Odd Lots

China's dominance of the rare earths market is well known. This not only creates potential vulnerabilities for companies, should access to those rare earths ever get cut off, it also gives China significant leverage in trade negotiations right now. Of course, the issue is not that China is naturally endowed with more of these materials, but rather that, over the decades, it's built up an industrial ecosystem to mine and process them. So, is there any prospect of the US entering the arena in a way that's actually competitive? Our guest says yes. Heidi Crebo-Rediker is a senior fellow in the Center for Geoeconomics Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Earlier in her career, she was the US State Department's first chief economist. For the CFR, Heidi has undertaken an extensive study of the US position with respect to rare earths and developed a broad set of suggestions for how the US can actually compete. She discusses the resources we have right now, and the technologies and policies that could make the US competitive in this arena.
Read the report here: https://www.cfr.org/report/leapfrogging-chinas-critical-minerals-dominance/
Read more:
Why China’s Grip on Critical Minerals Is So Hard to Break
EU to Offer US Critical Minerals Partnership to Check China
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In the 90s, there was a lot of talk about how the Internet would be a liberalizing force in the world. Bill Clinton famously predicted that it would be impossible for China to lock down the Internet, and that this would have profound effects on domestic politics. Of course that didn't come true -- China has done a remarkable job of controlling what gets behind the firewall. But then furthermore, the Internet hasn't had the liberalizing effects in the US either. On this episode of the podcast, we speak to Yi-Ling Liu, the author of the fascinating new book The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet. The book traces the rise of the Chinese Internet, and how its users navigate the "dance" between freedom and censorship. She talks about the early visions for the Internet in China, and how over time it became a hotbed of nationalism. We discuss what's similar and different, and also what happens when users in both countries are given the opportunity to easily make contact withe each other on social media.
Read more: China AI Hardware Firms Trump Internet Giants in Growth Outlook
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Utilities analysts are having a moment as the energy sector gets a boost from AI. With an extra 94 gigawatts forecast to be needed by 2030 to power all these new data centers, energy investment has become a hot play as investors take a "picks and shovels" approach. But one long-time analyst says that — from a utilities perspective — we're already set to overbuild capacity by twice as much as is needed. On this episode, Andy DeVries, co-head of investment grade credit and head of utilities and power at CreditSights, talks to us about the math behind his infrastructure overbuild analysis, who has been making money (so far) from the data center boom, and what we already see playing out in the credit markets.
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Trump has announced that former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh is going to be his nominee to succeed Jerome Powell. The responses to the news are split among some interesting lines. People like Neil Dutta have been highly critical, while at the same time, the pick has earned praise from Jason Furman, who was the Chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. So who is Kevin Warsh? And why is this pick particularly controversial? On this episode, we talk with Skanda Amarnath, Executive Director of Employ America, who walks us through Warsh's history of commenting on and executing monetary policy. He argues that in addition to having gotten some big calls wrong (particularly in the years surrounding the GFC), Warsh has a history of aligning his policy views with partisan consideration. We also talk about the challenges Warsh will have establishing credibility within the FOMC, as well as challenges that may arise the next time the Fed has to step in during a period of crisis.
Read more:
Fed’s Musalem Says It Would Be ‘Unadvisable’ to Lower Rates
Carney, Macklem Congratulate Warsh on Federal Reserve Nomination
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The big story this year is the surge in metals. And it's really all metals. The ultimate industrial metal, copper, has been on a massive tear, but so has gold, which has very few industrial uses. And then, of course, silver has seen a blistering rally, in part due to massive buying in China. On this episode, we bring back the man who saw this coming years ago, Carlyle partner Jeff Currie. Prior to joining Carlyle, Currie was a top commodities analyst at Goldman Sachs, and has been calling for the emergence of a brand new supercycle for years now. In this episode, he explains the drivers of this supercycle, and why he thinks we're in the very early days of what will be a multi-year run.
Read more:Gold Retreats in Sudden Selloff After Breaking Through $5,500China’s Metals Mania Sends Copper Soaring Past $14,500 a Ton
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