Montreal Investment Conference, Morning Update

Montreal, Quebec – Welcome to the first upside-down hotel we've ever seen: the Hilton Bonaventure Montreal, where Cambridge House International is conducting its two-day resource investment conference. And we mean upside-down; the lobby, meeting rooms, guest rooms and even the swimming pool are all on the top floor of this edifice (we wonder if perhaps the heliport is somewhere in the basement.



All of which is perhaps a fitting metaphor for the state of the world's currencies and economies. as well. If one hoped to glean any cheery insights from Friday's first panel of Joe Martin, Michael Berry, Leonard Melman and Terry Orstland, one came away empty-handed – unless one is sitting on large sacks of physical silver and gold.

Martin, just back from Munich, noted the huge demand for physical precious metals at Jan Kneist's resource investment conference there, amongst not just stodgy octogenarian Germans with distant memories of the collapse of the Deutschmark in the late teens and early twenties of last century, but youngsters as well.

Melman, Berry and Orstland were sceptical of Europe's political courage in dealing with its mounting debt issues, and noted that the last time a world currency like the dollar collapsed a thousand-year period known as the Dark Ages ensued. Even if Europe hocked all of its gold in some form of Euro-bond, a value estimated at below $1 trillion, it wouldn't be enough to bail out a single country, and they're all in deep doo-doo.

Perhaps later today will come some good news from this gathering of newsletter writers, analysts, prognosticators and resource company types. We certainly hope so, or we'll be headed for the feathers or a glass of suds post-haste . . . Stay tuned.

Article by David Bond