"The average PM/JPM stock investor has mostly been destroyed or driven from the markets. The path has been cleared for the predators to come in and take over at fractions of the true value."

Hi Sinbob. How true your words ring in these ears. There was a time not all that long ago when I was less skeptical of such outcomes as possible & might have dismissed the notion some party(s) (related or not) could actually manipulate a share price down to ridiculous levels and in the process scoop up a valuable resource for a song. I am NOT accusing the purchaser in my story of such manipulation but they sure as heck reaped (raped?) the benefits largely at the underlying investors' expense. The company I'm speaking of was called Spider Resources. They discovered a massive chromite deposit, probably the richest grade in the world, and were partnered with other developers in the region. The Share Price had been trading much higher in the past and despite news of their uncommonly huge find, the SP lingered in fact traded down to as low as 3 cents! Perfect opportunity for a predator to come along and wouldn't you know that's exactly how things played out. Eventually the SP was settled and bought out at about 19 cents(!) in large part justified because this offer was "well above market price." Yeah but discovered in which market exactly? Not a free trading one. I ended up making a small profit after holding for years but the real winner was Cliff's who bought SPQs resource for a paltry couple hundred million. To add insult to unjury, a few weeks ago the purchaser announced they were prepared to spend over $3 BILLION to develop the project and bring it to production. Small wonder investors are skeptical in these days of trying to latch onto a small development play in the hopes of making serious coin upon making a prime discovery.