The past year was a difficult one overall for the metals, with the main standouts to the upside being a geopolitical risk-driven gain in gold, a China-driven rise in iron ore and a surge in uranium on broadening global support for nuclear power (Figure 1). A jump in global interest rates to near two-decade highs saw recession fears persist all year, and while one still did not actually eru...Read More

This year the post-global health crisis boom was brought to an end by a surge in inflation to forty-year highs, a major rise in global interest rates in an attempt to curb the rising prices and surging geopolitical risk after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While precious metals held up reasonably well as markets turned to them as a risk hedge, by Q2/22 the higher interest rates put an end t...Read More

Chile is the world leader in copper production, at 28.5% of the total in 2020, and this looks set to continue, with the country having the largest global reserves, at 23.0% of total. It is also the global leader for molybdenum, which is often found along with copper, and is a major lithium player, holding 51.1% of global reserves. Read More

Newfoundland has become a gold exploration hotspot over the past few years, with the sector seeing some of its strongest activity ever. While the province remains a small contributor to Canadian gold production, it has a substantial mineral industry well supported by the government, focused on iron ore, copper and nickel, and the surge in exploration suggests that gold output from the...Read More

Nevada is the core of the U.S. gold output, accounting for by far the majority, at 75.4% on average for the past year. The state looks set to remain a dominant player in U.S. gold, as it accounts for 49% of total U.S. reserves, with Alaska slightly ahead with 51% of reserves, but just 8.6% of current production. The U.S. accounts for 6.1% of global gold output, making Nevada one of the largest gol...Read More

The Golden Triangle in northwestern British Columbia has historically been a major site of Canadian gold production, beginning as early as the mid 1800s. There was a wave of production in the 1990s which cooled as the gold price declined, but larger scale production resumed in 2017, and the area has seen surging exploration interest over the past year, given that the region has some of the largest...Read More

In this report we outline the Quebec gold mining industry, including its major producers, and a survey of many of the junior miners focused on the province. Quebec accounts for 34% of Canadian gold production (second to Ontario, with 44%) and remains a major focus for both producers and junior miners.Read More

Red Lake has been one of the most prolific gold mining districts in Canada and the world, with exploration having started in the 1920s, and production, which began in the 1930s, continuing to the present day. The district is known for the high grade of its gold, its infrastructure, and strong institutional support, given the long history of mining in the area.Read More

Bitcoins: A Fully-Compliant Currency The Government Can Love … All of bitcoin's benefits to the establishment revolve around its blockchain. In simple terms, a blockchain is a registry of all transactions carried out in bitcoins. Thus is resolved the problem of double-spending one particular bitcoin: It can't be done (at least in theory) due to the blockchain. But the blockchain is i...Read More

WTO overcomes last minute hitch to reach its first global trade deal … The World Trade Organization reached its first ever trade reform deal on Saturday to the roar of approval from nearly 160 ministers who had gathered on the Indonesian island of Bali to decide on the make-or-break agreement that could add $1 trillion to the global economy. The approval came after Cuba dropped a last-gasp t...Read More

The Coming Global Wealth Tax – Indebted governments may soon consider a big one-time levy on capital assets. Between ObamaCare, Iran and last quarter's uptick in U.S. economic growth, taxpayers these days may be distracted from several dangers to come. But households from the United States to Europe and Japan may soon face fiscal shocks worse than any market crash. The White House and Ne...Read More

Turley: Obama's "Become The Very Danger The Constitution Was Designed To Avoid" … REP. BOB GOODLATTE (R-VA): Professor Turley, the constitution, the system of separated powers is not simply about stopping one branch of government from usurping another. It's about protecting the liberty of Americans from the dangers of concentrated government power. How does the president...Read More

The Coming Global Wealth Tax – Indebted governments may soon consider a big one-time levy on capital assets. Between ObamaCare, Iran and last quarter's uptick in U.S. economic growth, taxpayers these days may be distracted from several dangers to come. But households from the United States to Europe and Japan may soon face fiscal shocks worse than any market crash. The White House and Ne...Read More

Turley: Obama's "Become The Very Danger The Constitution Was Designed To Avoid" … REP. BOB GOODLATTE (R-VA): Professor Turley, the constitution, the system of separated powers is not simply about stopping one branch of government from usurping another. It's about protecting the liberty of Americans from the dangers of concentrated government power. How does the president...Read More

When progress trumps privacy … In 1890, two of America's leading legal minds, Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, published an article called "The Right to Privacy" in the Harvard Law Review. Scandalized by the rise of a gossip-mongering press that intruded on the lives of prominent citizens, they called upon the courts to recognize a "right to privacy." Their fear was...Read More

NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show … The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that wou...Read More

When progress trumps privacy … In 1890, two of America's leading legal minds, Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, published an article called "The Right to Privacy" in the Harvard Law Review. Scandalized by the rise of a gossip-mongering press that intruded on the lives of prominent citizens, they called upon the courts to recognize a "right to privacy." Their fear was...Read More

NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show … The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that wou...Read More

Paul Krugman Consigns To Hell An Economic Slump Of His Own Devise … Public intellectual Paul Krugman recently consigned to Hell, in a New York Times op-ed column entitled A Permanent Slump, the world economy. He wrote: … "[W]hat if the world we've been living in for the past five years is the new normal? What if depression-like conditions are on track to persist, not for anoth...Read More

Ratted out: Scientific journal bows to Monsanto over anti-GMO study … Rigid criteria exist for a serious scientific journal to accept a peer-reviewed paper and to publish it. As well there exist strict criteria by which such an article can be withdrawn after publication. The Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology has apparently decided to violate those procedures, announcing it is retractin...Read More

Paul Krugman Consigns To Hell An Economic Slump Of His Own Devise … Public intellectual Paul Krugman recently consigned to Hell, in a New York Times op-ed column entitled A Permanent Slump, the world economy. He wrote: … "[W]hat if the world we've been living in for the past five years is the new normal? What if depression-like conditions are on track to persist, not for anoth...Read More

Ratted out: Scientific journal bows to Monsanto over anti-GMO study … Rigid criteria exist for a serious scientific journal to accept a peer-reviewed paper and to publish it. As well there exist strict criteria by which such an article can be withdrawn after publication. The Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology has apparently decided to violate those procedures, announcing it is retractin...Read More

Fed unlikely to redraw markers for rate hike … Federal Reserve policymakers have cooled to the idea of explicitly raising the bar on future interest rate hikes, a sign the U.S. central bank is angling for a return to more subtle – and familiar – ways of explaining how it plans to steer the economy. The Fed, still struggling to boost the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession, rem...Read More

Edward Snowden revelations prompt … UN investigation into surveillance … UN's senior counter-terrorism official says revelations 'are at the very apex of public interest concerns' … The UN's senior counter-terrorism official is to launch an investigation into the surveillance powers of American and British intelligence agencies following Edward Snowden's revel...Read More

Fed unlikely to redraw markers for rate hike … Federal Reserve policymakers have cooled to the idea of explicitly raising the bar on future interest rate hikes, a sign the U.S. central bank is angling for a return to more subtle – and familiar – ways of explaining how it plans to steer the economy. The Fed, still struggling to boost the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession, rem...Read More

Edward Snowden revelations prompt … UN investigation into surveillance … UN's senior counter-terrorism official says revelations 'are at the very apex of public interest concerns' … The UN's senior counter-terrorism official is to launch an investigation into the surveillance powers of American and British intelligence agencies following Edward Snowden's revel...Read More

At the IMF Research Conference on November 8, 2013, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers presented a plan to expand the con game. Summers says that it is not enough merely to give the banks interest free money. More should be done for the banks. Instead of being paid interest on their bank deposits, people should be penalized for keeping their money in banks instead of spending it. – Paul...Read More

Legendary investor Jim Rogers not only thinks Federal Reserve policy is incompetent, he thinks the entire institution should be eliminated. Asked by RT television network what he'd do if he was named chairman of the central bank, Rogers said, "I'd abolish the Federal Reserve, and then I'd resign." The world has survived just fine without central banks for most of its history,...Read More