Here is a great reason to buy only classic gold coins . . . http://www.kitco.com/news/2017-09-1...xposes-Mining-Threats-in-Brazil-s-Amazon.html I have no desire to inadvertently support such savage conduct. - Mike
So many angles to your post. #1 what these illegal gold miners did is awful and must be condemned first and foremost. Murder is wrong and murder of a 1/5th of a population of people is even worse. Ok, now that we've addressed that, on to other subjects: #2 These were ILLEGAL gold miners. Is there evidence this, or other illegally mined gold, enters into use any of the government bullion issuing mints? #3 How about how gold was sourced for your pre-33 coins. You might want to look into that history. It's pretty awful. #4 Every human being is entitled to all the same human rights. Education is among these. I'm not sure how I feel about a government policy of noncontact with indigenous people. They are human beings, too, who are unable to realize their full potential as people due to their lack of basic education. While I understand the desire to protect a small, endangered group of indigenous people, it's hard to reconcile this with the fact that in that condition those kids will never have an opportunity to reach their full human potential.
As long as you are buying gold you are putting pressure on the demand side. Where your gold was sourced is irrelevant. I'm sure I'll be dead by this time but I see a future where gold will be looked at like diamonds are now. More for the environmental impact mining causes than the human suffering it causes.
Providing gold to the US Mint is essentially an unregulated free-for-all, unlike conflict minerals rules. The US Mint contracts for the provision of raw gold and blanks under NAICS 331491, which permits gold and gold alloy bar, sheet, strip, foil and tubing made from purchased metals or scrap (neither of which are source-controlled). I don't doubt that, but it's water under the bridge. We should focus on what can be done going forward. Sorry, but in my pressured frustration with the modern day rat race, I often find myself longing for simpler times, and wondering if "progress really is . . ." To thrust more modern ways upon others may make you feel morally superior, but you might be completely wrong, and not even realize it. Getting way out there for a moment, imagine some alien race forcing change upon reluctant Earthlings because they think it is better for us. The stress of compliance alone might rob us of any net gain the aliens intended to deliver . . . thus a net loss results. I think your points are more valid, but still not enough so. The intent of the Funai officials is to protect the region of concern, and with that comes the prevention of mining. If that gold is off limits, then faced with the same demand, the lack of supply drives the price higher. If that gold is mined, and proportionally distributed to holders of the metal from all other sources, the increase in supply drives the price marginally lower, theoretically leaving the holders of gold in the same net gold value position. Again, buying classic gold coinage supports buying gold already extracted from concentrated deposits in the ground, versus tearing up vast tracts of land well into the future in search of mere grams per ton.
One cannot take back the past, but can protect the future. That said, I cannot help but to wonder if such indigenous people, or at least those still living in relative harmony with nature, are truly the ones living up to their "human potential". This idea that the earth is ours to do with as we see fit does little but out us as the parasites we truly are. I'm sorry, but the rights of present humans pale in comparison to the right of this planet not to be trashed, it's wonders killed or forever ruined, all so some schmo can make a buck. To be human is far from being humane.
I've thought about this for many years as I have been buying gold and silver. I am an environmentalist at heart but I am also a pragmatist. Gold and silver provides a hedge against an uncertain economic future. I would love it is the system were honest enough that I did not feel the need to hedge. So I buy some gold and some silver and feel a little guilty every time I read an article about the turmoil caused by mining. It is not a comfortable feeling, but neither would being destitute when the dollar collapses.
No one does but the sad reality is that things like that happen all the time around the world and many of the products that we buy directly or indirectly contribute to those practices. Unless those countries want to change themselves nothing will change, it has been happening since the begging of humans and will likely happen until the end of them. Even if the entire USA stopped buying gold the rest of the world would still buy it so it really would make no difference. That said classic gold is beautiful for both US and world and most people don't need another reason to want to buy it Noncontact is because that is what those people want. The vast majority of the time the policy started because encounters were always violent. The world would be a much better place is people stopped trying to tell others how they should be living. There is a lot more to someones potential as a human than education which really is starting to get to the tipping point of becoming meaningless given how many fluff degrees have been created for the sake of saying everyone should have a degree.
Unfortunately the reality for an indigenous child living in an uncontacted tribe is that they have no capacity to decide for themselves what their future should be. The reason why education is a universal human right is because it gives everyone the tools to better decide their own future. Depriving someone of that is taking away their ability to decide what is best for themselves. Instead, their tribe will decide what their life will be. This is not ok. Number two is that it is also inevitable that one day these uncontacted tribes will all one day be contacted. Unfortunately probably by illegal miners, poachers, or a paramilitaries. In these situations, they are unlikely to to suffer (as we saw in your article) or find themselves dying due to disease they have no immunity for. Thus, the most humane policy may be to provide planned contact with the tribes in order to protect them from what will be terrible spontaneous contacts if left alone.
Actually it is perfectly okay, they have made it this far doing just fine. What isn't okay is your belief that everyone should have modern society forced upon them. They've been contacted before, it turned violent or they chased the people off hence the no contact policies. Contact with them will expose them to disease whether planned or not so that logic makes no sense. The most humane thing to do is to leave them alone and stop trying to force them into a life they don't want. You're basically just advocating forced armed conflict against people who don't want contact many of which get violent when it happens. There's islands you can't even approach without a boat being attacked as one example. A lot of them no one else even knows their language. There is no reason to try and force things on them in the name of education, that isn't helping them
I would hope that developed nations and their people have grown beyond the excuse of "bringing civilization to the natives." I'll leave it at that.
That,s true for the most part, but many places where PM medals are found And mined are what i would call third world and allot of what goes on There is more dictator then democratic.
A new French television show, called Ouro Amazon Gold, just finished it's first season. I highly recommend watching. It's about a French man working on his graduate program who gets sucked into the illegal mining operations of Guiana.
