Gold hits all time high priced in oil

[UndercoverElephant]

We have an oil price sticky thread and a gold price sticky thread, but no oil and gold price sticky thread!

http://fortune.com/2016/02/12/the-price ... time-high/

Gold enthusiasts are having a great month, as the dollar price of the shiny metal has recently hit highs not seen since last year.

But by another measure, gold is having the best run in 150 years.

According to analysis by Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid, gold has never been more expensive, when priced in terms of oil. “We find that the gold price has just hit an all time high at around 44 times the price of oil,” Reid writes in a Thursday note to clients. “The previous high of 41 in 1892 has just been exceeded. For perspective the ratio was at 6.6 in June of 2008 and only 12 in May of 2014. The long term average is 15.5.”

[Mark]

Not good news for the rainforests then......
http://kids.mongabay.com/lesson_plans/l ... ining.html
http://kids.mongabay.com/elementary/505b.html

[emordnilap]

Jeez, those pictures are saddening.

[UndercoverElephant]

The pictures are pretty awful, yes.

Although it would obviously be wrong to associate these problems with gold and silver, or that gold is mined purely to make jewelry and bullion. Mining is almost as old as civilisation, and unfortunately the future of mining is almost certainly going to become ever more destructive. Industrialised civilisation requires an unending supply of (from one of the links) " Manganese, tantalum, cassiterite, copper, tin, nickel, bauxite...."

It is a long list, and presumably all of these things are subject to the same production patterns as fossil fuels. The most easily accessed stuff is already gone, and future supplies will therefore come from ever larger holes in ever remoter places. The only obvious exception is iron, because iron deposits are so vast that we'll never run out of easily accessible ore.

The probability of an advanced technological civilisation existing without widespread and destructive mining is nil. The best we can hope (unless you are a Jensenite advocate of the ending of civilisation ASAP) for is that when the mining operations are finished, money is spent cleaning up the mess and putting things into a state where nature can reclaim the land.

[UndercoverElephant]

Also, in a similar vein (ha!)

Article about La Rinconada, which is the highest town in the world, over 18,000ft up in the Peruvian Andes. 50,000 people, no water supply, no sewage system, no rubbish collection, no hotels. Average annual temperature 1 degree C. The sole reason it exists is because it sits next to one of the richest gold mines in the world. The miners work for 30 days without pay, and on the 31st day they are allowed to take as much rock as they can carry, for themselves. Whatever gold they can extract from that rock is their pay.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... story.html

[Mark]

The problem in Peru (& elsewhere) is the lack of regulation in remote areas....
The authorities occasionally have a splurge, people are arrested, machinery confiscated/destroyed....
The miners gang up and become aggressive - it becomes a tense stand off...
The authorities get worn down and give up as a bad job, probably assisted by some back-handers....
The miners get back to business as usual....

The environmental degradation from artisanal mining is massive.
Big corporates are just as bad, but at least governments have some chance to control/regulate them.

However, the thing that really regulates all gold mining is the price....

[snow hope]

Gold back a little to $1,210/oz
Markets up today - FTSE just gone above 6000 again - up 2.5% today and up yesterday.

It really is like a WE ARE DODGY. It is just betting on company shares, crazy volatility.

No idea why it is all upside today - market sentiment - people second guessing other people... load of bollXks.

And our pensions depend on it.

Somebody in the pensions industry said to me it you want a pension - you just have to play the game. Feck.