JJ- I had bumped into Byron King at PDAC a couple of years ago & asked him about Stans...along with a few other of his "picks gone south"...well all of them.
Stans - BK told me...."I thought the people we were paying off were better connected than the competition. Turns out....not so much"
I did miss Resevoir Minerals...freak they even bought me lunch at an Agora Financial Symposium in Vancouver and pitched it again. Should of tossed $10K that way
Would be nice to get back to break even here
BK did "learn me" about Countries to never invest in...don't care how rich the deposit is
Some words from Rick Rule about risk
Rick: I think you need to define a risky jurisdiction. The truth is that mining is a location specific and capital intensive business, so it is particularly prone to political risk. It’s also a small business, which means that it never enjoys the political power necessary to defend itself. Mostly, the controllable aspect of political risk is price and probability. People who look like you and I, and I’m venturing into dangerous territory here, politically risky it can go, tend to believe that money that is stolen from us by white people in English, according to the rule of law, is less gone than money that’s stolen from us in ways that we understand less well.
So, I believe a lot of political risk is expectation and the price that one assumes for the risk. My biggest economic experience with political risk occurred 30 years ago in a wayward jurisdiction known as the People’s Republic of California where net present value in excess of about $700 million was taken by shareholders by the capricious California legislature. And people tell me that Congo is risky.
I would argue with you right now that the People’s Republic of British Columbia, which is regarded as a superb place for politics, is extraordinarily risky. The BC provincial legislature is a joint venture between the Socialists and the Greens. Not exactly mining’s best friend. The wealth grabs that the BC legislature in Vancouver City Council have made frankly protectionist racist taxes on foreign investors are, I think, a harbinger in the future. So, when people talk about cultures and political risk, people need to discriminate I think based on their understanding of the culture that they operate in and the culture that they are familiar with. Yes, Brazil has a long standing history of formal corruption. I would ask you what the difference between a campaign contribution and a bribe is.