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Oct 31, 2023Liked by Myth of the 20th Century

I feel a little more educated as always when I listen to you guys! Thank you!

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Nov 2, 2023Liked by Myth of the 20th Century

Great stream as always.

Definitely agree with final conclusion, my impression is the juice just isn't worth the squeeze when it comes to getting invested in mining. The political risk is extremely high, every shithead politician can add endless years to your project, and even outside that its a huge lengthy project and is mining even particularly profitable?

My impression is that even large mining companies have done more and more essentially speculating -> buy a piece of land with proven reserves and don't develop it, just sit on it until prices to go up then sell it to someone else who maybe does something with it.

I'm sure when these resources are dramatically more expensive relative to software profits things will look a lot different, and of course we should get out in front of this stuff instead of waiting until it hits us in the face, but the risk of being early is just disastrous.

On the bucket wheel excavator -> there are truly surreal and spectacular photos of german police guarding it from protestors.

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author

You're right about the turnover - have seen many a holder of mineral rights sell them off after being thwarted by "local" opposition groups. Unsure how speculative it is - I get the impression many are actually trying to make the mines happen, but once political resistance gets too high, they bail. I do wonder if there are cases where well established players indirectly support environmental and other groups to oppose their competition, like with the Keystone Pipeline. How they then transition to developing the assets themselves is less clear.

What is certain is all this friction ends up migrating the extraction to poorer countries, where jobs and a square meal are more important than protecting a piece of land where someone wants to take a selfie.

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Good insights and thank you for another episode.

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