

From gold to lead - bootload
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12522908

======
bootload
_"... So far no big company has gone bust. Much mining development in
Australia is funded with equity, not debt, and is consequently not as
financially stressed as you might think ..."_

One reason Startups are not as prevalent in Aus. as the could be. It's easier
to dig holes & raise dollars than think & raise dollars.

~~~
hugh
A bit of a non-sequitur there? It's not exactly easy or cheap to figure out
where to dig, then to get the rights to mine there, then to actually build a
mine. Mining and entrepreneurship generally aren't competing for the same
stock of people or money.

~~~
bootload
_"... A bit of a non-sequitur there ..."_

Do you mean it's illogical? If so use the simpler English equivalent.

 _"... It's not exactly easy or cheap to figure out where to dig, then to get
the rights to mine there, then to actually build a mine. ..."_

Well lets be specific here. Most mining is occurring in Australia is within
known areas. So finding where is not as expensive as you might think. New
fields maybe. The most profitable are the big existing fields. For most
reserves, the key part is a case of following the geology. The country is
extensively mapped and contract Geologists do the sampling. Rights for mining
in the past have been as simple as staking a claim & registering it, laying
down the cash. Aboriginal rights to land and it's use have only just become an
issue for most mining companies. Money here is percentages of profits.

Now there is real skill in mine construction and engineering; Building the
infrastructure and processes and maintaining these systems. It should be no
surprise that best mining software company,
<http://www.mincom.com/Company/About/> is in Australia. While not easy it's
easy to visualise, cost and imagine.

What do I mean by being lazy? It's easier for financiers and investors to see
this type of investment rather than watching dollars being invested in human
capital and ideas. Yet they think nothing of writing off investments that
failed when the commodity market tanks and ore yields are not economic.

Coal, Iron-ore, gas, zinc, gold... in terms of commodities Australia has the
lot. But this leaves the country vulnerable to economic changes. Chinese
demand for Iron-ore drops, coal usage around the world becomes more expensive
due to trading and the economy tanks. Is there a better way to create wealth?

 _"... Mining and entrepreneurship generally aren't competing for the same
stock of people or money. ..."_

Entrepreneurship follows Money and while the money is being made off
commodities, less effort will be put into the type of Entrepreneur that
creates wealth from intangible ideas. So would the student who is interested
in physical sciences say the mechanical engineer, the geologist or
geophysicist be capable of Startups if they knew there was opportunity to do
so? Would more money then flow to successful companies they create?

Here's a compelling idea: _"Is there more wealth generation potential in
mining for minerals or building businesses based on intangible ideas like
software?"_ Minerals are finite. Ideas are not.

~~~
jorgbl32991
"Do you mean it's illogical? If so use the simpler English equivalent."

I hope that was a joke. What do you propose? "A bit of a 'does not follow'
there?"

~~~
bootload
_"... I hope that was a joke. What do you propose ..."_

I would propose, 'ill-logical'. Using foreign phrases in English where a
simpler one suffices, makes for harder reading. It is often used by writers to
impress, or prop-up arguments. There are quite a few readers who are reading
English as a second or third language. Let the ideas come forward instead of
the language.

~~~
hugh
"Illogical" is vague enough to be useless, and is rarely used in conversation
except by Mr Spock. "Non-sequitur" is a very specific form of illogic,
appropriate in this case.

I'm sorry if there's anyone out there who doesn't understand "non-sequitur" --
admittedly a Latin phrase but one that's fairly well incorporated into the
English language. But I really don't think it's obscure, especially by the
standards of the kinds of obscure conversations which this site is filled
with.

For what it's worth, I actually remember where I first learned the term "non-
sequitur". It was in Mad Magazine when I was probably eight years old, and I
was reading an article about (I think) "Parental Non-Sequiturs". If it's good
enough for Mad Magazine, it's good enough for me.

------
xiaoma
_"But the word “contract” is losing its meaning. Chinese spot prices, having
traded above the contract price for five years, have crashed from $186 a tonne
in July to $80 a tonne today and continue to slide (see chart). Buyers are
breaking contracts, bankers are pulling financing and projects are,
inevitably, being scaled back."_

