RARE EARTH

Surfing Online aimlessly and enjoying the European antique from E-shops. The things which are fascinating me the most, are the rustic furnitures and metal utensils.
However, there is one thing that I couldn't understand; why is there a big price difference between the copper products and zinc products?
I throw this question to my husband, although I believe that he is more familiar with the value and price of the printed products, about printed products from which era, which publisher and with which topics, which version, are the most valuable ones.
Unexpectedly, he gives me a rather satisfactory reply. He says, the price difference is probably caused by the fact that zinc is the rare earth element.
This information, has absolutely exceeded the range of my common sense. So, I need to do a little catch up.
Bearing this question in mind, I checked the Wiki articles about copper, zinc, and rare earth elements. While reading, I found out that China is the biggest exporter in the field and the term 'rare earth elements' has been abolished by International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) already, due to that the so called 'rare elements' are actually, not rare.

Looking at the names of those chemical elements, I can hardly read out their Chinese names, not alone their English names. Great, it makes me realize how poor is my Chinese ability, at least, if I used to consider that this is the only thing that I am competent with. Those chemical elements are totally unfamiliar to me. So, I have checked some other related articles too. I am really curious about that how people use rare earth resource to make money and how many conflicts and arguments have caused among nations when mining, production and trading of rare chemical elements are concerned, reminds me again, of the saying from Laozi; 不贵难得之货，使民不为盗。What does that mean? It means, when we do not value those rare things too much, there would be no need to worry about the theft.
Sure, one could say that it is the continuous development and the prosperous status of the communication technology, causing the big consumption of rare metals, especially, zinc, and the amount of the consumption would keep rising .
Nevertheless, I would tend to ask: Is it really necessary to over-develop something, no matter what, without a limit? Is it really necessary to encourage the human greed in such way?
It is illness, I would say. Human being is producing awkward situation which ourselves are unable to cope with. Look at the case of Snowden.
Why is Laozi, a man who lived 2000 years ago, considered as a wise man nowadays? That's because he knew what kind of trouble that human being should be avoided and how.  
My curiosity on chemical elements makes my husband really amused. He said that he didn't expect my interest on geology is still kept alive, although he knew that I once wished to study geology more than 30 years ago.