Trying to catch up!

Well it’s been a while but I hope I’ll up to posting a little more often considering the rash of big news that’s broken recently. I’ve had some issues with holidays both mine and people who’s work I have to cover, summer apathy and a sore paw in the form of carpal tunnel that is making several fingers twitch uncontrollably and makes my wrist ache.

I got a couple of letters and facebook notes about my Independence day post but was rather disappointed that I did not attract greater attention or at least a little flame war to liven things up a bit, oh well, next year I’ll be blunter;)


First off I’ll take care of the blog accounting and gloating, not only did my prediction from last Nov of $140 a barrel come true but now that both investment bank Bear Stearns and commercial bank IndyMac have taken the big dirt nap , I can with no reservations say I’ve met that prediction as well. Of course I don’t expect that to be the end of the financial bloodshed for this calendar year.


So what’s next?


As I see it we are assured more bank failures this year and probably a greater number next year. The FDIC which has over 90 banks on its watch list says that 8 banks including IndyMac have failed this year. While both of these numbers are low compared to the tally after the S&L Crisis, the FDIC will be forced to use nearly 20% of it’s $53 Billion insurance fund just on the IndyMac failure. How long before they are maxed out and the Government is left with the job of bailing out the FDIC itself? It's interesting to note that some insiders are saying IndyMac was either not on the watch list or only added just late month, too late to help, so how indepth or accurate is this "watch list" ? I doubt FDIC has had enough staff or time to check a fraction of the banks so expect the endangered list to grow significantly, and more banks not listed to fail.

While I admit that most troubled banks will be considerably smaller than IndyMac, after seeing Wachovia ( $ 8.9 Billion) and WaMu ( $ 3.3Billion) post such huge losses this weak I have proof that the crisis is not over and that it is not just the little guys who are in danger of collapse. A mess of small banks and one or two more IndyMac size and the FDIC will be out of funds, and guess who will bail them out?

THE BIG BAIL

It looks like the legislation to authorize the Treasury Department's right to bail out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a done deal. While they both claim they don't need a cash infusion I suspect that once the discount window is opened to them they will both be there in line, money bags open. The new legislation also raises the max mortgage size these crippled twins can purchase to 625k or median price +15%. This will allow the banks to pass off more of their bad loans to Fannie and Freddie while putting the feds on the hook for bad mortgages rather than the stupid ass banks that sold them. This could be nothing but will more likely lead to the U.S. picking up most of the bill for the housing collapse while the banks get off easy. However tjhis goes we can be guaranteed that it will cost the public more than the nothing the two lenders claim they need.


SEC to the rescue!!!


I think the biggest joke is the new proposals to stop short selling against the financials! Why should we protect the financials who have been so involved in the destruction of other equities through their manipulations such as the naked short. If the SEC is to curtail short selling it has to be done industry wide or not at all. No one sector should have a mechanism to make money and destroy others unless they too face the same risk. This is just a poorly hidden way to remove the value from your commodity stocks and transfer that wealth to the frauds, cheats and idiots that run rampant in the financial sector. Screw them all and let the banks fail, the sooner we get this collapse over with the sooner we can get on with rebuilding a new monetary system hopefully built on real money.


On the Canadian front,


BoC held interest rates rather than cutting – Good

The U.S. collapse is going to cost us jobs regardless, there is no point devaluing to keep customers who might never pay you. A higher CND will allow us to miss some of the coming wave of inflation and maintain the value of our savings better, I think it is worth losing jobs that peak oil would kill anyway , to keep our currency strong !


0% down mortgages and 40 terms are no longer allowed – Good

Too damn late but at least the next wave of idiots won’t have the option of 0% down and a 40 year term. We have been lucky that this kind of mortgage has not penetrated that deep inot our market and now thankfully people can only be 5% down 35 years stupid .

I still think 35 years is too long ; people graduate, get a job and buy a house usually by late 20s putting them just years from retirement when a 35 year mortgage is paid, that and the years of extra interest will mean less retirement savings.



Job losses in manufacturing, especially automotive are rising weakly- bad/good

bad for the economy but good for the environment and long term oil supplies as people are actually driving less -3% so far, and sales of the biggest, thirstiest vehicles are falling like buffalo chased of a cliff. For those people who actually need a large truck for business there are some amazing deals as the resale on these energy hogs plummets.


PMs

The metals are heading down again on bogus strong dollar talk from the U.S. and I’d be buying if I had not just purchased a car recently, Buy if you can.

I’m extremely annoyed and there is absolutely no excuse for what is happening to some of the junior miners, its nothing but deliberate manipulation, sabotage or institutional desperation to raise cash , take Silver Corp (SVM-T) for example; healthy, expanding, profitable, low cost and it has lost over 55% of its value of late without a single bit of bad news to justify it. This is all taken place during an aggressive stock buyback which apparently is having no effect on the price. Today for example every few minutes anonymous sells 500 shares maintaining or lowering the price, sure silver is slipping but zinc is steady and lead is up recently so how the hell can this profitable unhedged company that produces silver at a negative price, lose 8% today.


Golden Tag (GOG-t) is down 10% today! , while still a speculation play they’ve earned the right to 50% of the ECU San Diego mine which is a proven 42 million ounces of silver and growing, Market cap today $11 million. See Bob Moriarty's write up on GOG
This share price does do justice to their 21 million ounce stake in the San Diego mine and especially not on the recent news from the Aquilon project where they hit 376 ounces/ton of gold on a very narrow surface vein. While this might never be a full sized mine if there is any decent length or dept to this vein a small artisan style mine would make a nice profit for them, hell they could buy back 1/3 of their stock with a 10 ton “bulk sample” WTF????
And why are they not doing this???


The stories go on and on and it makes no sense the prices for many of these juniors are lower than they were with $600 gold/ $12 silver (mind you some are crap and deserve a low share price but not many I follow don't deserve this fate). Is someone trying to destroy their viability and their ability to raise capital so the big boys can snap them up for pennies on the dollar? I don’t know what’s going on but this silliness makes you waver between selling the house and taking a 5 % stake in a company like GOG or selling all equities and running from the market. If I won the lottery tonight I’d make a bid for controlling stake tomorrow because deep down I know that fiat money is dying and real hard assests are the only choice, but man it's hard when you see the corruption and manipulaiton and you know your being screwed.

On the topic of manipulation Jim Sinclair apparently has about 60 juniors looking at the Chamber of Mines idea and hopefully we will get some action on outing the short sellers.

Well my paw is sore again so this is all the rant you’ll get from me today, I know I missed stuff but what can you do, I'll be back when I can

Independence Day my ass!

A concerned Canadian’s view of his neighbour

American Independence Day is a wonder for us Canadians, who are for the most part a subdued people as long as you keep beer and hockey out of the equation. Each year we stare in wonder at the flag saluting, chest thumping and the use of catch worlds like freedom, independence, truth and justice. Many Canadians are bemused if not outwardly embarrassed by such an intense show of unbridled patriotism. I on the other hand feel pity for a people who have become paupers and debt slaves in what was once, but is no longer the richest and freest country in the world. Yet, somehow they still carry on about the Land of the Free and make over the top displays on Independence Day.

I honestly ask myself what all the fuss and posturing about?

Well they threw off British rule; that’s pretty impressive.

They helped destroy the Kaiser and Hitler; that’s pretty impressive despite the fact they like to take all the credit and showed up to both wars several wars years late.

They created a constitution that put the protection of people’s rights to the forefront of government responsibilities; which by any account is an outstanding achievement.

America built the most powerful industrial machine the world had ever seen, they made it to the moon and advanced all manner of technical innovation big and small; once again all things worth celebrating.


We must remember however that these events are the high points of the American experience and quite probably hollow victories when compared to today’s reality. Such patriotic holidays as Independence Day are now tools of the establishment who know that people will get lost in pointless pride when frustration and anger are more appropriate for today's circumstances!


The yoke of British Empire has been replaced by corporate and banking elites who are a much more sinister enemy than some pasty guy with a crown ever was. The U.S. created and destroyed 2 previous Central Banks but did not learn its lesson. These elite powers were persistent and with the creation of the current Federal Reserve Bank America finaly gave away its sovereign power to control its own money supply, No Independence here!

Thanks to the poisonous policies of the likes of FDR and Nixon the coin of the realm is no longer real money but rather a promise whose value is constantly waning. There is no real independence for people when they can no longer trust their currency. There is no freedom when that paper in your pocket, that stuff you need to thrive and survive can be debased and destroyed at the whim of others.

Where is your freedom and independence when your government decides that habeas corpus is irrelevant, that wire taps and reading your mail are essential, or that torture is acceptable behaviour? No longer is there much truth, justice or freedom in America

Freedom is an ideal that should be available to all, yet America feels it has the right to bully, invade and assassinate when foreign voters or leaders don’t do what they are expected too. No one hates America for its freedom; IF they hate America it's because America rations freedom to those deemed worthy, which these days is not even its own population.

Freedom is the right to protest right in your leaders face without being roped off and segragated miles away.

Freedom is a system that encourages more than the two political parties and gives you choices that are neither incompetent nor corrupt.

Freedom means it’s impossible for your name to mysteriously get removed from the voting list.

Freedom means it’s inconceivable that a machine could tabulate election results without verification.

Freedom is the right to say a war is wrong, my leaders are wrong, the system is wrong without being labelled an enemy.


Where is independence when the news media becomes shills and propagandists for the powers that be, rather than ask the tough questions and tell the truth?

How can you celebrate independence when each day billions of dollars are borrowed from Asia to cover the gluttony of your lives and the mismanagement of your government? Each day people owe more to the bank than before, each day less of America belongs to Americans, each day more freedoms are eroded. Hell, I'm mad about it and I don't even have a stake in your plight!


Independence Day should no longer be holiday for celebrating past glories.

Independence Day should be a day of national protest, pitchforks, torches and mass rallies with the intent regaining lost independence. Americans should shed the BBQs and the keg this July 4th and march on every legislature and courthouse in the land and demand their birthright back. Don’t celebrate lost freedoms, Grasp them anew.


I know I’m a foreigner and most of you are going to say STFU! But America needs an intervention and like the friend who occasionally takes your keys away from you when you’ve had too many, I had to tell you these truths as I see them.

Have a good weekend,

Investors wake up, It's time to fight back

There are some important things happening recently that we investors in the metals market need to be either aware or a part off. First of all many junior companies are being brutalized in the market from immoral and illegal market manipulation. Many companies with growing resources, growing cash flow and profits like a few of my favourites have unnatural and uncalled for short positions against them. Many miners are suffering from the illegal shorting of their stock by the very banks they have engaged to run their financing share offers. People who know these markets have example after example of naked shorting which is essentially fraud and counterfeiting of stocks. These practices dilute a company’s float and devalue the value of the stocks you hold, these people are stealing from you.

As I mentioned in the last post I implore you to listen to the last 4 weeks excerpts from the Financial Sense Newshour titled Crime of the Century, to learn about various aspects of identifying and fighting market manipulation.

Jim Sinclair of Jim Sinclair's MineSet is not only calling for a Chamber of Mines to coordinate information to find and crush the organizations who are illegally shorting mining companies but he’s also offering a $50,000 gold reward for anyone who supply “information leading to the identification of the managers or managers of the Hedge Fund pool operators illegally shorting junior gold shares.” Hell I wish I knew someone, I’d roll on them in an instant. If anyone out there has this information please do the right thing and speak up.


Since Mine Set does not break up it articles to individual pages I’ll just cut and paste his message, which I’m sure he wants spread any way he can.

Dear CIGAs,

I respectfully request that each member of the JSMineset community send this missive to the management of their precious and base metals junior investment company. Please follow up on it to be sure it has been reviewed.

Strength In Numbers

The junior producer and exploration and development companies need to consider the formation of a Chamber of Mines for this section of the industry.

This Chamber should be free of any individual company agenda, free of fees and other interferences with the singular intention of protecting our shareholders from being attacked by those in the shadowy part of finance.

There are close to 2000 companies in this part of the industry, many of which are experiencing the same extreme nuisances.
The naked gold short seller is an entity engaged in a criminal act with a goal of doing serious injury for the purpose of profit and is therefore a major target in terms of civil liability. The short and naked short pool operations are exactly the same but more apt to be a conspiracy to injure slightly then become subject to RICO statutes.

The job of this working Chamber of Mines as a singular unit is to pull these criminals out of the shadows into the light of day.
No matter how well they feel they are hidden there is always a paper trail going back to the perpetrator in this financial world.
Certain financial areas of secrecy in many cases do not protect the spoils of criminal activities. This may be proven soon at UBS where an officer is under arrest in the USA and is due to go to court shortly.

It does not mean anything that neither regulators nor exchanges care about the naked short or short selling pools, regardless of whether they are naked or not. If the stockholders and the company who’s values have been injured initiate civil proceedings, discovery will be full of legal opportunity. You cannot erase the paper trail that exists to every transaction.

My request is simple:
Contact the management of every junior precious metals producer, exploration and developer, asking them to contact Editor Dan at information@jsmineset.com so that the Chamber can take form.

There is no hidden agenda, no money to be collected, and no desire to stroke egos and no desire for private corporate information. I do not wish to be anything but a member. Let the organization elect its officers so we can act as one. We can speak as one. We can win as one, but we are weak when scattered as the industry is now. Organize and we are a legion. Expose the perpetrators and then it is all over. The data is there. It can be organized and it can be dissected, yielding the evidence trail of those who wish to hurt, sometime simply because they are mean, sometimes for illicit profits.

Add to that that sociopaths mistreat their associates and employees by nature. No looking may be required. It might just happen to come over the transom, even though we do not invite that.
You stockholders must push your management hard. Personally there is nothing that I will NOT do in order to protect both my and my investors’ interests.

I herewith dedicate my life, my fortune and all that I am to the identification of the perpetrators and their conduits used. Those sociopaths that take joy by inflicting severe injury for profit by conspiracy and the use of dirty tricks must be the hunted of nearly 2000 company’s determined managements and their more than 500,000 very angry stockholders.

There is only one way to defend stockholders, which is through the organization and strategy of a major offensive. Forget attorneys at this point. Regulators are of no help. A Chamber of Mines acting together can prevail.

I will even if I must go it alone.
Together we are legion. Alone and looking the other way you are a victim. I have never been a victim. No one depending on me will be a victim.

There is NOTHING I will not do to protect those that depend on me. I am livid. Enough is enough.

We will add risk to the bad guys. That proposition you and they can depend on.
Your friend,
Jim Sinclair

If you belong to Stockhouse.com you might want to join the Group Junior Mining Investors Robbed by Canadian Investment Banks. The Group appears to be taking the manipulation problem on by contacting various junior miners with Jim Sinclair's message and his offer to coordinate the creation of a group to route out these bastards. While the first couple of day was passive floundering they now appear to have a concerted effort to build a list of companies they've contacted and those showing interest in the project.

I would also advise you once again to read some excellent work by Ted Butler, this time he shares his discovery that the Barclays Silver EFT does not have the amount of silver to justify all the legitimate shares they have sold in contravention of the ETF’s prospectus. Added to this short fall is naked short selling of shares not representing any physical silver. Today’s short position is 2.5 million ounces of silver but the all time high was nearly 10 million ounces in March.

Now the question is much silver is represented by these shares sold by the naked shorts?

Butler believes it represents 25 to 50 million cumulative ounces of silver shorted since April, this is silver people have paid for in full yet the ETF has no backing for. This shortfall if expressed in physical silver would be enough demand to make a hell of dent in COMEX inventories and in my opinion put fear in the industrial users and panic the price well above $50.
This is stolen demand that should have been reflected in the price.
Shorting on the Silver ETF is robbing all silver investors of our profits as do silver many certificates that are totally unbacked, it’s time to physical only because when these supply issues do become critical, paper silver with just be paper.


I’m an activist at heart so I’m glad to see such moves to inform investors and fight back, and you can help too. If you have long term positions in junior miners call your broker and demand your stock certificates now, this will assure you your shares are real or make your broker buy real shares to fulfill delivery. If you know healthy juniors who are heavily shorted, take a new position and demand your shares, when the pressure builds from this anti corruption movement there will be a lot of broker buying to cover phantom shares and you will make money.

If you have silver certificates demand delivery, if you don’t have that right of delivery look to buy physical silver and sell off the paper as you take delivery. We need must send the message, we will not be sold things that do not exist!; neither will we allow the market to rob us!

If you have any information or complaints call the appropriate authorities or claim the $50k in Gold reward. Demand bull boards remove suspicious bashers and make it clear to the press through letters to the editors that these issues are important. Write or call your elected officials and complain that securities laws are not being enforced and penalties for illegal trading are far too lax.

While common place to the juniors miners these illegal activities do take place in the rest of the market so spread the word to your non commodity investing friends.


On a side note, my prediction from November of $140 oil this year was short by 11 cents on Monday, Not that I like 1.35 a litre gas but I do like being right so 11 cents was annoyingly close. Oh well, hurricane season will vindicate me.

Canadian Silver Bug - this weeks stuff

Hidden Rot

One thing we have not seen much of so far is the mass of hidden paper held by non bank organizations like pension funds and Insurance companies. While some pension funds have reported lower earnings or in some cases real loses, few have actually fessed up and told the public how much exposure they have to CDOs. A friend who works for a major Canadian Insurance company tells me there is a large sum of CDOs on the ledger books which are still marked at book value not marked to market. Don't allow the lack of bad news convince you your insurance company or pension is secure especially with the news that MBIA and AMBAC have had their credit rating slashed from AAA down two levels to AA by Standard and Poor's, both companies are also on Credit watch from Moody's and could suffer further downgrades. Such downgrades change the rating on all the bonds these companies insured which represents around a Trillion U.S. dollars.

While I'm not sure of the mechanics or time frames to liquidate positions, I do know that pension funds cannot legally hold onto bonds that lose investment grade rating and should credit ratings continue to slip the market could be flooded with 10s or 100s of billions in mortgage backed paper. If such a glut of bonds hit the market there will not be nearly enough suckers willing to buy them, at least not anywhere near their book value. Once prices fall enough vultures will enter the market to snatch some of these up at a substantial discount in hope it they can be sold at a profit later. The result of this forced selling will gut pension funds and if like most people, you probably don't have an option of cashing out without losing money up front and/or without paying a huge tax bill to get at your cash.

While you may not have the means to buy a lot of metals for pure speculation both the U.S and Canada have ways to hold some form of metals in retirement accounts , see if you can find some way to divert a portion of your retirement funds in that direction as insurance against the threat of exploding pension funds.

General stuff

The economy is slowing in Europe, the U.S. and in Canada we actually announced a GDP contraction for the last reported month. I don't think this means we're in worse conditions than other countries I just believe our numbers a little more upfront and honest than the Bogus U.S. stats. Here in Ontario we've had a series of reported job cuts by automakers which is a very important segment of our economy but I can't get too worked up about it. I believe that between the coming financial crisis, oil prices and eventual fuel shortages the end of the car culture is in sight, and bail outs and bribes to GM to save jobs is just wasted money.

These most recent GM cuts are at plants that makes trucks and SUVs, but what would you expect? GM has been so intent on flogging these high end, high margin, gas hogs that they've neglected to keep up with Japan or Korea in making reasonably sized, efficient, good quality cars. How these north American automaker can continue to be so far behind the curve in reading the market for Gas prices and public demand is beyond me. Their vehicles are sized wrong, over powered, poorer quality and behind the Japanese in hybrid technology.

I have no doubt that the current recession will soon lead to GMs Bankruptcy so they can beat down the unions and shed their responsibility for a hugely under funded pension program. See how this meshes with my first warning, GM's pension is already massively under funded and what do you want to bet that the assets they do hold include a whack of these soon to be junk rated CDOs?
When you devalue the pension fund by 30-50% to cover bad investments what's left will be pitifully insufficient.

Don't expect a housing market rebound to save the CDO market, the value of the these bonds have no hope of recovering as housing prices continue to slump. There is no point in me showing you more stats when this sale that just ended in the San Diego area says it all; buy one 1.6 Million dollar home and get a second one worth $400,000 free.

Other builders have been offering mega upgrades to sell homes , lower prices, offers of a new car in the driveway and maybe some of those urban myths about agents who will do "anything" for a sale are finally coming true.

Many home builders are really hurting such as Oregon's Legend Homes which has failed to pay subcontractors after getting its main credit source cut off. Legend is playing down bankruptcy talk and has hired a restructuring expert.

Banks for the most part are still hemorrhaging but even then you can't trust their numbers as accounting loopholes are still allowing them to lie about the real damage to their books.

Lehman Brothers is facing an especially large problem as it finds itself being heavily shorted as investors either believe it's destined to crash or are encouraging it to do so. This heavy shorting follows the pattern that started the run on Bear Stearns and might be an attempt drive it into the hands of some other bank to consolidate the industry and the risk.

Money, crap and the real kind.

In the last couple of weeks the U.S. dollar has been irrationally strong but I'm not going to waste a lot of time explaining yet again why it's irrelevant to the long term trend of dollar meltdown. The last 24 hours has erased a weeks worth of hard fought dollar gains quite easily. Exuberance is one thing but when the job numbers are bad even after Government lying you know there is a problem.

Gold and silver have been bouncing around but I think they are just being played in a range while they consolidate. There have been some weird moves like the one Thursday where gold was down by a faction but silver was up by 2%. Today it looks like the dollar slap down will allow both Silver and Gold to make a strong week ending statement and hopefully signal an new up trend.

For those of you still trying to find Silver bullion

As of Wed the main Scotia Branch in Toronto, Bay and Adelaide does has some bullion but only in 100oz bars. I wanted to pick up a few small pieces but since I'm car shopping a 100oz purchase would not have been prudent. The Coin store in the arcade at Younge and Temperance has 100oz bars too, but nothing else.

Stocks

I've not mentioned my stock holdings for some time as little was happening, but in the last month I sold my position in Quinto at about 300% profit because I was very disappointed that a low ball, all share takeout by Thompson Consolidated mines was accepted by Quinto's board. This company was worth more than this offer for just the iron ore resources and the takeover gave absolutely nothing for the graphite and titanium prospects which each could have been company makers. While there may be a secondary offer I'm not very hopeful so I sold Quinto and moved it into Minefinders and Silver Wheaton.

In the last two years with Quinto and Lionore, I've actually done better with base metals than the small Gold and Silver stocks which are suffering a lot of shorting in the market. This constant shorting on companies that are in production or on the verge is insane. The spring keeps getting wound tighter on this market as good juniors get undervalued even when they are showing profits and/or increasing resources. The value on some of these companies are just stupid cheap and represent a huge opportunity should the next leg up crush the shorts as I expect/hope.

I would recommend that anyone who is frustrated by the poor prices of juniors check out the discussions on the Financial Sense News hour the last couple of weeks on stock fraud, manipulation and illegal trading. It's definitely worth listening to and if you make complaints about such activity we might finally get regulators to deal with such obviously illegal activities.

It's finally hot where I live, so I'm gonna go look for a patio and a cold one, have a good weekend

World Water Crisis

Sorry folks this was meant for a different Blog but it's impact on world stability and our finances is still important even if not metals and economics centric.

Water shortages are becoming a world wide issue as global warming and drought team up with rising populations, rising consumption and waste in a way that could make water one of the most contentious topics in next decades. Add to this a growing move to privatize and commoditize water and we have a new and compounding crisis to add to problems of peak oil and predicted famine.

An interesting article titled Coming soon, War for Water from India's Commodity online

After global warming, what is the biggest problem the globe is facing now? It is water. If you want to know the seriousness of the situation just take the case of India’s Cherrapunjee.

Cherrapunjee once boasted of being the ‘wettest place on earth’. Now also it gets around 40 feet of rain a year. However, Indian government is now seeking Israeli water management experts’ help to manage and retain water that today sluices off the area’s deforested landscape so that the area can get water when there is no rain.

Take another example of Rajasthan where lakhs of people (almost always women) spend hours per day carrying water up to several miles for their family’s needs because no source is close at hand.

On the other side of the globe, in Barcelona, Spain, people are paying a fine of $13,000 if they were caught watering their gardens.

According to media reports, a tanker ship is docked in Barcelona this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Again, Cyprus is ferrying water from Greece. Australian cities are buying water from farmers and building desalination plants.

Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. In southern California, citizens are bracing to face water-rationing.

So, the world may go to war for water in the coming years. Experts say that water is the oil of this century.

Blue Gold
According to researchers, developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold”.

Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast.

But governments pushing to privatize public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement. Because water is essential for human life, its distribution is best left to more publicly accountable government authorities to distribute at prices the poorest can afford.

According to experts, the world is at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need is going to be provided. The profit motive and basic human need for water are just inherently in conflict.

What’s different now is that it’s increasingly obvious that the world is running up against limits to new fresh water supplies, says a water expert. It’s no longer cheap and easy to drill another well or dam another river.

The idea of “peak water” is an imperfect analogy. Unlike oil, water is not used up but only changes forms. The world still has the same 326 quintillion gallons.

But some 97 per cent of it is salty. The world’s remaining accessible fresh-water supplies are divided among industry (20 per cent), agriculture (70 per cent), and domestic use (10 per cent).

Meanwhile, fresh-water consumption worldwide has more than doubled since World War II to nearly 4,000 cubic kilometers annually and set to rise another 25 per cent by 2030.

Up to triple that is available for human use, so there should be plenty, the report says. But waste, climate change, and pollution have left clean water supplies running short.

The world has ignored demand for decades, just assuming supplies of water would be there. Now people have to learn to manage water demand and – on top of that – deal with climate change, too.

Population and economic growth across Asia and the rest of the developing world is a major factor driving fresh-water scarcity. The earth’s human population is predicted to rise from 6 billion to about 9 billion by 2050. Feeding them will mean more irrigation for crops.

Increasing attention is also being paid to the global “virtual water” trade. It appears in food or other products that require water to produce, products that are then exported to another nation. The US may consume even more water – virtual water – by importing goods that require lots of water to make. At the same time, the US exports virtual water through goods it sells abroad.

As scarcity drives up the cost of fresh water, more efficient use of water will play a huge role, experts say.

In the US today, about 33.5 million Americans get their drinking water from privately owned utilities that make up about 16 per cent of the nation’s community water systems.

But private companies’ promises of efficient, cost-effective water delivery have not always come true. Bolivia ejected giant engineering firm Bechtel in 2000, unhappy over the spiking cost of water for the city of Cochabamba.

Last year Bolivia’s president publicly celebrated the departure of French water company Suez, which had held a 30-year contract to supply La Paz.

.Private water industry officials say those pushing to make water a “human right” are ideologues struggling to preserve inefficient public water authorities that sell water below the cost to produce it and so cheaply it is wasted — doing little to extend service to the poor.

Global warming isn’t going to change the amount of water, but some places used to getting it won’t, and others that don’t, will get more. Water scarcity may be one of the most underappreciated global political and environmental challenges now. Water woes could have an impact on global peace and stability.

China & India
In the developing world – particularly in China, India, and other parts of Asia – rising economic success means a rising demand for clean water and an increased potential for conflict.

China is one of the world’s fastest-growing nations, but its lakes, rivers, and groundwater are badly polluted because of the widespread dumping of industrial wastes. Tibet has huge fresh water reserves.

While news reports have generally cited Tibetans’ concerns over exploitation of their natural resources by China, little has been reported about China’s keen interest in Tibet’s Himalayan water supplies, locked up in rapidly melting glaciers.

Himalayan water is particularly sensitive because it supplies the rivers that bring water to more than half a dozen Asian countries. Plans to divert water could cause intense debate.

Tibet is not the only water-rich country wary of a water-poor neighbour. Canada, which has immense fresh water resources, is wary of its water-thirsty superpower neighbour to the south.

But don’t look for a water pipeline from Canada’s northern reaches to the US southwest anytime soon. Water raises national fervor in Canada, and Canadians are reluctant to share their birthright with a United States that has mismanaged – in Canada’s eyes – its own supplies.

The lack of clean, safe drinking water is estimated to kill almost 4,500 children per day. In fact, out of the 2.2 million unsafe drinking water deaths in 2004, 90% were children under the age of five. Water is essential to the treatment of diseases, something especially critical for children.

The world water crisis is created by a confluence of factors including climate and geography, lack of water systems and infrastructure, and inadequate sanitation, something that 2.6 billion people (40% of the world’s population) lack access to.

The future will offer less fresh water as global warming melts glacial ice that supplies parts India, China, Tibet, Andean countries and even a portion of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Current discussions for or against bio fuels will also need to take into account water usage as the argument spreads from food or fuel to include water or fuel. Added to that, decisions will have to made balancing the importance of water for agriculture vs. drinking , water for agriculture vs. industry and with water being commercialized the danger will be that without water for industry there may be no jobs so people can afford clean drinking water.

I know that water issues are becoming very touchy in the Andes as mining companies fight indigenous peoples to tap glacial waters for ore processing and in one case they wish to blast and move a glacier to get at gold below the ice.

Canadians will find themselves under more pressure to export water to the States, we will need more water for irrigation as temperatures rise, evaporation rates will increase which may shrink lakes, and our declining infrastructure will continue to waste more water each year through leaks.

We need to work to make access to water a human right, we need moves to curb personal/industrial use as well as waste like leaks. The scale of rotting infrastructure is immense in North America, as an example, last year Atlanta suffered a drought that was close to draining their lake, yet leaks accounted for 11 million Gallons a day, 18% of the total consumption.

People and industry must start paying realistic prices for water, without creating a barrier for basic uses like drinking and cooking. We need to support the third world with water management expertise as well as weening them of water intensive crop varieties like those Monsanto's and others flog and let farmers go back to crops that are actually adapted to their conditions. The same marketing ploys have convinced farmers to buy animals that require far more water than indigenous breeds would.

It starting to get pretty crazy out there as a series of overlapping crisises are poised to jump on civilization with both feet.