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

Deficit and Debt Are Caused by Baby Boomers, Not Socialism … Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a lengthy report proposing 103 ways to cut the federal deficit. The report contains plenty of red meat for partisans – from block-granting low-income assistance programs for savings of $404 billion over the next decade, on the right, to imposing a greenhous...Read More

Janet Yellen [defends] Federal Reserve System ultra-easy monetary policy … Janet Yellen, President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the US Federal Reserve, offers a stout defense on Thursday of the central bank's aggressive monetary easing before a Senate panel that includes some tough Republican critics. – The Economic TimesDominant Social Theme: The Fed has a job to do. Let'...Read More

A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say. On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu th...Read More

Janet Yellen [defends] Federal Reserve System ultra-easy monetary policy … Janet Yellen, President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the US Federal Reserve, offers a stout defense on Thursday of the central bank's aggressive monetary easing before a Senate panel that includes some tough Republican critics. – The Economic TimesDominant Social Theme: The Fed has a job to do. Let'...Read More

A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say. On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu th...Read More

Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold … Mark Carney: "For the first time in a long time, you do not have to be an optimist to see the glass is half full" … Bank of England governor Mark Carney says the UK recovery has "taken hold" and unemployment will fall sooner than it had forecast. The comments came in the Bank's latest quarterly inflation repo...Read More

A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished … A Chinese Bitcoin exchange that held up to $4.1 million in users' accounts has gone offline and everyone involved with it has vanished, according to CoinDesk. – Business InsiderDominant Social Theme: Bitcoin is a suspicious kind of money.Free-Market Analysis: We've written several articles somewha...Read More

Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold … Mark Carney: "For the first time in a long time, you do not have to be an optimist to see the glass is half full" … Bank of England governor Mark Carney says the UK recovery has "taken hold" and unemployment will fall sooner than it had forecast. The comments came in the Bank's latest quarterly inflation repo...Read More

A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished … A Chinese Bitcoin exchange that held up to $4.1 million in users' accounts has gone offline and everyone involved with it has vanished, according to CoinDesk. – Business InsiderDominant Social Theme: Bitcoin is a suspicious kind of money.Free-Market Analysis: We've written several articles somewha...Read More

The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push … The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political c...Read More

Typhoon Haiyan 'the result of climate change' … The Philippines delegate at the UN Climate Change talks that began on Monday has blamed Typhoon Haiyan on climate change, and urged sceptics to 'get off their ivory towers'. Naderev "Yeb" Sano, representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Change talks, broke down in tears as he addressed delegates in Warsaw. Mr...Read More

The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push … The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political c...Read More

Typhoon Haiyan 'the result of climate change' … The Philippines delegate at the UN Climate Change talks that began on Monday has blamed Typhoon Haiyan on climate change, and urged sceptics to 'get off their ivory towers'. Naderev "Yeb" Sano, representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Change talks, broke down in tears as he addressed delegates in Warsaw. Mr...Read More

Reports of the survival of the eurozone may have been greatly exaggerated … Last week's surprise interest rate cut by the European Central Bank (ECB) may have been taken as good news by the markets, but it was largely a response to the looming danger of deflation in the eurozone. And that is not good news at all. It is a severe problem of economic forecasting that if you manage to identi...Read More

The lessons from Obamacare's flawed Web launch … As the president has recognized, the failure of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in Obamacare represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is t...Read More

Reports of the survival of the eurozone may have been greatly exaggerated … Last week's surprise interest rate cut by the European Central Bank (ECB) may have been taken as good news by the markets, but it was largely a response to the looming danger of deflation in the eurozone. And that is not good news at all. It is a severe problem of economic forecasting that if you manage to identi...Read More

The lessons from Obamacare's flawed Web launch … As the president has recognized, the failure of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in Obamacare represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is t...Read More

Colombia's top-coal-producer Cerrejon on Monday said its output targets for this calendar year will likely be missed.Cerrejon, a joint venture between Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata, production target for 2013 was 34 million tonnes, but a month-long strike and multiple bombings of its railway infrastructure including two in the space of ten days last month, are making that diffi...Read More

Bernanke Says Failing Bank Process Needed to Reduce Crises … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said a process under development that would allow regulators to take down a failing bank will help ensure investors discipline weak firms and prevent them from taking risks without consequence. "As we try to make the financial system safer, we must inevitably confront the problem of mor...Read More

Paranoia Has Undermined United States Claim to Liberal Democracy … Agent Carrie Mathison is a topical figure. The main character in the American TV series "Homeland," played by the wonderful Claire Danes, shows her true relevance in the first few episodes, in which Mathison is nervously sitting at home, observing and listening in on the life of a terror suspect on a large screen. H...Read More