RE:The New Normal Crow,
We in the West have got to take responsibility for our own mess. No one forced us to purchase nearly all our medical supplies overseas. Of course, the Chinese are more than happy to sell it to us. How many customers paying with cash have you turned away recently? Now they don't want to sell for the same reason the USA doesn't want to ship masks to Canada. They're looking out for number 1.
We were caught totally unprepared. No hand sanitizer, no masks, no ventilators, insufficient supplies of antiviral medication. It may as well be 1918. Who is responsible for that? We are. That's because we believed nothing could happen to us. It's our own hubris that led to this mess.
As for the price of copper, I do agree in the short term it doesn't look good. The medium to long term is harder to nail down. If unrestrained government spending finally exhausts the ability of investors to soak up all that debt, we could see huge currency devaluation. Debt is soaring at the same time everyone is taking a giant haircut. Where will they even find the money to purchase all that debt? If people believe currency will be worth half the value next year, they'll look for hard assets in which to sink their money: anything, a refrigerator, stove, chicken farm -- or a copper mine. Share price can rise because paper currency falls.
It's also true people don't need much copper at the moment, but how many copper mines are actually operational right now? There's low demand, AND low supply. Everyone isn't competing against each for market share.
That said, I won't be going out to buy copper tomorrow morning. I'm really looking for masks.