My humble opinion,
I am not a Bre-X shareholder, but my portfolio has recieved serious damage by the alleged fraud. It is my opinion that:
1. The stock should have remained halted until the audit was completed - so everyone would be on an equal footing.
2. If it is proven to be a fraud, the assets of all the principals should be confiscated , liqidated, and divided among the shareholders and debtors.
3. That those who are found guilty of perpetrating the fraud should be given at least 10 years in prison with no opportunity for parole.
I am also curious as to who did the buying on Friday. If Freeport or Barrick was buying, I'd be very suspicious. This too should trigger an investigation.
Finally I believe that it is now imperative that new procedures regarding the handling of core and samples must be implemented. Perhaps special core washing procedures should be used to wash away any gold or other precious metal from the outside of the core before crushing; the crushing should take place at the lab; or perhaps only the central part of the core (with the outer few millimeters shaved away) should be assayed. Perhaps there are better ways to achieve reliability and I would welcome suggestions. But regardless of what happens here the cost of doing bussiness just went up for any junior who wants to be taken seriously.
In Albania the price for the pyramid scam was a civil war. I don't advocate anything so drastic here, but by God someone is going to have to pay for this, and the exhanges, the corelabs and the other players in this game are going to have to take clear and decisive action to restore credibility. This applies not only to ensuring the reliability of assays, but also to the policeing of some of those so called "investor relations" a**holes. I don't mind someone projecting optimism and a positive outlook for a stock, but on a number of occasions I have been told what were later proven to be bold faced lies. I have recently, through the school of hard knocks, gained the wisdom to record in writing the "facts" given to me by investor relations types and to let them know that I am doing so. I hope that this will not only discourage lieing, but if enough people record the same facts in their notes, it may stand up in court in a case where false information was being diseminated.
A final point. The internet provides the means to gather information and also to send messages. I belive we should all start sending messages to the tse, vse, ase etc etc to let them know that we are not going to take it anymore. Because if we don't play the game, then there is no game. Lets get them to change the rules to level the playing field. Does anyone know the email addresses to the appropriate people. I'd like to send them a message loud and clear.
P. |
