Would the Last Person Out Please Turn Off the Lights?

Well, they've closed down the last remaining primary lead smelter in the United States:

On Dec. 31, 2013, The Doe Run Company’s primary lead smelter in Herculaneum, Mo., which has operated since 1892, will cease operations. As a result of the smelter’s closure, 145 Doe Run employees, and approximately 73 contractors, will lose their jobs. Seventy-five positions will be retained for closure and limited operations. Although the United States is home to a number of secondary lead smelters, which recycle lead from various sources, the Herculaneum facility is the last primary lead smelter in the United States. (Primary smelters produce lead from mined resources.)

In 2010, Doe Run reached a comprehensive settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Missouri. As part of that settlement, the Company agreed to discontinue its smelting operations in Herculaneum by the end of 2013. Over the operating life of the smelter, the Company spent millions of dollars in environmental and other upgrades. Continuing to upgrade the aging smelter to attempt to meet the increasingly stringent environmental regulations imposed on primary lead smelters was not economically feasible given the many other requirements of our business.* We shared this news in 2010 in a press release available on our website.

What might this do to the price of batteries now that we won't be making any new lead, just recycling what we have now? Think it might go the way of gasoline? Concrete? 

The government does everything it can to restrict the oil we pump from the ground, or transport to refineries. They've doubled the price of gas as a means of forcing us to use less of it. And it's working... for poor people. And it's making life harder for the middle class, who are on their way to the poverty line.

The EPA has caused or will cause the closure of 20% of all concrete plants, and will increase the price of every yard produced by those who survive.

They mandate that an ever increasing percentage of our corn crop be diverted into gasoline production, thereby raising the cost of corn, gasoline, and animal feed. (therefore meat) This, even though even diehard environmentalists now admit that the practice does more harm than good.

God help us if we don't turn this around in the 2014 and 2016 elections. We're on our way down while China is on its way up. My concern isn't for loss of Merica Nummer One status. My concern is for the fate of the country when China is the superpower, and can use its industrial might against us. What do we do when we're no longer capable of building the industry to fight back?