metal sculptures by Facundo Huidobro

ganso

conejo

Facundo Huidobro was born en el campo outside Buenos Aires in 1982. He studied art & philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires. To read about & see more of his work, visit Facundo's website here.

lechuza & Facundo Huidobro

lithium cartel

[from MercoPress, 1 July 2011]

Argentina is promoting the idea of an OPEC-like cartel for lithium

Argentina is promoting the idea of an OPEC-like cartel for itself, Bolivia and Chile, which together control 85% of the world's reserves of lithium, a key component in electric car batteries.

“In the near future and with our production at such a high level, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile will control the lithium market,” said Rodolfo Tecchi, the director of the technology and science promotion division of the Argentine Ministry of Science and Technology. “They could do it with a sort of OPEC-like arrangement,” he added.

The three countries, which Forbes magazine calls the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” would establish “control mechanisms for the sale of lithium carbonate, avoiding the lower prices that come with overproduction” he indicated.

Not everyone in the industry agrees, including the head of the Argentina chamber of mining industries in the province of Salta, Facundo Huidobro.

“The idea is a bit premature,” said Huidobro. “We have to make sure that investments have been made”.

Salta, along with the northern provinces of Jujuy and Catamarca, contain Argentina's largest lithium deposits.

Argentina has about 10% of the world's reserves, after Chile, with 25% in Atacama, in the north of the country, and Bolivia, which holds about half the world's supply in Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat.

Sales of lithium by Chile, on the other hand, represent 44% of worldwide revenue, followed by Australia, with 25%, China with 13% and Argentina with 11%.

A ton of lithium, worth $2,500 in 2004, now sells for around $6,000.

While lithium is also used for cell-phone and computer batteries, experts expect its greatest use will be in electric cars.

carrying gold across borders

[a note from Roger to David Galland, Casey Research, 14 October, 2009]

Transporting Gold Across The Border To Canada

Last week I flew from Houston, Texas, to Calgary, Alberta, and I had 20 Krugerrands in my carry-on bag.

I have had “run-ins” with U.S. customs agents before and I didn’t want to repeat the experience. With this in mind, I called the customs office at the airport beforehand and told the agent that I would be carrying gold coins and asked him how to value them to conform to the ten thousand-dollar rule. He had no idea what I was talking about and told me to check with the airline when I got to the airport and they could help me.

Knowing that this was inaccurate but willing to play along, I presented my valuation question for declaring the coins to the airline check-in person. She, of course, had no idea what I was talking about and told me that nothing needed to be declared on the way out, but only on my arrival in Canada.

I next asked my question of the security person at the head of the security line. She at least had heard of the ten thousand-dollar rule but had no idea about valuation of gold. She told me to check with the security guy at the scanner. At this point, I’d had it. I just threw my bag on the scanner and picked it up on the other end and walked on the plane with no problem.

The situation went downhill at Canadian customs. I was still trying to do the right thing and asked the agent if I needed to declare. He had no idea and called his superior, who had no idea. I was then sent to the secondary agent to be checked. I told her I was just trying to determine if I needed to declare the coins dependent on value. She left for about five minutes to talk to a supervisor. She came back and asked me what they were worth. Trying to be honest, I told her it varied from day to day, but that they could probably bring between $900 to $1,000 each. She left again for five or ten minutes to check with her supervisor.

When she came back this time, she told me that they had decided that the coins must be rare collector items being brought into the country for resale. As such, they would not be classified as monetary instruments but as commercial merchandise, and they would need to collect GST on them. I did a quick calculation in my head and realized that they were getting ready to ask me for a thousand bucks to walk through customs with the coins.

I had also planned ahead for this problem and told her that I had called their central office before the trip and had been assured that no tax would be due on entry. She asked me if I had a name and number that I had called, which I provided to her. She still thought that they were collector items, so I just spilled several of them out on the desk to show that they were not protected in any way as I shuffled them together. She admitted that she had never seen a gold coin before.

She asked again about value, and I brought out another piece of paper that I carry with me. It is a downloaded page from the U.S. Treasury website that shows that the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury value gold for inventory purposes at $42.22 per ounce. She thought this over for a minute and asked if I had any idea what they weighed. I told her that they each contained exactly one ounce of pure gold. She took this information and my downloaded page back in the back to her supervisor.

After another five or ten minutes, she came back and said that because they were worth $42.22 each and I only had 20 of them, I was well under the ten thousand-dollar declaration and I was free to go. She didn’t have to tell me twice.

This really is a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Both countries have the ten thousand-dollar rule and threaten you in writing with confiscation if you don’t declare. Yet when you try to do the right thing and ask the people on the ground what they want you to do, they are clueless. The temptation is great to just walk through without a word. This would work most of the time, of course, but I really don’t want to leave a couple of tubes of Krugerrands at the airport.

Trace Mayer writes about The Great Life Hedge

[from Trace Mayer @ RunToGold, 8 April 2011]

La Estancia De Cafayate The Great Life Hedge In Salta Argentina

La Estancia De Cafayate is a unique life hedge, even a modern day Galt’s Gulch, located in Salta, Argentina. This is the dream project of ‘The International Man’ Doug Casey who partnered with Former Salta Governor and current Argentine Senator Juan Carlos Romero. If you are considering a life hedge, given the quality of people this development is attracting, the uncertainty in the world and the potential for significant major disruptions to daily life then I think this special phyle deserves consideration.

WHAT IS A LIFE HEDGE?

In Chapter 6 of The Great Credit Contraction I discuss the importance of the Five Flag Theory and a life hedge is an essential component of this concept. A life hedge is a backup location where you can relocate yourself to maintain the lifestyle you have designed. Implementing provident living principles requires one to put in place a contingency plan for their personal location.

When one is unprepared for and affected by those events which are possible, although not probable, then one’s lifestyle gets designed for them and in many cases they do not like it. Just ask the cold, starving masses in Japan, Haiti, Chile, Thailand, etc. who failed to adequately hedge against natural disasters. A life hedge is a form of insurance for yourself and your family against the flock of black swans. While charity is nice I guarantee you that no one cares more about whether you are fed and comfortable than you do. With the current system unraveling it is important to prepare for survivalism in the suburbs as the veneer of order is extremely thin.

For example, if you had to take the last plane out of your city then (1) where would you go and (2) how would you maintain your standard of living?

. . . click here to read the rest of this article & to watch Trace's interview with Doug Casey, Juan Carlos Romero, & Juan Esteban Romero

lithium in Puna

[from TraderHuddle, 4 April 2011]

Lithium Exploration Group Acquires Option On 104,000 Acres In NW Argentina

Lithium Exploration Group (OTCBB:LEXG) has acquired 60% ownership of five mining concessions in the Salta Province in northwest Argentina. The five concessions (“cateos”), totaling 104,765 acres, are located on the western edge of two salt lakes (“salars”) in the region, Salar de Rio Grande and Salar de Arizaro. The properties are under-explored to date, but have proven to have measurable levels of both lithium and potassium in the surface water.

All five properties are located in the Puna plateau, a lithium-rich, high-elevation basin on the eastern slopes of the Andes that straddles the Argentina-Chile border. The area is approximately 75km south of the Salar de Atacama and 100km northwest of the Salar de Hombre Muerto, both of which are actively producing lithium assets.

“We are very excited about the opportunity to explore these five cateos," said Lithium Exploration Group CEO Alex Walsh. "The group that staked the properties has already completed a NI 43-101 compliant technical report, including surface water tests and an outline for exploration of the assets. It is an amazing opportunity to explore the groundwater in a region that holds some of the largest deposits of lithium in the world.”

About Us

Lithium Exploration Group is a US based exploration and development company focused on the acquisition and development potential of lithium brines and other precious metals that demonstrate high probability for near-term production. Currently the company is focused on its Western Canada and South America properties. Lithium Exploration Group is a fully reporting company traded on the Nasdaq OTCBB under the symbol LEXG. www.lithiumexplorationgroup.com

Latin American silver

[from Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, tr. Cedric Belfrage, Monthly Review, 1973]

Between 1545 and 1558 the prolific silver mines of Potosí, in what is now Bolivia, and of Zacatecas and Guanajuato in Mexico, were discovered, and the mercury amalgam process, which made possible the exploitation of the lowest-grade silver, began to be used. The "silver rush" quickly eclipsed gold mining. In the mid-seventeenth century silver constituted more than 99 percent of mineral exports from Spanish America. Latin America was a huge mine, with Potosí as its chief center. Some excessively enthusiastic Bolivian writers insist that in three centuries Spain got enough metal from Potosí to make a silver bridge from the tip of the Cerro [Rico – the rich hill] to the door of the royal palace across the ocean. This is certainly fanciful, but even the reality stretches one's imagination to the limit: the flow of silver achieved gigantic dimensions. The large-scale clandestine export of Latin American silver as contraband to the Philippines, to China, and to Spain itself is not taken into account by Earl Hamilton, who nevertheless cites, in his well-known work on the subject, astounding figures based on data from the Casa de Contratación in Seville. Between 1503 and 1660, 185,000 kilograms of gold and 16,000,000 of silver arrived at the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Silver shipped to Spain in little more than a century and a half exceed three times the total European reserves – and it must be remembered that these official figures are not complete.

The metals taken from the new colonial dominions not only stimulated Europe's economic development; one may say that they made it possible. Even the effect of the Persian treasure seized and poured into the Hellenic world by Alexander the Great cannot be compared with Latin America's formidable contribution to the progress of other regions. Not, however, to that of Spain, although Spain owned the sources of Latin American silver. As it used to be said in the seventeenth century, "Spain is like a mouth that receives the food, chews it, and passes it on to the other organs, retaining no more than a fleeting taste of the particles that happen to stick in its teeth." The Spaniards owned the cow, but others drank the milk. The kingdom's creditors, mostly foreigners, systematically emptied the "Green Strongroom" of Seville's Casa de Contratación, which was supposed to guard, under three keys in three different hands, the treasure flowing from Latin America.

The Crown was mortgaged. It owed nearly all of the silver shipments, before they arrived, to German, Genoese, Flemish, and Spanish bankers.