Home > The Magazine > Business

Thursday 4 December 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Any Other Business

Martin Vander Weyer

Wednesday, 23rd April 2008

The Chariots of Fire moment that revealed Gordon’s 10p tax timebomb

For the truly intrepid
If democracy and justice don’t topple Robert Mugabe soon, the grim reaper surely will — and if, God willing, a successor emerges who is not just another half-mad megalomaniac backed by a viciously corrupt military elite, then foreign aid, investment and expertise will pour in to Zimbabwe. For the truly intrepid investor, that makes this tragically ruined country’s mineral sector well worth watching: a report by George J. Coakley for the US Geological Survey in 2000 counted 1,000 mines employing 60,000 people and producing 35 commodities — including gold, copper, platinum and ferrochromium. Global demand for these materials is insatiable, yet Zimbabwe’s exports of them have been declining since at least 1995, and a mining guru tells me the entire industry is now close to dereliction, with many viable mines shut for simple lack of electricity to operate. The investment expert Michael Orme, writing on this theme at the Daily Reckoning, offers a quote from a fund manager which also throws an interesting sidelight on the RBS rights issue: ‘Given the choice between investing in Africa — conflict or no conflict, corruption, epic or otherwise — and a basket of Western banks, Africa wins every time.’

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3

More articles from: Martin Vander Weyer | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Is gold still a safe haven?

Matthew Lynn

Ingots are just another commodity

City Life

Robert Beaumont

At last, a fine statue of Brian Clough — but still not even a plaque for Jesse Boot

The global currency crisis is still to come

Jonathan Ruffer

Jonathan Ruffer argues that state bail-outs in response to the credit crunch could lead to yet another massive shock: a widespread collapse of currencies, and a new inflation

Any Other Business

Martin Vander Weyer

My hopes for America lie less in Obama- mania, more in Vaud and the Villains

Chasing dragons: the Chinese army takes up art collecting

Elliot Wilson

Elliot Wilson profiles Poly Group, a company controlled by the Chinese military which uses arms-sales profits to buy back artworks that have been illicitly flogged off abroad

Shares that go up as banks go down

Scott Payton

Scott Payton on alternative investment

‘Business only thrives when society thrives’

Judi Bevan

Judi Bevan hears the views of Paul Myners, the left-leaning millionaire art collector who has just become Gordon Brown’s City minister

A catalogue of credit-crunch cant

Simon Nixon

Simon Nixon challenges the new conventional wisdom that all bankers are greedy, share traders are spivs, governments know best and capitalism is doomed