What's the attraction, now that the bloom is off the rose? I look at all the potential pitfalls, and I've certainly experienced most of them these past 2 years, and I ask myself, is it really worth it? Is the lure of bagging an Aurelian so strong as to overcome all the negatives, because let's face it, when you've got something like an Aurelian, aren't you more likely to have it stolen from you than to reap the full benefit? And aren't the odds of finding one, let alone two or three Aurelians in one's lifetime far outweighed by the losses incurred on the other dogs you might buy in that quest (and let's face it - there's an awful lot of dogs in mining).

ebear, you ask some good questions. agoracom is largely about canadian small and micro-cap resource stocks, and most of us came from the aurelian forum, so that would explain the bias toward mining issues here.

as for the much thornier question of why we prefer mining shares despite all the problems you mention: that is a matter of individual preference. my finance professor in college said there are two ways to make money in the stock market:

1) the top-down approach. follow the economy cycle through its boom and bust cycle. start out defensive when it's in recession, move into the broad market, and on into the inflation hedges when the economy starts to overheat. try to predict the surprises that will impact the broad market, and

2) the bottom-up approach. learn all you can about a company and an industry. look at all the information on the internet and in the trade publications so that when a company issues a news release you'll be able to read the jargon and understand what happened.

so why do we keep beating our heads against this wall after all of the insider deals, manipulation, and outright corruption, on top of a decline in the entire resource market? i think we are in a long-term bull market in commodities, perhaps half way through it. i think we will see stagflation like the 1970's, only worse, and gold, silver, oil and gas will be the best investments for the next several years.

there will come a time when bank stocks are attractive, but i think most of them will go bankrupt or be acquired first. i personally don't know that much about auto companies, biotechnology, telecommunications, or any other industry you'd care to mention, and i think investing money in a company you don't understand is a sure way to lose it.

in addition, not every mining company gets stolen from its shareholders. there are companies like agnico eagle, yamana, and goldcorp that grow to be large producers, even if their share prices don't reflect their success at the moment. there are companies like minefinders and silver standard that didn't take the money and run. they did the hard work to bring a mine into production instead of selling out.

i'm not saying you can throw darts at a list of mining stocks and anything you hit will be a winner. if it were easy to make money in these stocks, everyone would be doing it. but if the silver and gold prices recover as i expect, the well-managed mining companies will do very well in an inflationary economic environment, and there aren't a lot of other industries i can say that about.

i don't see how the united states can honor all of its commitments to social security, medicare, and everything else without causing rampant inflation, and exporting it to the rest of the world. years from now, when the world is solvent again, banking, basic manufacuring or technology may be the way to go. anyway, that's just my two cents.