be afraid, be very afraid........., page-6

re: up in the usa Well, according to the Bloomberg quotation from the link that I provided, the Bolivian vice President plans to “take control” of mining assets too.

I don’t think that they will have much trouble running the mine – the workers are already trained up and in place and they just need to replace the senior management.

I think that a country has every right to control their own resources and retain ownership of the country’s assets, but if they just seize control, break past agreements and don’t pay adequate compensation then they deserve economic sanctions.

The trouble is that the government that seizes the assets will get away with it for a decade or so, and be better off by keeping all of the mining royalties for themselves without paying the high development costs.

The country will pay in the longer term, when the geopolitical risk means that no company will want to invest.

Of course, the shareholders have lost their money in the meantime, and they never get it back even if there is a change of government.