The Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum could not have chosen a better keynote speaker than Nouriel Roubini to open this year’s event, which takes place in Kalgoorlie from August 3 to 5. Fortune magazine noted that in 2005, the economist said US home prices were riding a speculative wave that would soon sink that economy.
“Back then the professor was called a Cassandra. Now he’s a sage,” Fortune noted in a 2008 edition. According to a Wikipedia biography, Roubini, in September, 2006, warned a sceptical IMF that “the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.” He also foresaw “homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unravelling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt”. It did indeed. Back then, the New York Times labelled him “Dr Doom”.
Interestingly, there are two purely African presenters whose links to Australia are only through their secondary listings on the ASX. They are Equinox Minerals Ltd, whose primary listing is on the TSX and Platinum Australia Ltd, which is on London’s AIM.
Both these companies have brought new, greenfields projects into production over the past year.
Platinum Australia chose the Eastern Limb of South Africa’s Bushveld Complex to develop, from the ground up, the Smokey Hills PGE operation. It is a modest starter project which has been developed quickly and relatively inexpensively. And it is just the start of what chief executive John Lewins has in mind for the company he has developed so admirably.
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