Supermancho 6 hours ago

I don't think it's scandalous in the least. It's strategic to leverage other countries (which have to pollute and deplete their own stores) while retaining your own as a long-term plan.

ie When you're out of people to pay to dig out valuables from their mines, THEN you start panning your own rivers and eventually dig out your own land.

Is this the time to start using up using the public lands' resources? I am not convinced it is.

  • kipchak 5 hours ago

    I think he's referring to something like the strategic petroleum reserve, where you pile a bunch of resources including those from other people's mines in a stockpile in case of supply issues.

  • vivalahn 3 hours ago

    Other nations can use their resources to accelerate forward by building the infrastructure needed to extract and refine resources, ending further ahead over all due to all the other industries that are enabled. It’s not a simple game of who-wastes-theirs-first.

    • Supermancho 2 hours ago

      > It’s not a simple game of who-wastes-theirs-first.

      For the wealthiest nation, it certainly is. Anything technological advantage that is developed can be bought. While there is a first mover advantage, excess capital has always trumped it (serious apologies, as no pun intended). Long term thinking has dominated US behavior in certain respects. Resource conservation, couched as environmentalism at times, is one of them. I could be wrong, but it makes sense to me.

bigyabai 7 hours ago

"Why isn't my empire self-sufficient!?" is the neoliberal self-own of the century. I'm practically rooting for China at this point.

  • blueprint 6 hours ago

    You mean the country which disappears its own citizens for expressing doubt at their "leadership"?

    • bigyabai 5 hours ago

      Both the US and China does that kind of wetwork. Forgotten about the 1953 coup so soon? Abu Ghraib doesn't ring any bells?

      What you're describing is a political deficiency and not an economic one. China is better at free market economics than America, which should be a wake-up call.

      • emchammer 4 hours ago

        You have to admit that selling off the national strategic helium reserve was flawed. Let's not even talk about the public lands.

    • throawayonthe 4 hours ago

      ...you're posting this in a thread about the US