Gold

In these days of uncertainty, with investors diving into the gold market to hedge against the fluctuations of the currency market and especially the recent devaluations of the dollar how about taking it just one step further?

Instead of simply buying and holding a physical amount of gold (if you’re lucky), how about swallowing it in pill form yes, you read that right so that you can “turn your innermost parts into chambers of wealth”?

Source: CITIZEN:Citizen

This hilarious contrivance comes to our attention via The Consumerist (thanks, Consumerist!), with the quote in the previous paragraph concocted by the wordsmiths at CITIZEN:citizen, an art production and distribution house based in San Francisco. Evidently, these artists and champions of the avant-garde have set out to break the rules by changing “the landscape of design in North America.

Well, they’ve surely changed something.

Source: CITIZEN:Citizen

The artist, Tomas Wong, collaborated with Ju$t another Rich kid (Ken Courtney) to create “Gold Pills, 24-karat gold leaf capsules that are 20 mm L in size.  They retail for $425 each, and since the pills inhabit the art sphere more than the consumable one, they’ve been bought by the likes of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. (Maybe that’s why they’re listed as “Temporarily unavailable on CITIZEN:citizen’s web page¦or perhaps it’s because some idiots actually did ingest some of these deliciously expensive looking treats and they ended up, ahem, not tasting so good.)

I guess CITIZEN:Citizen are just betting on selling to those who think their poop doesn’t stink or at least who think their poop is more valuable than anyone else’s. “Through its attention to craft, ideas and exquisite execution, CITIZEN:Citizen has defined itself by creating a new market, their site reads. Wong has been quoted as saying, “[I am] uncomfortable with uniqueness and preciousness as well as ownership. The design line the pills were part of, INDULGENCES, professes to address “the creation of and demand for the unnecessary, directly commenting on the ever-expanding market of luxury items in our culture. It always amazes me that artists commenting on excess and indulgence spawn things like $425 gold pills that only those who are being made fun of or “commented upon, to use their parlance can afford. Doesn’t this just perpetuate the circumstances of absurdity?

If the gold pill strike your fancy, you may also like Cokespoon #1, a solid bronze cast of a copper- and gold-plated Bic pen cap; Cokespoon #2 a solid bronze cast of the copper- and then gold-plated 1980’s McDonald’s coffee stirrer; or Swizzlestick, a solid bronze casting of a Playboy drinks stirrer.

Finally: a gold-and-copper-plated commentary on luxurious excess and 20^th century sexual imagery and branding. Awesome!

–Taras Berezowsky

An intriguing if slightly scary article appeared on Mineweb last week, summarizing a number of earlier interviews and comments by gold market commentators and investment gurus concerning the degree to which gold on deposit in bank vaults actually exists. Or, as the article explains, doesn’t. Confusing? Yes, well, the situation is more than a little confusing, but I will try to explain.

Unlike paper money, which we have always accepted, does not physically sit in bank vaults — following your deposit, it’s instantly recycled into loans and payments by your bank. We have always understood that for those of us fortunate enough to hold physical gold (this author not included), when we deposit our precious bars in a bank’s vault for safekeeping, and the bank starts billing us for storage charges, that gold is sitting safe in their vaults for our eventual return. Secure and instantly available when we want it? Well, maybe not. Anecdotal evidence quoted by Jim Ricards, Snr. MD of Market Intelligence, and James Turk, founder of Gold Money, relayed stories of clients with physical gold and silver in Swiss banks who had to fight for one and two months, respectively, to secure the physical return of their gold and silver holdings. The conclusion in both cases: the banks were no longer holding the physical metal, even though they were continuing to charge the owner for storage.

The article also quotes GATA in saying it has long been known that the amount of gold and silver traded every day on the markets far exceeds the amount actually in existence, and that if everyone demanded simultaneous delivery it would be impossible. That should not come as any surprise; the same ounce can be bought and sold many times in a day representing dozens of ounces when in fact it is the same ounce going around. In addition, many trades are swaps, hedges and other transactions requiring financial delivery, not physical. Nevertheless, the point is probably a fair one that we trade gold and silver as if ever trade was physically backed, with no risk on non-delivery priced in and yet in most cases there is a counter-party risk which like a sub-prime mortgage gets passed around, until one day it doesn’t. As the volume of physical gold taken up by sovereign states like China and by physically backed funds like ETFs has rapidly risen in recent years, it raises doubts about how much metal is actually available for prompt delivery in the market place.

If these stories of bank non-delivery were isolated cases, they could be dismissed as exceptions. But Resourceinvestor ran an article by James Turk   providing empirical evidence supporting the view that we have already entered a period of severe and growing physical tightness in gold supply — and he points to the forward price curve to prove it. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) forward price curve is normally in contango, meaning the forward gold price is higher than the spot price. The difference is a reflection of the cost of finance and storage of gold for the intervening months. If the spot price is higher than the forward price, the market is said to be in backwardation and is usually the case if spot demand exceeds supply, creating pressure for buyers to pay excessive premiums to secure prompt delivery.

Source: Resource Investor

As these graphs show, both the gold and silver markets have been in backwardation. This degree of backwardation has not been seen since the LBMA databases started in 1989. The fact that 12-month gold is also trending towards backwardation shows the situation is intensifying, says James Turk.

The situation is even worse for silver, where six-month silver has been in backwardation since June 2.

Source: Resource Investor

The likely result, says the committed gold bull Mr. Turk, is rising prices and although we cannot see any justification for a further bull run on gold, we have to agree. One likely solution to a short-term shortage is higher prices forcing more recycling and demand destruction as jewelry and industrial use is hit. Whether that will be enough to counteract rising fund buying, though, remains to be seen. One thing is for sure: it looks like an unpleasant set of opposing forces playing out in the gold market and could be the harbinger of further volatility.

–Stuart Burns

We wrote over a year ago about China actively urging its citizens to buy gold and silver and of course we hear constantly about how China’s insatiable demand for base metals and ores is driving up the price of all metals, but an intriguing article on a Wall Street Journal blog by Carolyn Cui explains how the two have been playing out quietly behind the scenes. Not that China’s demand for gold is some kind of secret. We have written in MetalMiner about increased state reserves of gold, partly from increased mining activity and partly from purification of lower purity reserves held but not previously recognized as part of China’s reserve. But what is curious is how widespread in demand and how substantial in character the phenomenon has been.

As the government has loosened restrictions on ownership of gold, the metal has been purchased both by financial institutions and individuals. In August, import and export of gold by banks was relaxed, opening up the market. In the first 10 months of this year, China imported 209.7 metric tons of gold, a fivefold increase with the same period last year. As Ms. Cui notes, trading volume increased 43 percent to 5,014.5 tons on the Shanghai Gold Exchange in the first 10 months of 2010. At a speech at the China Gold and Precious Metals Summit in Shanghai, Mr. Shen, chairman of the exchange, detailed the size of China’s imports this year — purchases were big enough to absorb all the gold that the International Monetary Fund had shed during that time period, which stood at 148.6 tons. The gold market often looks to the major ETFs as drivers of gold demand, but China’s purchases also exceeded the SPDR Gold Shares, the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, which added 159.48 tons of gold into its holdings in the same period. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said the nation’s gold production reached 277.017 metric tons in the January-to-October period, up 8.8 percent from the same period last year.

China’s 2010 gold production is expected at about 350 metric tons this year and according to the World Gold Council, could double in ten years. More than fears of inflation, sovereign debt crises, the squabbling Koreas, or a weakening US dollar may be the driver of the gold price being good old-fashioned demand from the world’s biggest buyer. Now wouldn’t that be a novelty?

–Stuart Burns

Source: National Geographic magazine; Photo by Michael Melford

As I unwrapped the plastic mailer from my December issue of National Geographic magazine, the second-from-last headline on the cover caught my eye. It read: “Alaska’s Choice: Gold or Salmon?

The words “Alaska, “gold and “salmon intrigued me. Alaska, because I consider myself a camping/hiking/all-around outdoors enthusiast and would cherish the chance to explore the state someday. Gold, because we cover it for MetalMiner. Salmon, because, well, it’s delicious. I love to eat it. But it wasn’t until I read the story that I understood the relationship between the three.

Pebble Partnership, a team effort between British Columbia-based Northern Dynasty Minerals and Anglo American, is evaluating the potential for constructing a two-mile-wide open pit mine and a 1,700-foot-deep underground mine just 120 miles north of Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska. The ore body that lies underneath their exploration grounds, just north of Iliamna Lake, “could hold the world’s largest deposit of gold and one of the largest of copper.

Source: aifma.org

The problem: The massive watershed, made up of countless rivers and tributaries that funnel into Bristol Bay, is home to the largest spawning run of sockeye salmon in the world, not to mention one of the biggest king salmon runs. (Incidentally, the west end of the bay is home to Sarah and Todd Palin’s family fishing operation, and the namesake of their eldest daughter; Ina Bouker, one of the Palins’ “family members, according to a recent episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska, is pictured kissing a salmon in the NatGeo article.)

So, what we have in the NatGeo story is a classic iteration of the “environment vs. industry narrative. Locals don’t want one of the richest salmon fisheries to be tainted with acid mine drainage, among other potential threats; Pebble’s prospectors want to assure them this won’t happen, while making sure such a rich deposit doesn’t go uncovered. But, for MetalMiner purposes (I’ll save my personal treehugger response for another time and place!), let’s focus on exactly what Pebble Partnership is sitting on.

According to data available on Pebble’s Web site, the prospected mine is home to 80.6 billion pounds of copper and 107.4  million ounces of gold. There are also 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum. In addition, the company detected significant amounts of silver, rhenium and palladium. These deposits lie underneath 180 or so square miles of land, on which Pebble holds the leases.

The company estimated the mines’ total value, at today’s prices, to be between $100-500 billion. By comparison, the estimated annual value of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery is $120 million, according to the article. If the mine were to produce metals for 25 years, and assuming the annual value of the fisheries remained the same, salmon fishing would rake in only $3 billion in the same time span.

That’s not to say Pebble discounts the economic and environmental impact of the salmon fisheries. John Shively, Pebble’s CEO, arrived in Alaska 40 years ago as a VISTA volunteer and used to be commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources. He says the mine would provide 2,000 construction jobs and 800 to 1,000 operating jobs, and wants more than half of the operating positions to be filled by locals, according to the article. Shively also says that Pebble is taking steps in its proposals to ensure no net loss, and create a permanent power source for the residents of the Bristol Bay region.

The partnership has already thrust itself into community involvement and infrastructure building. They created the $5 million Pebble Fund to create “a sustainable future for the Bristol Bay fisheries and the native Alaskans who live and work in the area.

Pebble doesn’t expect to finalize a preliminary development plan and application for permits until 2011; construction likely wouldn’t even happen until 2017. But when it does, Pebble’s find should help US gold and copper production grow considerably.

–Taras Berezowsky

In a typically frank interview, with Kamal Ahmed of the Telegraph this weekend, Jim O’Neill, the new chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), mapped out his view of currencies and the US economy.

Turning his attention first to the euro and European debt worries, O’Neill’s opinion was ‘we probably haven’t seen anything yet.’ He feels the euro should carry a risk premium of at least 10% and said the only reason the currency was not weaker was because of problems being masked by events in America and worries about weakness in the US economy. In Goldman’s view, these are overdone and O’Neill feels there are several encouraging signs that the US economy is showing more strength than it is being given credit for. Unemployment should start coming down slowly early next year and growth will pick up in 2011. As a result, the USD/Yen exchange rate in particular will come under pressure, but also the USD against other major currencies as the dollar strengthens in the face of further uncertainty in Europe and stagnation in Japan. In O’Neill’s opinion, the only problem the US had before the crisis was it had no domestic savings rate; two years on, savings have gone from 0.6% to 6.2% (which has resulted in the weakness in growth these last two years).

Encouraging views for US listeners, supported by recent developments both in macro economic trends and currencies following the Irish bailout last week, but what impact would that have on metals? First, gold would fall. The current strength of gold is predicated on fear of US inflation and prolonged financial instability — a stronger resurgent US with a rising US dollar would negate the safe-haven attraction of gold and likely result in the price coming off.

What applies to gold could apply to some of the base metals too. Aluminum has already come off on the back of a stronger dollar dropping from close to $2400/ton to $2250/ton in just the last two weeks.

Source: Kitco.com

This GFMS Index chart of all metals illustrates the falls well, following as it does the movements of the dollar over this period in the chart below it. Metals prices courtesy of Kitco, exchange rates of Exchange-Rates.org.

Source: exchange-rates.org

Further dollar strength will likely push the price lower still, as it will for lead and some of the other lesser metals with well-supported fundamentals.

If O’Neill’s analysis is correct (and he hasn’t been at the top of his game at Goldman for over 15 years without being right more often than he is wrong), then this provides a cautionary counterargument to the more bullish views on base metal prices for next year. Those base metals with strong fundamentals like copper have fared better over the last two weeks of dollar strength and would likely continue to do so if the dollar rose further, but those like aluminum may find themselves under pressure next year, other developments (such as capacity closures) notwithstanding.

–Stuart Burns

Earlier this year, a friend of mine mentioned that platinum, palladium and titanium are all the rage because of their strength-to-weight ratio and, well, that’s just what’s “in right now. If I was to go the more traditional route gold she told me to wait until the gold price dipped under $1,000 an ounce. (As most of us can see, that doesn’t look like it’s happening in the near term.)

However, my friend is not a trader or adviser. She’s a metalsmith and jewelry designer. I’m not a metals producer, buyer or speculator. No, folks, I am in a different market altogether.

I’m in the market for a wedding band.

You see, I’m getting married next summer. Having already made the proposal-and-engagement-ring leap, I am now beginning to think about what type of wedding band I should be buying. And although I know what I can afford (and will likely end up purchasing), the occasion gives rise to ponder: What are some metals other than gold that could really perform well in the future? Any “sleepers that would make a great investment?

With the Financial Times reporting this morning that jittery speculators have pushed the price of gold above $1,420 an ounce, now seems a good time to think outside the box when it comes to wedding bands.

Over a series of posts, I will lay out a look into particular metals that may perform well in the longer term. I do not intend on, nor do I foresee, having the need to cash in on my investment; but it could pay out to consider the classic go-to mantra, “Buy Low, Sell High. A more pertinent question: what if I lose the damn thing? If that were to happen, a simple cost analysis of the current precious metals market now could surely pay dividends later.

Stay tuned, as they used to say.

–Taras Berezowsky

It seems the gold rush is slowly working its way up again.

With an already weak dollar, QE2 around the corner and the price of gold at around $1350 per ounce”and few signs of letting up”certain market watchers and product providers are pointing to these factors as the main reason to invest in gold and other precious-metal securities.

Indeed, if QE2 goes through, many analysts say that gold prices will spike sharply.

One of the liveliest (and certainly lesser-known, at least in some U.S. markets) ways to invest in precious metals is with commodity ETFs. Now, one of the world’s leading promoters and issuers of these funds, ETF Securities (ETFS), is making a run on U.S. markets. More on ETFS’s performance can be found here.

On Nov. 2, at a precious metals briefing in Chicago, ETFS made their bid to prove to Chicago investors the global importance and potential value of investing in precious metals “baskets”bundles of precious metals securities”in this economy.

“At $1300 an ounce, is the price of gold really expensive? No, it’s not! said David Hightower, president and co-founder of The Hightower Report and a speaker at the briefing. “Just shows that times are changing.

In his view, gold’s market price should match the cost of production. By inducing another round of quantitative easing, Hightower later said, the Fed is extending the gold market for the future.

But what do commodity ETFs mean for metals buyers? In terms of gold and silver, probably not much. However, as far as platinum and palladium prices go”and even more importantly, base metals such as copper and aluminum”key developments are on the horizon.

After already introducing physically backed gold ETFs in the U.S. (traded on NYSE Arca), ETFS is set to introduce base metals baskets soon. When MetalMiner asked Nicholas Brooks, Head of Investment Research and Strategy at ETFS, when to expect an announcement on physically-backed base metal baskets, he kept mum.

As we look to watch metals such as copper and aluminum trade on ETFs, the biggest concern is when, not if, inflation will hit. The implications for buyers may be huge.

With Bernanke playing with QE fire the second time this decade, folks such as Hightower see no way around it. “In my 30 years of experience, he said, “I have not seen such a loaded macroeconomic setup for inflation, and politicians think they can stop this.

Regardless, it behooves investors and metals buyers to be educated on commodity ETFs so that they not only are aware of the risks, but of the potential rewards. Firms such as ETF Securities want to spread the word to buyers that the terms “commodity and “ETF, when used side-by-side, will no longer sound as opposite as oil and water.

–Taras Berezowsky

As a follow-up to our earlier piece, we had a chance to catch up with Will Rhind, Head of US Operations for ETF Securities, “a leading promoter and issuer of ETF Securities exchange traded products (ETPs), specializing in commodities, with global assets under management of over $22 billion as of October 2010,” according to their website. We covered a range of topics with Will including speculation over a physically backed aluminum or copper ETF.

MM: Who are the investors in your funds?

ETF Securities: We aren’t broker/dealers so we only see the intermediaries who manage money for individuals (e.g. hedge funds, mutual funds and wealth managers). The investors tend to be anybody from mutual funds down to private wealth managers who are managing money for those with multi-millions of dollars of net worth.

MM: We attended a scrap conference a few weeks ago and one panel participant (a nickel trader) said that he thought the mood in the US was decidedly “pessimistic vs. the European markets (he had recently spoken at a conference in Italy). What is your take on market pessimism in terms of what you are seeing?

ETF Securities: Gold prices themselves are being driven higher at the moment because of the softening of the US dollar and another potential bout of quantitative easing. Hard assets are inflating on the back of that. But in terms of economic pessimism I would say the opposite. People are more optimistic in the US for two reasons. First, this year the biggest inflows globally into ETF Securities range of gold ETFs were due to the European sovereign debt crisis (Greece). A larger percentage of investors in Europe bought gold than in the US. From a sentiment perspective I would say that European investors were more negative. Second, in platinum and palladium or the more quasi-industrial metals used in industry, they are more highly correlated to growth generally. We’ve seen steady inflows into US palladium (PALL) and platinum ETFs (PPLT) but outflows on the European side of those same investments. So I see European investors as more negative.   US investors appear quite a bit more upbeat than European investors.

MM: What are you seeing in terms of silver and interest in silver?

ETF Securities: We see continued interest in silver and no redemption in SIVR (silver) for the last few months. Silver prices as we know have rallied significantly over the last few weeks. Now for the first time, people are starting to talk about silver in a positive light. Prices were languishing at $15-17/oz and gold had perpetually increased. The consensus among our investors seemed to be that one of two things would eventually happen with those dynamics – silver prices had to rise or gold prices would have to decrease. There are a lot of investors that generally perceive silver at $20/oz   to be undervalued relative to gold at $1350/oz.

MM: We’ve seen a big run up in other metals markets (besides precious metals) such as tin, even nickel to some degree. What are you seeing there and what are the prospects for a base metal ETF say in copper or aluminum?

ETF Securities: Tin and nickel are examples of metals that are not well understood by investors whereas headline metals such as copper and aluminum are better understood. People can invest in those and if they feel the economy is on track they might see copper as a more leveraged play on a global recovery.

In terms of a physically backed aluminum or copper ETF, ETFS offered no comment.

–Lisa Reisman

We are used to hearing divergent views on metal prices, but rarely can well respected sources differ as much as we are currently hearing in the silver market. Quoted in a Telegraph article, James Turk, who founded bullion dealer GoldMoney in 2001 and is said to manage $1.2 billion of assets, thinks prices could hit $50 by the end of next year. Mr. Turk believes quantitative easing will devalue currencies and send precious metals much higher. He uses the traditional gold-silver ratio to illustrate that silver is undervalued at current prices. Simply put, the gold-silver ratio is the number of ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold. With silver currently at about $22.10/ounce and gold at $1316.25, the ratio stands at 59.56. According to Mr. Turk, in 1970 it was 20, it peaked at just under 100 in 1970 and the average is about 40, but in February 2010 it was as high as 72 when gold was high and silver exceptionally low, now it is headed back to its long-term average.

So much for the bulls; what of the bears? Well, Suki Cooper, a precious metals analyst at Barclays Capital takes a much more measured tack. While not bearish, she has an average target for silver next year of $22.20, expecting the metal to peak in the second quarter at an average price of $23.70. Silver is still in surplus, but it has benefited from safe haven buying, she is quoted as saying, meaning it has benefited this year, but don’t expect it to continue unabated.

As an Economist article points out, silver not only offers opportunities for investors keen for a safe haven, but it also offers diversity as an industrial metal. Whereas investors buy around 25-30 percent of gold, only about a tenth of global silver production goes the same way. Roughly half the world’s silver goes to industrial uses, particularly electronics and in photovoltaic cells. Demand is likely to continue to increase as economic activity recovers, particularly in Asia as where so much of the world’s electronics originate. In addition, supply, while not tight, is at least constrained by the fact that 75 percent of the world’s supply of silver comes as a by-product of copper, lead and zinc mining. So ramping up production is dependent on the economics of those metals before silver.

Having said the above, investor interest in silver, the main driver of current price strength may be waning. Ms. Cooper states in the Telegraph that in the current year to date investment inflows into silver have amounted to 1,377 tons, compared to the nine-months to September 2009 when it was 2,942 tons. It could be fear of a slowing in global growth over the next 12 months will mean industrial demand for silver will flatten out and with it investor appetite, even with quantitative easing to keep investors jittery there are no shortage of gold opportunities around for those looking for a “safe haven. The silver market has been, and remains, in surplus.

Source: Bloomberg

As ETF securities advised in a recent presentation to investors, Mr. Turk’s gold-silver ratio has been to the north of the 50-year average (they use 50 against the Telegraph’s average 60) for much of the last 15 years. Maybe the normal level for silver is in fact closer to the current ratio of 60, and to hearken back to an average with prices in the 1970s and 80s is misleading.

We do not pretend to have a crystal ball on the silver market, but if we had to put our hard-earned cash on the future price direction, we would suggest a large measure of volatility around current levels sounds more likely than any dramatic extension of the current bull run. Silver is not gold, and mine supply and industrial demand still play a significant role in setting the price.

–Stuart Burns

Last week, tucked away in the Financial Reform bill that passed both Houses of Congress (and now awaits President Obama’s signature), there appears a key provision that will create a significant supply chain regulatory compliance challenge for any company sourcing materials that contain tin, tungsten, tantalum and yes, gold! In short, these OEM’s (think Apple, HP, Intel pretty much any company that manufactures electronics, etc.) will need to state whether they source “conflict minerals from both Congo and neighboring countries and “report on steps taken to exclude conflict sources from their supply chains, backed by independent audits, according to The Enough! Project. The Securities and Exchange Commission will serve as the regulatory body and they will have nine months to create the regulations to implement this provision of the bill.

Getting past the fact that the SEC serves as a rather strange federal oversight group for a purely supply chain function (think FDA for food compliance issues, FAA for the aviation industry, etc.), we can’t help but wonder if there is anyone in the SEC with any knowledge at all of global supply chain management! Hopefully, the manufacturing industry will take an active role in helping shape the final regulations (maybe we can send Andy Grove in to assist?) to ensure we don’t see another Sarbanes-Oxley overly complex regulatory nightmare!

In a previous article on the subject, we talked about how DC advocacy group The Enough! Project presented a clear case in their report geared towards exposing the use of conflict minerals from the Congo in American electronics. Their argument called for a long-term plan focused on supply chain transparency and gradually implementing audits and regulatory practices that would eventually expose exactly where conflict metals were entering the supply chain, so that companies could progressively find alternate sources. Another crucial part of their suggested solution also called for action within the Congo and abroad to relegate the corrupt political system that currently controls the minerals to distribute the profits in a constructive way.

In some ways, they’ve come across a great victory in their campaign. A letter was recently released from John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough! Project, that reads:

“Congress passed the Wall Street reform bill with the inclusion of a key provision on conflict minerals which will require companies to disclose whether they source conflict minerals from Congo or neighboring countries, and require companies to report on steps taken to exclude conflict sources from their supply chains, backed by independent audits.

We have to ask, though — is the Enough! Project claiming this a complete victory? While we fully support their mission, we support the version they present in their original report, the one that involves deep research into not only the supply chain, but also the Congolese governmental system and processes so that Congo can eventually function on their own as a viable economic power. Therefore this “victory to us seems a little hollow — more regulations for US businesses to comply with and really no solution aimed at policies to assist the Congolese, who need to rebuild their economic system literally from the ground up. But perhaps it is a start.

“We will be coming back to you with ideas of how you can continue to be involved in shaping the actions our government takes and the practices our electronics companies utilize in sourcing the minerals that power all of our electronics products. Peace in Congo is possible, Prendergast’s letter ends. We agree — calling attention to this issue is vitally important. But let’s hope the Enough! Project doesn’t stop here.

We’re catching fish for the Congo instead of teaching them to fish — and that could have far worse implications than even today’s horribly corrupt situation.

— Sheena Moore & Lisa Reisman