Silver Content at the Escala Showing Signs of Increase - Franklin Mining, Inc. - (PINKSHEETS: FMNJ) (FRANKFURT: FMJ) CEO, William Petty is reporting that Franklin Mining, Bolivia's General Manager, Dr. Jaime Arancibia, and Mining Engineer, Mr. Javier Leyton, believe the Escala Mine - has begun showing signs of a greater than expected silver content.
SILVER Mar 2008 (NYMEX:SI.H08.E)
Dr. Arancibia and Mr. Leyton have worked in Bolivia's mining and hydrocarbons industries about twenty years each. Their professional opinion is that the silver - being recovered from the most recent blast sites at the Escala is greater than previously estimated.
Using reports prepared by Austpac Gold, NL in 1993-1994 and supplied to Franklin by COMIBOL, the mineral content in areas where blasting is currently being conducted was estimated to be 1 Kg per ton of silver and 2 grams per ton of gold as well as economically viable quantities of lead and zinc and some copper.
Recovery efforts completed over the past several weeks have produced an estimated 100 tons to be processed. The actual mineral content recovered from the Escala will be announced when the processing of this first month's production is complete.
Additional information on Franklin's - plans for mining at the Escala - is available at www.FranklinMining.com specifically in multiple Letters from the President to be posted during February 2008 -
About The Escala Mine: Comprising three separate mining applications, COMIBOL's Escala Mine concession totals 2,000 hectares located in the Sud Lipez Province, near Bolivia's border with Argentina. Franklin Mining, Bolivia has been awarded a contract to mine 500 hectares within the original concession. Escala II and Escala III mining applications are currently assigned to another company.
The original Escala Mine - was established during the Spanish colonial period and has been mined for lead, zinc, gold and silver. In 2007, Franklin Mining, Bolivia negotiated an agreement with COMIBOL, National Mining Company of Bolivia, to resume mining operations within the area of the original concession.
About Franklin Mining, Inc: Franklin Mining, Inc. holds mining and energy interests in the United States and Bolivia as well as energy interests in Argentina. Franklin Mining, Bolivia is a wholly owned subsidiary. Franklin Mining, Inc. holds 51% ownership in both Franklin Oil & Gas, Bolivia S.A. and Franklin Oil & Gas, Argentina S.A.
DISCLOSURES: "Safe Harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risk and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the impact of competitive products, product demand, market acceptance risks, fluctuations in operating results, political risk and other risks detailed from time to time in Franklin Mining, Inc.'s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks could cause Franklin Mining, Inc.'s actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, Franklin Mining, Inc.
For further information, please visit our website (www.FranklinMining.com) or contact our Investor Relations firm, A. S. Austin & Company, 1-702-386-5379.
Contact: Investor Relations A. S. Austin & Company 1-702-386-5379
Source: Marketwire (February 21, 2008 - 8:30 AM EST)
Barron's
Economic Beat
"Greenspan Was Right: The Case for Gold, Part I -
By GENE EPSTEIN
"UNDER THE GOLD STANDARD," observed Alan Greenspan in a 1966 essay, "a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth."
As you probably heard, a serious bout of instability caused by major imbalances currently plagues the U.S. economy.
So a free banking system under the gold standard must be just what the economy needs, if Greenspan had it right.
In that same essay, the future Fed chairman saw another key advantage to a gold standard. While taxing and borrowing against future taxes were the conventional ways government raised revenue, the abandonment of gold permitted a third way: "chronic deficit spending" effectively financed by the "unlimited expansion of credit." A gold standard would end that abuse.
But adoption of gold is not exactly high on the world's agenda. Accordingly, this first installment in my two-part case for gold began with Alan Greenspan's oft-cited essay (called "Gold and Economic Freedom") for a strategic reason.
Atlantic.com blogger Megan McCardle was wrong to call the gold standard a "terrible idea." But she was obviously right to point out that "so few economists [are] willing to raise their voices in support of" any version of a gold standard.
It might therefore help to remind readers that the most respected Federal Reserve chairman ever raised his voice in just this way as a seasoned economist of 40, in an essay that was brief but mainly focused on the right arguments.
Also, Alan Greenspan's 2007 memoir, The Age of Turbulence, adds to the case for gold, while incidentally helping to suggest why "so few economists" are gold advocates.
The long-standing alternative to gold is, after all, the central banking system, in whose service more than a few economists have found tangible career benefits. That may help explain why The Age of Turbulence never mentions the main point that Greenspan himself made in "Gold and Economic Freedom": that gold would protect the economy from the instability of business cycles. In fact, nowhere does he mention the essay itself. We can only conjecture about the omission in a book that is supposed to chronicle his intellectual development, and which otherwise mentions gold.
I conjecture that he found the argument an affront to his career as a central banker. Indeed, the same essay he buries down the memory hole aggressively indicts the Federal Reserve for playing a destabilizing role. We can regard the 1966 essay as representing his most recent thought to date on this point, since nothing else is available.
The Age of Turbulence does make an additional point in favor of gold not mentioned in that original essay: that a gold standard would prevent price inflation.
In the most disturbing, and valuable, section of this book, Greenspan sees an end to the era of tame price increases, beginning around 2030. He points out, first, that the benign "disinflationary pressures" from economies like that of China will have played out by then. And at the same time, inflationary pressures could be intensified by the fiscal "tsunami" brought on by retiring baby boomers.
He affirms that gold would check price inflation, referring to the "gold standard's inherent price stability." So why not support gold for this important reason? It turns out that, while the Greenspan of 1966 objected to chronic deficits financed by "an unlimited expansion of credit," the Greenspan of 2007 now accepts that very thing. "I have long since acquiesced in the fact that the gold standard does not readily accommodate the widely accepted ...view of the appropriate functions of government," he candidly admits -- namely, the "propensity of Congress to create benefits for constituents without specifying the means by which they are to be funded."
But to accept the government's power "to create benefits...without specifying the means by which they are to be funded" is effectively to endorse the government's right to finance its operations, not just through taxing and borrowing, but through the unilateral creation of money and credit.
On this point, gold advocate George Reisman observes:
"When the government need not obtain its funds from the people, but instead can supply the people with funds, it can no longer easily be viewed as deriving its powers and rights from the people."
So let us repeat Alan Greenspan's three main arguments for gold.
A gold standard will protect the economy from -- 1) the business cycles that have long burdened it and 2) the rapid price inflation that Greenspan sees as a future plague. It also will 3) prevent the government from raising funds through the unilateral expansion of money and credit that Greenspan used to regard as a plague on our freedom.
What more overwhelming case can possibly be imagined? For part 2 on this subject, read next week's column."
Thanks for those links on the Green span bob it proves this paper shorting of the metal, and in the not to distant future , one large default could bust this up.
I doubt they can ever make a large physical deliver on the outside it would expose it all, but it could happen, hope to see more people going with the gg etc -
Judge for yourself and then decide whether you wish to join the strike. WE ARE CHANGE!!!