you look at VMS as more than a speculative play you should be OK. There was copper mining before copper hit $4 and it will continue in the future. If anything, sub-optimal deposits will be dropped and high grade deposits will be the only ones considered as the price of copper declines. The amount that copper declines is also in question, in my opinion, if you look at supply and demand. We haven't been over run with supply and demand is picking up a bit according to LME. US dollar is holding up well; in conjunction with a weak copper price is good for copper in the long run. This combination should draw down copper reserves, which in turn should support the price. Simple supply and demand. My previous posts on the great depression were to show how certain countries(China) were unaffected. Even if we just hit a severe recession China will continue building infrastructure(1.6 trillion in US $). This will continue to put pressure on copper supply which will be compounded when the rest of the world comes back on line. As a side note, the US utility infrastructure apparently requires huge overhauls as well. The only thing that sucks is one could have bought more of VMS at these depressed prices.

Cheers