RE:RE:RE:Stock Market CrashIf there really was a stock market crash, no company would be safe, and that includes banks. How do banks earn income? Through debt. What if all those home mortgages and credit cards can't make payments? The bank is toast. Banks used to fail all the time, until we came up with Too Big To Fail. And what if the government can't prop them up, as was the case in 2008? There is no longer a gold standard. The only thing backing up fiat currencies today are "the good faith and credit" of the government.
Every crash is different. Don't assume a future crash would play out like the previous one. For example, government may be forced to monetize the debt. Then runaway inflation would devalue currency. In that case the price of all commodities would rise. It is prudent to plan for financial Armageddon, unlikely as this may seem today. In my opinion, only gold, silver, platinum, and gemstones represent a store of value that has been recognized for thousands of years.
So the long term impact on IVN is hard to predict from our perspective today. It could be that money will devalue, not commodities. A good example is Iran, where their rial is spinning into the abyss, under the weight of US sanctions. On the black market, it's 122,000 rials to the USD. There are riots in the streets. I think it was something like 12:1 under the Shah. It could happen to us, perhaps not quite so bad.
Short term IVN would take a big hit, just like everyone else. Financially, the Company is in a strong position. USD $550 million cash, very minimal debt. In an inflationary world, owning high grade PGM, copper, and zinc mines isn't such a terrible outcome.
So it's not just a question of will the stock market crash, but what would that crash look like? And how would the global recovery proceed when we pick up the pieces? And one way or another there would be a recovery. It's just a question of who would still be standing once the dust settles. And it may not be the big banks.