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House to vote Tuesday on Paul's Fed audit bill
By Donna Smith and Tim Ahmann
Reuters
Friday, July 20, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/20/us-usa-fed-audit-idUSBRE86J1CI...
WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Tuesday on a bill that would allow for a congressional audit of Federal Reserve monetary policy decisions, a senior House aide said on Friday.
The legislation proposed by Republican Rep. Ron Paul, a long-time critic of the U.S. central bank and author of the book "End the Fed," has already gathered 274 co-sponsors, virtually guaranteeing passage.
The Republican-led House will consider the bill under a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority, but nearly two-thirds of the House has already signed onto the bill.
Paul's son, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, has introduced a companion bill in the Democrat-controlled Senate, but chances of success there are remote given a less critical view of the central bank in that chamber and a tight legislative calendar before congressional elections in November.
... Dispatch continues below ...
Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization
at Blackdome in British Columbia -- 13.6g over 1.5 Meters
From a Company Press Release
November 22, 2011
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling.
"We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company."
Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered.
For the company's complete press release, please visit:
http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf
The Fed stopped Ron Paul's measure during congressional debate over financial regulatory reforms in 2010.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told House lawmakers on Wednesday that the legislation would open the door to a "nightmare scenario" of political meddling in monetary policy.
"That is very concerning because there's a lot of evidence that an independent central bank that makes decisions based strictly on economic considerations and not based on political pressure will deliver lower inflation and better economic results in the longer term," Bernanke said.
Paul's bill would direct the Government Accountability Office, an independent, nonpartisan congressional agency, to conduct a Fed review and would remove an exemption that monetary policy has enjoyed.
The central bank's political standing has suffered since the financial crisis struck in 2007. Critics claim Fed policies benefited Wall Street more than Main Street, and many Republicans charge that the central bank is courting inflation with its efforts to lift the economy.
The Fed cut overnight interest rates to near zero in December 2008 and has held them there since. It has also bought $2.3 trillion in government and mortgage-related bonds in a further effort to press down borrowing costs.
Despite the Fed's aggressive and unconventional monetary policy, the economic recovery is only limping along.
Growth slowed to just a 1.9 percent annual rate in the first three months of this year, and economists expect a report next Friday will show it slowed further to a 1.5 percent pace in the second quarter.
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Prophecy Platinum Announces Wellgreen Preliminary Economic Assessment:
38% Pre-Tax IRR, $3.0 Billion NPV, and a 37-Year Mine Life
Company Press Release
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) reports the results of an independent NI 43-101-compliant preliminary economic assessment for its fully owned Wellgreen nickel-copper-platinum group metals project in the Yukon Territory.
The independent assessment, prepared by Tetra Tech, evaluated a base case of an open-pit mine (with a mining rate of 111,500 tonnes per day), an on-site concentrator (with a milling rate of 32,000 tonnes per day), and an initial capital cost of $863 million. The project is expected to produce (in concentrate) 1.959 billion pounds of nickel, 2.058 billion pounds of copper, and 7.119 million ounces of platinum, palladium, and gold during a mine life of 37 years with an average strip ratio of 2.57.
The financial highlights of the preliminary economic assessment, shown in U.S. dollars, are as follows:
Payback period: 3.55 years
Initial capital investment: $863 million
IRR pre-tax (100% equity): 38 percent
NPV pre-tax (8% discount): $3 billion
Mine life: 37 years
Total mill feed: 405.3 million tonnes
Mill throughput: 32,000 tonnes per day
Prophecy Chairman John Lee says: "We are pleased with the preliminary economic assessment results. The numbers indicate that Wellgreen is one of most exciting mineral projects in the Yukon. The company is drilling to upgrade and expand the resource base. The infrastructure is excellent as the project is only 1,400 meters in altitude and 14 kilometers from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to the Haines deep seaport. Discussions are under way with support from local stakeholders regarding permitting and logistics."
For the complete press release, please visit:
http://prophecyplat.com/news_2012_june18_prophecy_platinum_announces_res...
