Why are we not seeing more takeover activity? We are all hoping for a takeover offer but it doesn't look like there is much if any activity in this arena. IMO. Any ideas out there?

Maybe companies are hoarding cash / hunkering down. Unless it is beneficial and a neccesity to do a takeover, it won't happen.

Any financing of any venture that would not have immediate positive returns is prohibited by what plauges the rest of the market and economy. This holds true for gold miners also.

I have heard a lot about investing in bonds for example. Bonds seem to be basic in nature to financing a project (such as a gold mine).

Most of what I have heard is if you are going to buy bonds buy only short term notes. Because anything longer will not compensate you and (hyper)inflation (if it happens) will eat you alive. In uncertian times it will be hard to find money even for good projects.

1. You know that everyone is not in the gold camp. There are just as many people predicting a downturn in gold as those whom beleive gold will go higher.

2. There is no way to predict the true cost of production in the future, availibility of supplies, machinery costs. So mines currently with a small margin of profit to expense ratio would be risky.

3. There is no way to predict what will happen as far as new governments and rules (you can use our perdicament as an example).

I'm very glad that Fung is convinced he has a strategy in place to finance the construction of our mine, this seems very important to me.

Hondo