In this issue:

1. This AM – I Worry: Threats and Gunshots
2. Midway Gold – Accumulate
3. My Omission on the Goldcorp Deal with Quaterra Resources

1. THIS AM – I WORRY

Apparently threats and gunshots have been leveled at both Democratic and Republican representatives recently.  The mood in the nation is sour indeed.

….read more HERE

It seems particularly appropriate that titanium (before it was so named) should originally have been discovered by a man of God—Reverend William Gregor—in Cornwall, England, back in 1790. It wasn’t until five years later, however, that the metal was actually named titanium, after the Titans, by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth.

One hundred years later, in 1910, American chemist Matthew A. Hunter succeeded in obtaining titanium metal from one of its ores; consequently, he had the first industrial process to extract the metal named after him.

That the metal should be named after the Titans is particularly apt, to a degree that would probably have astounded Professor Klaproth.

Amongst other characteristics, titanium can boast of its:

Lightness: Its low density means that it weighs only around 56 percent as much as steel.

Strength-to-Weight Ratio: Titanium is the highest of any of today’s structured metals.

Flexibility: With its low modulus of elasticity (14.9 x 106 psi), about half that of steel, titanium is not only extraordinarily flexible, but it also springs back very strongly after it has been stressed, e.g., when acting as a spring.

Resistance to Corrosion and Erosion: Titanium is exceptionally resistant to both corrosion and erosion. In the former instance, its naturally forming oxide film protects it against a variety of agents: alkaline media, chlorine and other halides, gases, inorganic salt solutions, organic acids and chemicals, oxidizing mineral acids and water—in all its guises. (It also protects against microbiologically influenced corrosion.) In the case of erosion, titanium’s oxide film provides it with strong resistance to anything from abrasion to cavitation and erosion—particularly at high-flow velocities.

High Thermal Conductivity: Titanium conducts heat extremely efficiently.

Low Coefficient of Expansion: Titanium’s low coefficient of expansion makes it much easier to use in combination with ceramics, composites and glass than most other metals.

….read more HERE (Ed Note: Be sure to scroll down to the bottom section titled “Opportunities In Titanium Metal”)

Quotable
“No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but
they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew
the reason but they sought the remedy” – William Shakespeare

FX Trading – Trichet surrenders with the troops?

On Wednesday the word was schadenfreud, appropriately today it is French:

sur·ren·der   
–verb (used with object) 
1. to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up
possession of on demand or under duress: to surrender the fort to the enemy

An example of usage in a sentence:  The Eurozone could not handle its own problems and decided to surrender authority to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  

Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet, maximum leader of the European Central Bank (ECB) understands the market implications of this surrender of authority/responsibility.  Of course Eurozone state “leaders” seem quite happy to be able to “save our comrade Greece” with other peoples’ money.  There is unity on that score.

….read more HERE

Pimco’s Bill Gross Says Bonds Have Seen Best Days

Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said the almost three-decade bond market rally may be drawing to a close.

…..read more HERE

The coming crunch will make last Sunday look pretty.

Not many people noticed amid the Democrats’ struggle to jam their health-care bill through the House, but in recent weeks U.S. Treasury bonds have lost their status as the world’s safest investment.

The numbers are pretty clear. In February, Bloomberg News reports, Berkshire Hathaway sold two-year bonds with an interest rate lower than that on two-year Treasuries. A company run by a 79-year-old investor is a better credit risk, the markets are telling us, than the U.S. government.

Warren Buffett’s firm isn’t the only one. Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Lowe’s have been borrowing money at cheaper rates than Uncle Sam.

Democrats wary of voting for the health-care bill may have been soothed by the Congressional Budget Office’s report that it would reduce federal deficits over the next ten years. But bond buyers know that the Democrats gamed the CBO system to get a good score.

The realities, as former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin pointed out in the New York Times, are different. The real cost is disguised by the fact that the bill includes ten years of revenue but only six years of spending. It includes $70 billion in premiums for long-term care that will have to be paid out later. It excludes $114 billion in discretionary spending needed to run the program. It includes nearly half a trillion dollars in unrealistic Medicare savings.

Holtz-Eakin’s bottom line: The bill will not lower deficits, but will raise them by $562 billion over ten years. Treasury will have to borrow that money — and probably pay much higher interest than it’s paying now.  Moreover, once the bill is fully in effect, the Cato Institute’s Alan Reynolds points out, its expenses are likely to grow at least 7 percent a year — significantly faster than revenues. At that rate, spending doubles every ten years.

No wonder Moody’s declared last week that the Treasury is “substantially” closer to losing its AAA bond rating. It’s not only the federal government that is heading toward insolvency. State governments will have to spend more under the health-care bill — $735 million in Tennessee alone, according to Democratic governor Phil Bredesen.

And state governments are already facing a huge problem called pensions. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that state-government pensions are underfunded by $450 billion. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Andrew Biggs argues in the Wall Street Journal that the real figure is over $3 trillion.

……read page 2 HERE