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A gold rush in Ghana

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A miner from a 19th century gold rush

According to Bloomberg News, Chinese miners have http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-08/ghana-s-gold-sparks-conflict-with-illegal-chinese-miners.html rushed to Ghana. Just as with American 49ers in California, the environmental results are not pretty.

Ghana is Africa’s second-largest gold producer. It was the original “Gold Coast” that Europeans ventured to 500 years ago, looking for the source of the gold dust that showed up in Morocco and Algeria after being carried across the Sahara on camels.

And as in California 160 years ago, the rush is violent:

In July, Chinese men mining near the village of Manso-Nsiana fired warning shots when residents protested their presence, Koffi said. He couldn’t confirm a report published in Accra’s state-owned Daily Graphic newspaper in July that two Chinese nationals have been killed this year in a mining dispute.

A bad recipe for our reefs

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The Maui News http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/565706/Task-force-s-plan-in-place-to-save–mend-coral-reefs.html?nav=10reports that after a lot of work, a local group in alliance with NOAA has come up with a summary of what is causing decline of West Maui’s reefs.

Unfortunately, diligence is no substitute for knowledge, and the West Maui Watershed and Coastal Management task force blew it. While some of their conclusions are valid, the big, expensive one is baloney. The Maui News says:

The county’s Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility role involves pouring 3.5 million to 5 million gallons a day of nutrient-rich treated water underground using injection wells, Hood said. These nutrients have been blamed, at least in part, for killing coral and feeding algae blooms that strangle it.

The truth is, the treated wastewater is not rich in nutrients. It is very low in nutrients. If it weren’t for the yuuck factor and the slight possibility of disease organisms, you could drink the stuff. Hundreds of millions of people drink water a lot worse that what goes down the injection wells.

For years now, and notwithstanding the EPA spent a million dollars back in the early ’90s trying to convict the wells and failed, a band of environmental zealots have been running a campaign against the effluent. If they had merely visited the Central Laboratory and observed the testing of the effluent (done daily), they’d know better. It’s not too late. The lab operates every day of the year.coral reef

There’s a lot of bogus “information” out there about the oceans. The same Sunday The Maui News helped publicize the wrongheaded West Maui report, the Los Angeles Times ran a http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-acidic-oceans-20121007,0,7494056.storystory about the dangers of an acid ocean:

Rising acidity doesn’t just imperil the West Coast’s $110-million oyster industry. It ultimately will threaten other marine animals, the seafood industry and even the health of humans who eat affected shellfish, scientists say.

Not worry though. The ocean is not turning acid, if you go swimming, your suit won’t dissolve. The ocean has been alkaline for billions of years and it will continue to be alkaline until the sun expands and burns us to a crisp.

The ocean is about as alkaline as a glass of Alka-Seltzer.

Wonk alert! A hot issue in the pawn world

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All pawnshops are regulated by the states, and some municipalities add additional regulations. The national government is not involved.

But there’s a move to create a national pawn structure. It would be similar to the situation with commercial banks, which can seek either a state or a federal charter. (The majority of banks have state charters, including the big ones in Hawaii.)

The National Pawnbrokers Association is against http://act.nationalpawnbrokers.org/7851/federal-charter-hr-6139/ national regulation, but there is a minority of the membership that disagrees:

The National Pawnbrokers Association opposes any legislation that grants authority to the federal government to charter, regulate, supervise and examine non-depositary providers of credit services and products to consumers. These responsibilities have traditionally been managed by the states. The NPA has been monitoring, H.R. 6139, which authorizes the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to grant “federal charters” to non-depository providers of financial services who meet fairly exclusive requirements.   

This may not seem to be much of an issue for customers, but it can be.

Think of it like you do credit cards. Your credit card issuer is almost certainly domiciled in South Dakota, which has VERY credit card issuer-friendly laws. S.D.’s laws are not so friendly to credit card holders, though.

 

 

 

More pawn reality TV

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According to Zap2it, truTV is about to introduce yet another pawn shop reality show, Hard Core Pawn: Chicago:

Hardcore Pawn: ChicagoHardcore Pawn: Chicago – New series premieres Tuesday, Dec. 18, at 9:30 p.m. (ET/PT)
Hardcore Pawn: Chicago takes viewers behind the scenes at “the baddest pawn shop in Chicago.” One of the city’s largest and oldest establishments in the pawn and gold-buying business, Royal Pawn Shop is owned by Randy and Wayne Cohen, two brothers who don’t always see eye to eye, except when it comes to finding the best deals for the business. These over-the-top siblings will wheel and deal with just about anyone, from a sweet kindergarten teacher to an intimidating mob boss. Hardcore Pawn: Chicago comes to truTV from Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment. 

 

The original Hard Core Pawn is in Detroit, and is reported to be one of truTV’s biggest hits. Well, more power to ’em. I cannot see a “Hard Core Pawn: Maui” in anybody’s future, though.

That other reality TV pawn shop

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Crowds flock to Las Vegas pawn shop

Pawn Stars shop flooded with customers and celebrity hunters

Right. While we’re working on turning Kamaaina Loan into a reality TV show, that other shop in Las Vegas is livin’ the life.

Now, it is http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/sep/26/buy-items-featured-pawn-stars-online/reported, they are selling the stuff you’ve seen them buy on the show online.

Not sure why this is news; most pawnshops, ours included, have an online department.

Still, you might prefer to buy on line than to visit. We’re told that up to 4,000 Lookie Lous pass through the pawn shop a day, thanks to the popularity of Pawn Stars. The business has had to hire guards to separate the celebrity-seekers from the real customers. One stream to the left, one to the right.

Laughing all the way to the bank, we’re sure.

 

Pawn 101: You can take me to the fair

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The Joy Zone (photo by Forest & Kim Starr)

(with apologies to Lerner & Lowe)

The Friday afternoon of Maui Fair week is always busy at Kamaaina Loan. The reason offers insight into what pawnshops really mean to their communities, rather than what the common opinion is.

If you went to the fair, no doubt you saw some slightly harassed looking guys herding 8, 9, 10 or so kids through the Joy Zone and the food booths. These were good guys — uncles maybe — seeing to it that the neighbor keiki had a good, safe time.

When you start thinking about filling up 10 growing boys and girls with chili and rice, though, the cash outlay can be daunting. Quite a few people turn to the pawnshop for ready cash.

This contradicts the view that pawnshops attract the desperate, the unemployed and the near-destitute. In fact, pawnshops are able to help people in those categories, but as bank economist John Caskey was surprised to find (in a study done in the early ’90s for the Russell Sage Foundation, published as “Fringe Banking: Check-Cashing Outlets, Pawnshops and the Poor”), pawnshops reach a much wider clientele.

Most customers are employed, although many in jobs that feature periods of temporary layoffs. Caskey went to pawnshops and interviewed customers to see who they were and what they depended on the pawn lender to do for them.

He was surprised to find that a substantial part of the business came from ordinary folks who took out pawn loans for a night or weekend on the town.

Not everybody has an ATM card, and if you are contemplating spending a couple hundred dollars at the Maui Fair, there might not be that much in your bank account anyway.

A fast pawn loan could be the answer.

It is for many people.

This was the first year that Kamaaina Loan advertised its pawn loans direct to fairgoers. If you had a good time at the fair with our help, we’re gratified.

The photograph of the Joy Zone comes from the invaluable photographic archive of Maui life being added to by Forest & Kim Starr. Mahalo to Forest and Kim.

Will gold go up or down?

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Yes.

But we have no way to tell which it will be. The folks at Lear Capital confess uncertainty, too, but they have produced an infographic that shows the relative movements of gold, silver, stocks, inflation and national debt during presidential administrations. (For sure, gold never stays the same, it is always either up or down, like the grand old Duke of Kent in the nursery song.)

These are hardly the only indexes that matter (money supply growth is always interesting), but for what it’s worth, here it is.