The much talked about, much heralded Beijing Olympics are set to kick off in a week's time. This week, a story on the British Broadcasting System (BBC) caught my attention and made the hairs on my neck stand up.

It turns out there is a bigger issue at play that just smoggy air that could hurt the athletes. Turns out Chinese authorities are bracing for possible terrorist attacks and have installed anti-aircraft guns along with a host of other weaponry.

I seriously hope nothing of the sort happens, but if it does it will sweep China into the realm of America's war on terror. The implications of such an event are staggering and too complex to discuss at this point. But, if something of the sort does happen, the already shaky global financial system will suffer another body slam. I am keeping my eye on Gold for if something nasty does unfold in China, we will see the price of Gold do well as money gravitates to the safety of a hard physical asset with stable value.

I invite feedback on this issue from visitors to this site. The question is – what do you think the implications will be should the Beijing Olympics be marred by a terrorist incident?

Malcolm Bucholtz B.Sc, MBA Analyst

Feeding the Hungry Chinese Dragon

The writing is on the wall. China National Oil Company (CNOC), Exxon, Merrill Lynch and Interoil are all scrambling to secure one of the few remaining untapped oil and gas regions in the world.

And with $30 billion already slated for investment, you can bet we’ve reached the tipping point for the 50 TCF of natural gas these energy giants once wrote off as completely useless.

Papua New Guinea (PNG), with its largely tribal society, dense rain forests, and rugged mountain terrain, tucked away just north of the booming resource production of Southeast Asia and Australia, seemed absolutely worthless. With nearly 50 TCF of land-locked gas ready for production, gas resources cast off as “uneconomical,” are set to become wildly profitable and the making of billions of dollars will begin.

SilverCorp first came to my attention when Jim Puplava interviewed the Company Secretary, Lorne Waldman on the Financial Sense News Hour a few months back. I was driving and half listening to the podcast when I heard Lorne Waldman mention their cost to produce an ounce of silver was negative $13.62 / ounce, the lowest in their industry.

At that point I paused and rewound the podcast to make sure I heard it right, and after hearing it again I thought to myself, “How can their cost to produce silver be a negative number?”

As I listened further, I realized that precious metal companies at times report a negative cost / ounce in their production figures when backing out byproduct credits for other minerals they produce. In this situation, while SilverCorp focuses on silver mining, it also produces significant amounts of zinc and lead.