Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Ecuador's Mining Law


Various media, including Mineweb right here, are reporting that the mining law goes to the interim congressillo (literally 'little congress' and the body that's handling matters until the 2009 congressional elections are held) tomorrow.

The hot topics of debate among the Canadian investment community are (as usual) the royalty payments due and the windfall tax regime to be imposed. Plenty of talk about how things are still uncertain at this point (see Michael Gray's comment in the mineweb report, because among the Canadian analysts he's about as good as it gets on Ecuador).

But unsurprisingly, nobody up North cares much about Ecuador (as usual) because the only thing they care about is their investments. All the 'experts' on Ecuador that write, some to me with "Oh look Otto you're missing this-or-that piece of news on the country" that can't even speak the language, have no idea about life there and wouldn't even know where to find it on a map if they hadn't bought 2,000 shares of whatever junior miner exploring the country three years ago.

Don't you guys get it yet? You're greedily grasping at the straws of the very same economic system that is falling into a million pieces. You want things to change, but when a country decides to change, defend and protect itself from the me-first system previously imposed on it by the so called developed nations, all of a sudden Correa's Ecuador isn't playing by the rules. All of a sudden the President isn't doing right by the people. All of a sudden the uncertain future of mining isn't good for the country. And here you are, biting your nails and worrying about a poncey little mining law when 99% of you didn't give a damn about the contents of the country's recently approved new constitution, a far more important document to the future wellbeing of the country and its population.

What makes you think that anybody wants your rotten, selfish and putrid FDI any more? What gives you the right to demand continued personal profits from nations such as Ecuador? My advice is to stop pretending you care about what happens in Ecuador and admit it's pure greed, because with few exceptions you're in it for yourselves and trying to bully a broken system onto a weaker country in order to benefit your own back pockets in the name of freedom, democracy and all the usual bullshit.