Geeze Ebear

"A solid foundation of strong property rights would have made the purchase more attractive."

exactly what do you want?

It's not what I want that matters. It's what the market wants. I'm just trying to determine what that might be.

we look at a draft mining law, granted not the final, granted not passed yet

but heck, 2 months ago, we would have been in heaven knowing that the new laws would be 1-5% royalty, no nationalization, no 50% ownership for Ecuador, no word so far of windfall tax, no word on 3 concession limit....

The windfall tax issue is separate and yet to be decided. That's the purvue of the Ministry of Revenue. I'll relax more once we hear from them, but I'm not holding my breath.

and you now sym it up as weak wording on property rights?

It is weak by comparison to other jurisdictions. How weak remains to be seen. As I said, I'm not a lawyer.

if I had a nickel for everyone over the past year that have said Ecuador was going to do this or that to us in their new laws......

You haven't heard that from me. I've done my best to maintain objectivity based on the best information available at the time. If I've changed my view, it's because new information turned up. There's always an element of opinion involved when assessing a situation where all the facts aren't known.

I'm pretty happy about the new mining law draft and I think it will play out according in the SP shortly, and the buyout price of FDN this year

The mining companies still have their written comments to submit by June 11th. If the government didn't want their input, they wouldn't ask for it.

My goal is objectivity. I was blindsided along with everyone else by a govt that's not dealing with a straight deck, but unlike the companies involved, I don't have to tiptoe around. I can call it like I see it, and like PA and KB, I can sell if I don't like what I see.

If someone from Aurelian wants me to shut up, they know where to find me, and we can have that discussion in private. Until then, this is the only forum available to discuss these questions and I don't intend to limit my comments to exclusively positive statements.

My intent is to stimulate debate on all the issues, but as you've seen, I get attacked for that, ironically from someone I've stood up for in the past. This wears a bit thin after a while. Shooting the messenger is not what I consider good dialogue.

ebear