their US mine, but historic turning point it is not. It's just another example of rising demand creating temporary scarcity and clever people cleaning up on that basis, with their local congressman as front-man. God bless them. But spare me the larger meaning.