Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Base metals, Boludos, Bolivia and Borev

The metals analysts and experts occasionally say intelligent things that we can all understand, and this one is spot on. "Bloomsbury Metals Economics Christopher Welch warned Tuesday that "everything that could go wrong is going wrong" in copper mine production, as new copper projects are not meeting production expectations."

I've been telling you for a while about underlying supply crimping in the copper and zinc market and how it will affect things going forward, but as these day the average trader thinks holding over the weekend is long term exposure it hasn't grabbed much attention. Let's hope a suit in London can open your eyes to the slow-motion trainwreck happening right here right now.

Meanwhile, a complete dickhead decides that he knows about Apex Silver (SIL) all of a sudden and gives us his thoughts on rumours in the Bolivian press even though he doesn't understand Spanish. This person will be read hundreds of times this morning at SeekingAlpha, and this is why I've been largely turned off the site. Some contributors are smart, but a lot are total idiots. I mean, this fool gives us the advice "buy low sell high" after the fact, and two minutes of checking shows that he said "buy low sell high" for Ambac in February 2008! Just another example of how much crap is available to read on stocks.

Over at Abiding in Bolivia, El Duderino shows empirical proof as to how the US academics lie to the press and the public about Bolivia. As El dude points out, this stuff is important; we can disagree on the subjective stuff, but if the person is using plain, straightup factual BS to uphold their slanted views we are morally obliged to laugh at them...and then sack them hopefully.

Meanwhile, da borev has a great new game. I've entered five times already, for what it's worth. Go play now!