“Strengthening copper prices, for example, do not immediately result in increased copper production in many market cycles, because the production cycle requires new deposits to be discovered, financed, and constructed—a process that can consume a decade. Price declines—even declines below the industry’s total production costs—do not immediately cause massive production cuts. The ‘sunk capital’ involved in discovery and construction of mining projects and attendant infrastructure (such as smelters, railways, and ports) causes the industry to produce down to, and sometimes below, their cash costs of production.”
http://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/why-the-resource-supercycle-is-still-intact
Related posts:
David Galland: Scenarios
IRS Reporting Rules for Cash Transactions and Precious Metals
On Target Pressure Points: Educational Compliance
Detlev Schlichter: Could Bitcoin be the money of the future?
The World’s Greatest Investor is Dead Wrong
Cowardice Redefined: The New Face of American Serial Killers
Why Whiskey Was Money, and Bitcoins Might Be
Killing Without Consequences: "Counter-Insurgency" Warfare in Greenfield, CA
Petting & Walking With Cheetahs in Africa at Mukuni Big 5 Safaris
David Galland: Answers from a Monetary Master
David Galland: Three Levels of Survival Skills
“I Will Never Go Back”: why the Ukrainians did what they did
FDR: Sowing the Seeds of Chaos
Diamonds, Advertising, DeBeers and Sex
How the Iraq War Became a War on Christians