Geology 101

Frankly, I was beginning to think geologists are just slicing the baloney thinner and just when I think we know it all something new comes along…. When I started writing “Straight Talk” in 2001 it was because I was increasingly uncomfortable with the half truths and deliberate falsehoods coming out …

When gold argues the cause, eloquence is impotent. Publicus Syrus, 1st Century BC This following has nothing to do with mining, but it struck a chord with me and will I suspect with many readers… “Behind the success of plausible denial [in accounting] is an already longstanding North American disconnection …

You have to choose (as a voter) between trusting to the natural ability of gold and the natural stability and intelligence of the government. And with due respect to these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold. George Bernard Shaw You can …

“Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By …

It never fails to amaze me; the material that passes for informed financial journalism these days. Most of it is complete fluff – the worst of it is actually hazardous to your financial well-being. The gold story continues to be dumbed-down into bite-sized, easily-digestible morsels by the mainstream media. This …

Every few days or so I get a question from someone about purchasing physical gold. Randall Oliphant of Barrick Gold recently said in an interview that most new gold production goes into the jewellery market, predominantly in India, and talked about the gold business benefiting from a jewellery marketing campaign. …

Market commentary Gold is now sitting at a 2 year high and things have never looked more golden. Marshall McLuhan said “The medium is the message.” Many commentators overlook an extremely important factor in today’s market reality and that is getting your message out – not so much the content …

I have had a great deal of feedback from my “Silver” essays. Please keep it coming! Other snippets to report: I mentioned that by-product silver production from some porphyry copper mines is huge, not because they contain high grade silver, but because they mine huge volumes of low grade rock …

“Mining is the backbone of wealth and the spinal column of all certainty.” – Cecil John Rhodes Silver, like gold, platinum, and palladium is considered one of the precious metals. This differentiates it from zinc, copper, lead, nickel and tin which are base metals. What makes a precious metal “precious”? …

Market Commentary: They call it “convergence” in advertising. The CNN-AOL-Time Warner machine blitzkrieged us with unrelenting, shameless, in-your-face, blatant, HYPE; contriving and conspiring to fashion something as inconsequential as the opening of a kid’s movie – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Philosophers’ Stone in UK) – into not just …