why not merge with pan aust, page-5

CP82, while this has little to do with any possible merger with PNA, which is just not going to happen, you raise some intelligent questions.

In essence, you are suggesting that the bear market is a long way from ending, and without reading your link, it reinforces something I've been harping on since the original downturn. If what we are experiencing right now is not the very definition of a dead cat bounce I'll be very (pleasantly I have to say) surprised.

But in truth, what has changed since November, since the excesses of Wall St were finally exposed? What's happened in essence is that we have all printed a lot more notes. Nice thinking, guys. You have to understand that uneducated traders are only interested in a never-ending rising graph. Once it starts rising, they say you beauty, here we go again, just like all those other false calls of doom since 1988.

The trouble is a lot of them (perhaps like yourself judging by your nick) have never known anything different. It's just rise rise boom rise, whoops (the tech boom) rise rise rise....it always comes good. Why would be it be any different now?

I think it's different now for the same reason that nobody ever countenanced the possibility of General Motors going bankrupt. It's been unthinkable, and suddenly it's not. Who will be next? General Electric? Ford? Has anybody given any thought to what happens when one of the world's biggest economy collapses? Of course not, because THEY'RE TOO BIG TO FAIL.

That is currently being shown as bull excrement, and anyone who thinks the problems are all over has rocks in their head.

Settle down in the cave, kiddies, and be very careful, for even cash is useless is the US economy goes LBU. I have been quietly stocking away physical gold for the last six months with the little money I have left after the "financial advisers" lost a quarter of my worth in six months.

Now to get back to OZL, as someone else said, shareholders have been thrown the biggest liferaft ever seen with this offer. Anybody who sells now is crazy. Stick around, take the offer, then remain a holder in Prominent Hill P/L, 100% owned by Australian interests, generating hundreds of millions of cash per year with no debt and $600M in the bank. In the meantime you'll collect around 50c a share for all their other interests.

That will do me, thanks. If it gets to that stage, nobody can come in and thieve it; why would anyone sell except for a massive premium? It will be a cash cow.