The note from "Christian Souljer" in the Pacific Northwest today (Monday)
points out the elevated price available when recycling brass. I was talking
to
Nikki at River Valley Ordnance (http://www.rvow.com)
the other day. [She told me that] brass is high now because China is paying
top dollar for brass, including the once-fired brass that RVOW would normally
buy from the government to remanufacture for us non- government
types. Not so long ago, RVOW was able to buy .223 [U.S. military 5.56mm NATO
M16 brass] in 5,000 pound lots; Nikki says it looks like the minimums are going
up, possibly
to
100,000
pound
lots,
because Chinese are buying so much surplus brass. I wonder why... Do you remember
reading about how much scrap iron the Japanese were buying from us in the 1930s?
- Dave
in Omaha
JWR Replies: It isn't just brass, Dave. According to Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (http://www.scrap.org), the mainland Chinese have also driven up the prices of scrap steel, stainless steel, nickel (to make stainless steel), copper, bronze, and lead. In many cases they are buying everything that they can lay there hands on. Note that the following observation may just be evidence of that "free floating anxiety" that I was once accused of in a televised debate, but methinks that the extent of the Chinese scrap metal buying frenzy cannot be attributed solely to China's economic renaissance.
