I mentioned global debt of $250 trillion in my “Anything but Paper” Blog on May 15th. Since then I came across this graphic below from Visual Capitalist https://www.visualcapitalist.com/. Exploration Geologists love images and drawings that make numbers concrete. We try to visualize the third dimension and what lies beneath from a map of only two dimensions. Anyway, I thought that it … Read more
Last Friday I mentioned gold and silver as interesting precious metals and referenced the historic price ratio between the two metals. I did mention that based on historical ratios that silver was undervalued significantly compared to gold. The same day the silver price climbed five percent in just one day from $14.67 to finish at $15.41. As … Read more
In mid-April the EU agreed a 500 billion euro stimulus package at zero percent interest rate to get Europe back on its feet after the Covid-19 pandemic. Two days ago Democrats unveiled a three billion dollar Covid relief stimulus package to be voted on next week. It looks looms large and but really beyond our … Read more
Three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse have reached our shores. Pestilence is in the vanguard, cutting a swath through our cities and villages and byways. In his wake rides War and Death. Malaria kills nearly a half a million people every year. Over 90 percent of these deaths are in Africa and two out of every … Read more
There are mines where silver is dug; There are places where gold is refined. We dig iron out of the ground And melt copper out of stones. Miners explore the deepest darkness. They search the depths of the earth And dig for rocks in the darkness. (Book of Job 28: 1-3[1]) Gold is gold … Read more
I vividly remember that lavish but gaudy five-star hotel at mid-day under the high African sun on the banks of a glittering Niger River. It was built with petro-dollars from Gaddfi’s Libya. I was sitting at a big round table which was shrouded in white linen. It was mid-day and I was dining with an influential man from … Read more
The year passed as a first draft, no rewrites just like life itself. Some parts are good when the juices flowed, some parts could have been better and some so bad you find it hard to recognise it as your own. But there is no re write. No Flaubert obsessing over Madame Bovary here. It … Read more
Are we running out of metals? Peak metal? Like peak-oil it might seem as Mark Twain remarked that “the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”. My view is that we must do something soon or we will be past the tipping point. Another view is that we have plenty of metals to sustain our … Read more
Almost 89 percent of LME zinc inventory is in a New Orleans warehousing complex. What should not be surprising for a Big Easy location is that the facility is partly below sea level. That chunk of zinc represents a staggering 50 per cent of current global zinc inventories. What happens when there is a hurricane? Why would … Read more
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas. One could say that it has been a “lively” year. It has been a relatively peaceful year by most historical measures. No World Wars, no Korean, or Vietnam wars in this slice of history. No plague on our house such as world-wide epidemics. Terrorism is wanton and tragic … Read more