The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Hi Mr Gnome,
Information and debate about the unfit for purpose and corrupt monetary policies that govern ordinary peoples lives (although most are ignorant of it) are never off topic, they are all relevant to wealth and investment, so thank you!
This organisation has been trying to challenge our UK government and BOE on the the failed monetary policies for several years now, unfortunately those in power just what to keep the broken system going for as long as they can.
Since 2010 Positive Money has been working to educate the public, politicians, economists and the media about where money comes from and how banks work.
https://positivemoney.org/what-we-do/magic-money-tree/
The European Central Bank (ECB) will issue its interest rate decision on Thursday morning, and while markets are not predicting any change to the rate at the April meeting, expectations are ramping up for them to kick off the cutting cycle soon.
But across the pond in the United States, a stronger-than-expected economy coupled with higher-than-expected inflation readings are pushing the prospect of rate cuts from the Federal Reserve further into the future.
https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2024-04-10/ecb-fed-divergence-and-political-upheaval-could-roil-currencies-and-boost
So what was that all about then, the increase in CPI was a bit of a wet fart that didn't have the usual effect the traders were expecting , no surprise really because the genie is out of the bottle, the American dream no longer has a chance of becoming a reality, if it ever did, because the US banks have been using a government crock of created money (Debt) to buy even more government debt (Bonds) backed by the dollar!
I doubt they will keep gold down for any length of time now now which is good for Centamin and it's share holders and they certainly deserve some golden flips flops more than ever!
No US bank is safe, implosion coming!
https://tinyurl.com/f6prwxn7
Zang pointed out that every single bank is insolvent because of what the Federal Reserve has been doing.
“They've been buying up all of this government debt with interest rates at zero or even negative. Now that the interest rates are pushed up to quote-unquote fight inflation, all the valuation of that debt is way underwater. It’s not just commercial real estate,” she said. "If the valuations of all the banks, including the central banks, are based on debt, which they are because the entire system is based on debt. Those interest rates have pushed down the market valuations of all of that debt.”
The BBC were explaining why there may be a case for making informal mining safer and less environmentally damaging.
Around 60 people have died in an explosion at an informal mine in Burkina Faso
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bqmljh
Despite its negative aspects, the contribution of small-scale mining to the resource sector and social development cannot be disputed. About 15% to 20% of the world’s non-fuel mineral production comes from this sub-sector.
https://theconversation.com/why-it-doesnt-make-sense-that-all-informal-mining-is-deemed-illegal-57237
Not all mining is carried out by large-scale corporations. According to the World Bank, small-scale or ‘artisanal’ mining provides direct income to some 40 million people across 80 countries (in comparison, just seven million people were working in ‘industrial’ mining in 2013). Often informal and inefficient, it nevertheless accounts for 20–25 per cent of the global production of gold, tin, tantalum, diamonds and cobalt. It has a significant environmental impact, too. Alluvial gold mining – when gold is extracted from stream and riverbed deposits – in Madre de Dios is estimated to have led to the deforestation of more than 1,000 square kilometres of tropical rainforest, leaving behind hundreds of mining lagoons.
https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/artisanal-mining-is-leaving-a-trail-of-devastation
All oppressive regimes of whatever political persuasion are capable and guilty of environmental damage the world over and caring about our planet and its environment should be high on the agenda of every government or political party .
I am not accusing Centamin of any illegal activities quite the contrary!
What I am saying is that in general the majority of corrupt and oppressive regimes care not a jot about the long term environmental damage or the detrimental affects on the well being of the local workers and communities due to the unregulated the informal and illegal mining.
Illegal mining activities can contribute to skill mismatch and job losses
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/117637/1/ILLEGAL%20MINING%20%20AND%20EMPLOYMENT%20IN%20GHANA%20FINAL%20PAPER%20FOR%20MPRA.pdf
Fair comments Dasut,
Yes not easy, to say the least it would require far more co operation between governments and law and other enforcement agencies and market regulators than exists at the present!
Good points Mr Gnome, the damaging effects of illegal and unregulated mining are all too often ignored by the markets, corrupt governments and the supposed regulators
At first glance, the Amazon rainforest of Peru’s Los Amigos Conservation Concession might seem like a pristine wilderness. Brightly colored birds flit through the jungle. A dense canopy of trees echoes with the cries of howler monkeys. Jaguars pad quietly through the shadows. Giant otters swim in Cocha Lobo Lake. But the forest is hiding a toxic secret: It is tainted by mercury at levels as high as those found in industrial regions in China, according to new research.
The mercury is the product of hundreds of illegal, small-scale gold mines, and is leaving its poisonous fingerprint in forest wildlife. “These forests … are receiving an enormous load of mercury, and the mercury is indeed entering into the food web,” says biogeochemist Jackie Gerson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the research as a Ph.D. student at Duke University. The new study, the first to describe such effects anywhere in the world, is another strand in the growing web of evidence that connects mining to mercury pollution in rivers, fish, and forests.
Gold mining has recently outstripped coal burning as the world’s single largest source of airborne mercury pollution, annually releasing as much as 1000 tons of the potent brain and reproductive poison into the atmosphere. Using mercury to extract gold is a miner’s dream: The cheap, liquid metal, when mixed with a slurry of water and raw ore, binds with the precious gold. Miners then heat the globs of mercury and gold until the mercury burns off, floating away as a vapour.
https://www.science.org/content/article/illegal-gold-mines-flood-amazon-forests-toxic-mercury
T21A,
This conflict is yet another that is contributing to the general global uncertainty and the Myanmar military junta is involved in supply of illegal gold to help fund their corrupt regime which is certainly contributing to the detrimental effect on the POG from regulated mines and their overall value.
There has been a rapid expansion in illegal gold mining in Kachin State since the Myanmar military’s 2021 coup, with illicit gold mines operating around Myitsone, the confluence of the Mali and N’mai rivers, as well as along those two rivers and in Sumprabum and Putao, the northernmost towns in Myanmar.
31 Mar 2023
Aggressive and unregulated gold mining since Myanmar’s military coup two years ago has ravaged the land around Indawgyi Lake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRji0vrzWmA
Illegal gold mining expanding unchecked under junta in Myanmar’s Kachin state
Residents say administrators take bribes to look the other way as their livelihoods are destroyed.
By RFA Burmese
2023.02.14
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Illegal gold mining expanding unchecked under junta in Myanmar’s Kachin state A gold mining site in Kachin state, Myanmar, Feb. 14, 2023. Mines are supposed to have a minimal environmental impact on the local population.
Screenshot from citizen journalist video
A rapid expansion in illegal gold mining since the military coup is poisoning the water supply in Myanmar’s Kachin state and destroying the livelihoods of residents who say the ethnic Kachin group that administers the region has failed to police the sector.
Illegal mining of gold, as well as jade and rare earth minerals, is rampant in Kachin state, where successive governments have failed to regulate the industry for generations. However, the number of unsanctioned operations has ballooned since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, takeover amid conflict between junta troops and armed resistance forces in the region.
Residents of Sumprabum township told RFA Burmese that illegal gold mines had “nearly doubled” in Kachin state since the coup and are devastating the environment, despite local protests.
“They used to dig in areas farther from our village but now they are digging quite close,” said a resident of Hpon Ing Yang village who, like other sources in the area, declined to be named citing fear of reprisal.
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/mining-02142023165243.html
Authorities have suggested a crime syndicate looking to evade taxes in Japan may have been behind the operation.
Hong Kong is one of the world's largest gold trading hubs and prices of the commodity have been rising amid geopolitical uncertainty.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68761514
Although Western investors continue to ignore gold even as prices continue to hit record highs, they are no longer actively getting in the way of higher prices, which means the current rally has legs to run higher, according to one market analyst.
In an interview with Kitco News, Robert Minter, Director Of Investment Strategy at abrdn, said that gold’s rally to record highs above $2,350 an ounce is just getting started, and it's only a matter of time before retail investors jump into gold-backed exchange-traded funds to kick off the next major leg higher.
https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2024-04-08/gold-price-nearly-19-rally-you-havent-seen-anything-yet-abrdns-robert
The latest trade data shows hedge funds continue to pile into gold and silver, and while prices have pushed significantly higher, some analysts have said that the precious metals still have room to move higher.
https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2024-04-08/gold-and-silver-are-still-not-overvalued-hedge-funds-add-their-bullish-bets
By Jonathan Head & BBC Burmese
In Bangkok
Nearly seven years after the Myanmar military killed thousands of Muslim Rohingyas, in what the UN called "textbook ethnic cleansing", it wants their help.
From interviews with Rohingyas living in Rakhine State the BBC has learned of at least 100 of them being conscripted in recent weeks to fight for the embattled junta. All their names have been changed to protect them.
"I was frightened, but I had to go," says Mohammed, a 31-year-old Rohingya man with three young children. He lives near the capital of Rakhine, Sittwe, in the Baw Du Pha camp. At least 150,000 internally displaced Rohingyas have been forced to live in IDP camps for the past decade.
In the middle of February the camp leader came to him late at night, Mohammed said, and told him he would have to do military training. "These are army orders," he remembers him saying. "If you refuse they have threatened to harm your family."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68730994
The panic behind physically-driven precious metal rallies and a major update on the BRICS commodity-backed currency that hastens de dollarisation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkCpzxtFBYg&t=1s
Kitco News) - Gold’s role as a monetary metal has dominated the marketplace for the last two years, and now Zimbabwe will be utilizing its gold reserves.
Friday, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced that on April 8, the government will launch a new currency backed in part by gold. The new currency, the ZiG – short for Zimbabwe Gold – will also be supported by a basket of foreign currencies.
The new currency comes as the current Zimbabwe dollar has sharply declined against the U.S. dollar. It is currently the second worst-performing currency against the greenback this year.
https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2024-04-05/zimbabwe-introduces-new-gold-backed-currency
Last updated: 2 April 2024
Full Fact’s rolling live blog of political fact checks
2 April 2024, 1.24pm
Prime Minister’s claim about ‘tax cut’ for workers doesn’t account for threshold freezes
In an interview on BBC Radio Newcastle [2:21:30] this morning the Prime Minister claimed that “an average person in work is getting a tax cut of around £900”.
This figure refers specifically to savings from recently announced reductions to employee National Insurance contributions (NICs). On 6 April the main rate of NICs will be lowered from 10% to 8%, having been previously reduced from 12% to 10% in January.
£900 a year is the amount an employee on the average full-time salary (about £35,000) will save in NICs due to the combined four percentage point reduction.
But, as we’ve said before, Mr Sunak’s claim that workers are receiving a “tax cut of £900” misses important context. Ongoing freezes to the threshold at which people begin paying National Insurance contributions and income tax mean the savings for someone on the average salary are substantially smaller.
Once the impact of all tax changes are factored in, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the average worker only stands to save £340 in 2024/25 while those earning less than £26,000 a year will actually be worse off.
The IFS adds: “By 2027–28, after another three years of real-terms cuts to tax thresholds, the net effect of income tax and NICs changes since 2021 for the average full-time earner will be a tax cut of £140 per year”.