Diamond News Archives

Precious gemstones miner Gemfields has chosen to pay  £5.8 million (about $7.8m) to community members residing near its Montepuez ruby mine in Mozambique, in a “no admission of liability” move that settles a claim of human rights abuses brought against it by locals.

Leigh Day, the London-based law firm representing a group of 273 Mozambicans, argued last year that security forces employed by the miner had shot, beat and subjected to humiliating treatment and sexual abuse to its clients.

Gemfields, which describes itself as “a leading supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones”, always maintained it was not liable for the alleged incidents, but it has taken the view that the agreed settlement “best balances the interests of the assorted stakeholders” and avoids tainting the company's relationship with sections of the local community, it said in a statement.

Sum will cover Leigh Day’s legal expenses and be distributed to the claimants represented by the London-based law firm.

“We wish to ensure that we are regarded as trusted and transparent partners … rather than legal adversaries,” chief executive Sean Gilbertson said of the relationship with the Montepuez community going forward.

“These incidents should never have happened. However, we commend Gemfields for engaging constructively to resolve this case promptly and for putting in place an independent grievance mechanism,” Leigh Day partner, Daniel Leader, commented.

Early last year, the company put up a voluntary announcement in which it acknowledged that, in the past, instances of violence had occurred on and around the licence area, "both before and after Gemfields' arrival in Montepuez".

In addition to the settlement amount, the company is setting up an independent operational grievance mechanism to enable community members to lodge complaints more easily. It has also committed to creating a new...

When asked what his current top commodity pick is, Global Head of Commodities Research in the Global Investment Research Division at Goldman Sachs Jeffrey Currie doesn't hesitate: "Long gold."

Global economic uncertainty, recessionary fears, the wealth effect, central bank buying... Currie sees it all setting up for a sharp rally higher for the yellow metal. Currie's gold commentary begins at 3:40 or so of the video.

 ...

2019-01-28 8am EDT  |  #FOMC #Federal Reserve #Powell

Remember the Powell of last year? You know, the one that tried to convince us that there “could be no macroeconomic stability without financial stability?” And this Powell was not concerned about financial stability in terms of making sure the stock market never went down, but rather just the opposite. On June 20th, 2018 Powell brought to our attention that;

“Indeed, the fact that the two most recent U.S. recessions stemmed principally from financial imbalances, not high high inflation, highlights the importance of closely monitoring financial conditions.”

For the first ten months of his stint as Fed Chair, Powell articulated a position of discipline and tried to back away from the idea that Wall Street was dictating monetary policy. Powell repeatedly stressed that rates would be set for the long-run benefit of the economy - not for the desire of the money markets. In fact, even as late as the FOMC meeting on December 19th, 2018 Powell was trying to convince the world that stock market gyrations would not shift his resolve:

“What matters for the whole economy is material changes in a broad range of financial conditions that are sustained for a period of time. A little bit of volatility – speaking in the abstract - some volatility doesn’t probably leave a mark on the economy.”

And this was consistent with his message during his tenure as a Fed governor. From the WSJ:

At the Fed’s January 2013 meeting, then-governor Jerome Powell warned about the growing market distortions created by the Fed’s ongoing asset purchases, pointing to “many examples of bubble-like terms,” including in fixed-income and leveraged-finance markets.

“I do think...

HTTP/2 200 content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 expires: Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:00:12 GMT date: Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:00:12 GMT cache-control: private, max-age=0 last-modified: Mon, 28 Jan 2019 10:52:18 GMT x-content-type-options: nosniff x-xss-protection: 1; mode=block server: GSE alt-svc: quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="44,43,39" accept-ranges: none vary: Accept-Encoding ...

Econimica: Depopulation and Monetization...Like Peas & Carrots

Depopulation and Monetization...Like Peas & Carrots

In contemporary, post world war II times, the process of depopulation is the declining number of births pitted against significantly longer life spans of the existing population.  Given this, depopulation starts from the declining quantity of young and slowly works its way up the population.  So, as depopulation is taking place, it is tracked by declining births, and eventually by declining 0 to 64yr/old populations vs. still expanding 65+yr/old populations.  Outright depopulation only takes over once the declines among the under 65yr/olds outweigh the ongoing growth among the 65+yr/olds.


In 2011, there was one state plus Puerto Rico that experienced outright depopulation.  However, by 2018, that number has increased to 9 states (Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, West  Virginia, Wyoming), plus Puerto Rico that are outright shrinking (chart below).

In 2018, an additional 16 states (Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, Kentucky, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Alabama) are now experiencing the precursor to outright depopulation; declining 0 to 64yr/old populations versus ongoing growth among the 65+yr/old population.  Simply put, half the states plus Puerto Rico are experiencing either outright or the early onset version of depopulation (under 65yr/old depopulation).