not according to this ayway from Jim Willie:

Harper refers to the commercial securities of the 30-day to 90-day type, backed by car loans, credit card debt, and mortgages. The US interbank problem has spread to Canada, where the commercial paper market ground to a halt since August after Coventree and others refused to roll over maturing short-term debt. The bankers spot the 9% composition in subprime mortgage loans and backed off totally in bank loan acceptance as collateral. The impact of recent adventures has put some key parties in the lurch. Losses could surpass 50% for Barrick Gold and Baffinland Iron Mines, in addition to the nation’s largest pension fund manager Caisse De Depot et Placement du Quebec.A grand loss would be most welcome to Barrick, suspected of broad illicit behavior, perhaps shorting junior mining stocks (just wild guess). A bankruptcy of Barrick would be tremendous news, forcing liquidation, disclosure, and halted illicit trades. The absence of fiscal lead in the Canadian bank problem resolution leaves the problem squarely with the banks and credit market to resolve. Big downdrafts are likely in asset backed securities. We will see how deeply Canadian banks engaged in lunatic behavior with leverage against such bonds.

This precious metals bull market has seen little if any acquisitions by large mining firms of smaller explorers and young producers. Some consolidation was very evident in the period from 2002 to 2004, see Kinross for instance. A higher gold price has been accompanied by falling gold production. Large miners severely cut their geologist staffs in the last decade. Now the best geologists work for juniors, given the name since the smallest firms. The large firms must replace their depleting reserves by acquiring those proven up by the juniors, who have much greater success rates. Mexico Mike suggests collusion is taking place, whereby several larger firms decide among themselves which properties to pursue, which juniors to deal with, leaving most juniors to struggle as they go it alone. Even joint ventures seem scant in number. Majors expect to be able to grab juniors when they wish, likely later, at bargain prices when their assets are more visible but their finances are damaged. The majors are more closely involved with collusion with the central banker agents like JPMorganand Goldman Sachs. So why would they not collude among themselves also? It is cynical but makes sense. 

Mexico Mike suggests that Barrick Gold might be a ringleader, directing gold mining sector collusion. Their Board of Directors include Papa George Bush, hardly a fellow with mining experience or the best motives for gold. Barrick CEO Gregory Wilkins plays to the gold crowd, with“Global mining supply is going to decrease at a much faster rate than people generally believe.”MMike reasons that Barrick might have a mission to short the junior mining stocks on a broad basis, as an adjunct mission to their own illicit hedge book program intended to suppress the gold price. Naked shorting of stocks is more common than realized in Canadian mining firms. Barricklied in a grand manner in summer 2007, never covered their hedge book, only covered ongoing mines, with half their peak hedge book position still exposed. Yet Barrick masquerades as a favorite large cap gold mining stock in the sector. As majors corner the investment flow of funds on the stock equity side, they can easily use their own higher priced stocks in buyouts of juniors, all in time. This would deprive junior stock investors of their due reward for finding ripe ore deposits. The climax suspicion comes from the NovaGold story, as they successfully defended themselves from a hostileBarrick takeover, only to find themselves on the losing end of an altered engineering estimate for costs at the Galore Creek copper-gold project with Teck Cominco. Suddenly the NovaGold stock price is cut in half. Punishment? Who knows? Watch upcoming acquisition takeover stories. Mexico Mike calls this the biggest market rigging scam of the century.

In my view Barrick is as evil as the gold cartel, as evil as Halliburton, as evil as the worst firms on Wall Street. Even John Ing of Maison Placements Canada of Toronto openly promotes Barrick as an investor, writes about the virtues of gold investments, but is probably paid to turn a blind eye to what scum they are. Some successes might light a fire under the junior mining stock prices, enough to force a backfire on the Barricks out there engaged in active shorting of junior stocks. One must be aware that acquisitions are difficult for the majors to conduct while desperately fighting against the higher gold price, the very acid to kill their balance sheets from short gold futures contracts.Their hedge book problems prevent them from actively devoting capital toward buyouts. This point is overlooked by Mexico Mike. They are slowly being drained of capital as the cover their losing gold hedges, and ratchet their own lines in the sand ever higher in a loser’s game. Also, why would any bank assist in the financing of a buyout deal, when large mining firms have such lousy balance sheets? They would not, since full accounting demanded by the banks involved would reveal the bankrupt state of the major firm seeking to do the acquisition. So the majors might be handcuffed, stymied, and crippled, rather than colluding. My best guess is Mexico Mike is correct, but to a much lesser extent than described. The majors are trapped, just like the USFed. They have too little capital to successfully explore. They have too few competent geologists. They have too little means to acquire smaller firms. In a sense, both sides are trapped. The juniors need Joint Venture partners for the development of properties. The juniors need acquirers to take them out in buyouts, making for a Grand PayDay.