National Public Radio today broadcast and published a long report about
the environmental devastation done by wildcat gold miners in Peru, a
phenomenon common throughout the part of the developing world that has
mineral resources:
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015...7/who-did-th...
What the NPR report missed is that this devastation is to a great extent
the consequence of gold price suppression by Western central banks.
Yes, while the extractive industries are the prerequisites of modern
civilization, they can damage the environment. Gold mining is only one of
those industries. As with all extractive industries, the costs of
environmental safeguards and remediation must be built into the price of
their products.
When the gold price is suppressed by central banks, corporations -- which
government easily can regulate and through which government enforces
environmental safeguards and remediation -- won't mine as much of the metal
and won't employ as many people. For amid price suppression, the metal can't
be mined legally and responsibly; its price won't support responsible
practices.
But amid gold price suppression, desperate individuals -- people who
otherwise might be employed by a regulated mining industry -- will
mine it in ways that escape the costs of environmental safeguards and remediation
and will abscond with the metal itself, leaving a mess. Government may not
have the resources to police huge mining districts against thousands of
wildcat miners with no fixed addresses. Indeed, in impoverished countries
government may accept the environmental damage in exchange for the income it
brings to an underemployed population.
As it accepts gold price suppression particularly and commodity price
suppression generally as part of the Western central bank system of currency
market rigging, Peru is one of the many resource-rich countries insisting on
being poor, insisting on remaining the slaves of a largely invisible
colonialism that is far more effective than a military occupation would be.
Of course National Public Radio will never be permitted to tell that
story, and some weeks ago your secretary/treasurer sought but failed to
receive an invitation to speak at a big mining conference planned in Peru's
capital, Lima, in November:
http://www.globalfinancialconferences.com/...nvestment-latam
GATA's work, telling resource investors what they're up against, can be
inconvenient for mere stock touts.
But there must be some patriots in Peru, and someone in that
country might be permitted to tell the story, with the help of the
documentation GATA has compiled here:
target="_blank"
http://www.gata.org/node/14839
If you know any such people, please pass this along to them.
