vietnam

dear friends, vietnam went through war & peace, socialism & capitalism, planned economy & free markets, democracy & one party system, poverty & beginning wealth, destruction & economic growth like no other country in the world in the last few decades. the contrasts are omnipresent all around, you know? why not to bundle my thoughts about economy, politics, peace, war, socialism, capitalism, society, people and the like as moving forward? enjoy + do not hesitate to comment  (i.e. discuss with me + others) these socio-economic issues :-)

in order to make complicated stuff easy, let's present my hypothesis first and explain it later if at all 😄

• GOOD LIFE (for the most people) = peace + free market economy + freedom
• BAD LIFE = war, political ('democratical') steered economy, tyranny, ...

it is as easy as that, my dears :-). any additional questions out there? and yes, why the hell are our still wealthy + more or less free western nations transiting to political steered societies which massively reduce the democratic rights of its own citizens and kill thousands of innocent people who never ever threatened us all over the world (iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, libya, syria, somalia, mali, soon probably also iran, ...)? why can't we live peaceful in fair societies or even in reliable, resource based societies free of domination as suggested by jörg bergstedt?

vietnam:

• a young country with so many children
• reminds me often on my native socialist czechoslovakia as it was 25 years ago probably because many things are worn-out and because there are so many soviet flags and socialist pictures / sculptures / symbols of working class heroes :)
• one party system but provides its people at least a freedom of choice to go abroad wherever they want to
• multi-nations country with 55 nations, the major group viet makes up approximately 88% of the population
• geography similar to those we have in germany: almost the same size + population + highest mountain. even the long north-south form of the country and the north-south differences in economy + culture are very similar to those in germany ...
• full of water (rivers, lakes, canals, swampland, rain and of course there is the sea
• full of waste, there is plastic trash all over the country... dear vietnamese, please value your environment a little bit more, it is the most important 'asset' you posses :-)
• huge gap between poor and rich, but not as huge as in malaysia, greece, brasil, india, ...
• mopeds, mopeds, mopeds ... and many japanese or south korean cars, busses, trucks
• very bad infrastructure: no underground/metro in hanoi, no highways or at least i didn't see any between hanoi and hoi an, no fast trains, ...
• very friendly people even if the most folks we have met outside the tourist area couldn't speak any foriegn language
• etc

night train from hanoi to hue

 there was a small cute mouse below our bed :o)

my other blog posts from vietnam, mostly sightseeing + pictures:

• hanoi
• on the road
• ha long bay (halong bay) ~ unesco heritage
• hue ~ unesco heritage
• hoi an ~ unesco heritage
• hue ~ 1 week beach holiday 
• etc

btw, did you know that vietnam translates as "south Viet" and therefore should the country be called vietland if they asked me 😇

eof

america meets africa? red eagle mining + agriterra ...

not yet, my dears, just an interesting investor lunch today

the canadian gold explorer red eagle mining with projects in colombia and the pan-african agriculture business company agriterra were presented by cm-equity and gianni kovacevic in one of munich's best restaurants käfer today.

red eagle mining

 source: company website

• colombia, historical gold mines, opportunity because cheap like an unwanted pet 
• first production targeted for 2015
• ...

agriterra

source: company website

• mozambique, cattle, maize, macadamia nuts, bananas, fruits,
• sierra-leone, cocoa,
• makes profit (let's check that in their finacial reports first ...) or just going to make profits?
• trades approximatelly at its cash level
• unfortunately only a AIM london listing, TSX-V listing should come in 2013
• ...

of course, i've welcomed the chance to get some inside information about the war situation in MALI from gianni, who is one of the major shareholders of one of my portfolio companies legend gold which has 3 properties in southern mali and is 80% since my initial purchase. it is down a lot especially for a company which has no debt and doesn't spend any money on its projects (the joint-venture partners do), isn't it?

... more insights? coming soon or never

MALI

what the hell is going on in mali?

source: here

gold, uranium, oil, bauxite, strategic minerals ... the WWlll aka world war 3 aka "Military States against the Resource States" continues, wouldn't you say? 

well, this 'resource story' is also s.th. which was written in a message from a guy from mali i've  got 'over two corners' at facebook ... and that reminds me of the rebellion in oil rich nigeria few years ago after the western oil industry destroyed the basis of existence of the local people by spoiling all the environment in the niger delta ... and yes, it also makes sense if we consider the 'track record' of the North Atlantic Terror Organisation (NATO): iraq, libya, sudan, somalia, afghanistan, iran, ... on top the indirect aggression (via its well paid + well supported (mostly foreign!) 'rebells') against syria which killed ten thousands innocent syrians till now ... of course, the human rights or liberty was seldom a real reason for intervention ... more likely reasons are strategic political or military reasons (location) and natural resources, aren't they? the next 'crisis' just started in algeria ... hmmmm, not really a suprise ... does algeria has oil or gas or both and a government which didn't hand over all of algerian's resource wealth to the west yet?

btw, i also have a (really small) direct investment in (southern) mali, the canadian gold exploration company legend gold. well, after the civil war started and the probability to bring at least one of the 3 assets into a producing gold mine has fallen significantly, my investment is 86% down, i.e. almost completely lost. lost are not only investors' money spent in mali but also the most local jobs created there as the work is basically on hold and the plans are postponed to the time after the war. who knows whether my company survives or which mining rights / laws / corruption will be implemented then?

a few months old video ... it does not seem the islamist fighters have big support from the local population (mostly tuaregs?) and it does not looks like these 'rebells' do any good either ... but if you asked me, i start to think that only radical (islamist, jihadist) groups like al-qaeda, mujaheddin, taliban and the like are able to fight against (foreign) aggressors ... people like university professors, celebrities, bureaucrats and others will most likely not fight against any armed opponent, will they?

more terrorists who could be used in any country you wish to? here:

source: here

one belgian politician is against NATO war (france, germany, belgium,...) in MALI and speaks in front of the belgian parliament about the reasons for this war and recapitulates the western effort in libya, syria, iraq, afghanistan ... very important to hear

few interesting links:

• france, mali, algeria
• 9 questions ~ do you agree?
• great analysis for western interventions in africa ~ by Jean-Paul Pougala, Cameroonian writer
• back to 1324, king Mansa Musa l ~ richest person on earth ~ the link contains also the next 25 richest folks on earth, all time perspective, of course
• WWlll ~ Military States against the Resource States ~ ... with IMF loans replacing direct occupation ... All of the G20 countries have favoured corporations over people to the extent that surviving in a collapsed economy is difficult to impossible without rewriting many property ownership and usage laws ... The corporations control the money and therefore the military and the NATO countries ... What is the power of the people over the corporations? On the NATO side, very little to none ... How can we create real governance by the people out of this conflict? ...
• mali @ wikipedia
• ron paul on mali
• etc
• crisis all over the world? lets learn from a good survival video (btw, i didn't buy these promoted 5 books yet, maybe because of that over-aggressive sales strategy, but i liked the content and i'm still completely shocked ... let's speak about that to the best of all wives tomorrow)

eof