It comes down to 2 choices for Correa.

1. Do the right thing and develop a fair and reasonable mining law which puts millions in the government coffers for years to come, creates thousands of high paying local jobs and thousands of high paying spin-off jobs. The fact that all this can be done in an envronmentally responsible way is a given. All the companies are willing and anxious to do this. A fair law says Ecuador is open for business.....whatever the product is bananas, gold or widgets.

2. Create a completely unreasonable law tries to gouge the companies. This will drive them to leave and lawsuits will be the order of the day. Unemployment will skyrocket and foreign investment will be as dry as a bone. No matter who the next President is, Ecuador will have cemented a reputation that says we cannot be trusted and we are not open for business.

Now if you are President Correa who by all accounts is a very bright guy (even if he hasn't necessarily blown us away recently!) what would you choose?

In my opinion the choice is crystal clear, everybody wins or everybody loses. Let's hope rationality rules the day and he chooses the former.