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Strategies & Market Trends : Strictly: Drilling II -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank Pembleton who wrote (459)	8/23/2001 2:21:51 PM
From: jim black	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36161

Frank, thanks for the update on the China HIV situation. I must admit surprise at the apparent candor of the report in China. That is a departure from their usual news policies as everyone knows. I personally prefer to rely on Jay Chen on the Collapse of 2001 thread for news of China and other things "Eastern" as he is over there, part Chinese himself, speaks the lingo, reads the papers over there all the time and reports regularly in a witty and informative way. Most valuable of all in my view he appears to be totally agnostic regarding politics and national posturing, doesn't matter who is involved. He learned the hard way. His father was submitted to "rehabilitation" in the post Mao years when Jay was a boy. Pray none of us have to learn his lessons. I believe the situation in S. Africa, indeed all of Africa, is a ticking time bomb that directly affects the gold industry in a unique way. The locals do the digging, always have and probably always will. They have so far been refractory to education. We in this country have experienced a discouraging degree of recidivism in behavior among teens in venereal disease rates as most teens have bought into the concept of the drug cocktails as a panacea. In this country we are having trouble educating our youth, AGAIN!, after twenty years. The teen view neglects two very important points regarding the HIV epidemic. First, the virus has an incredible propensity to mutate, hence developing resistance...which lead to the question of resistance to what?? Drugs!!! Drugs that in a cocktail can average $US 1000-1500/month. There is no cure on the horizon. So that leaves us with education. I have some experience with this as I was president of the board for 2 years of the largest Seattle area AIDS services organization. Education was our highest priority as a matter of practical and strategic importance. The disease is a physician's nightmare. Better to not get it. Now isn't that a profound statement?! Now flash fast forward to a report done for one of the big news networks a couple of weeks back. The reporter was following a nurse in S. Africa who was doing home treatment for children infected with AIDS. All she was able to do was give the kids vitamins! Drugs? Forget it. One family of three children living alone was of particular note. Only one of the children, the eldest, all girls, had contracted the disease from the birth mother. The other two children ( you better be sitting down for this) had contracted the disease from uncles who had raped them as infants, since it is popularly believed among the men of that culture that to have sex with a girl under two will take away the disease from the infected adult male! Yeah, that is a fact. Made me sick Now what does this nightmare have to do with us other than the fact we are ourselves are members of the same race? It is just this in my view. S. Africa is STILL a mess, even after the touted miracle of Mandela. I in no way disparage that great man's achievments against Apartheid. But he could not last forever and all of these gold producers are living amidst all that ignorance that is killing off the population. The current rate of infection is as high as 25% in most large population centers among blacks in S. Africa and probably higher in Zimbabwe. Add to that the fact of the ignorance level of the elected leaders in S. Africa and Zimbabwe and one takes IMVHO great risk to invest there, in any time frame. Further the point can be made that S.Africa is further verification of the mantra here, the cure for $10 oil is $10 oil. I believe the cure for $US 275 gold is just that. I think we have several things going on in the price of gold. Its price is, I believe, being held artificially low by manipulation but that is neither here nor there nor permanent. The area of the world that is the source of a huge percentage of gold production is headed on a collision course with economic disaster, from a venereal disease! Forgive me the outrageous gallows humor, for what else can humans do in the face of such disasters but laugh grimly at the world...the world is us...General Maximus in "Gladiator" said, "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back." To paraphrase Will Shakespere, "a condom, a condom, all my gold for a condom." I may spend a few millenia in purgatory for that remark, but damnit! it tells it like it is. China could lose half its population and it would be sad. But they are not ignorant en masse to date and they would find a way to deal with it. My hopes for Mandela's successor to be his intellectual or moral equal was a fantasy. And then there is always nationalization of the gold producers. Oh, more fun...sorry for the rant but I loved my time in Africa (Tanzania) and I loved the people. Only place I know where Christians and Muslims live mostly peacefully side by side, even will ask you over for tea with Muslims and Christians at the same table. That did happen to me, several times. Jim Black