Today I am going to spend most of my time in meetings to prepare for Bahamas and time on the book manuscript. Thank goodness because I was having computer problems publishing this article; it took well over 30 minutes after I had it written.

You know, I am very pleased to have spent so many hours in the past two or three weeks writing up so many gold and silver producers. Because of my crystal ball, I could "see" the break-out in precious metals prices coming and wanted to prepare readers for that event. :-)

I have also decided (as you know) to write fewer articles in this blog until I receive the results of my latest biopsy, which is more than a distraction; it's a creativity killer. I need to write in a free association thinking mode, but health issues now dominate my thinking.

Regarding uranium; I met Mr Platinum last evening and he thinks the price will hit $100. As you know, he is one of the people on the Street who I listen closely to.

He says off the record, which is what I also hear from some other key people in the mining industry, that the Sprott firm has significant influence over this market.

For the record, I think highly of the work of Sprott Asset Management, and I am bullish on uranium stocks generally. In fact, in a recent blog, I listed a half dozen good ones, and have a list of a dozen more I watch from a distance.

But I am also concerned a bubble might be forming here.

My point yesterday is that almost all traders think uranium is a free market like Gold and Silver, etc. It isn't. It is I believe (and will continue to do so unless informed by more knowledgeable people than those who brought me to this conclusion) affected to a significant degree by a player who has (or had) a vested interest in owning a significant piece of many of these small mining companies, while actively promoting them, trading them and also acting as a manager of OPM.

I have watched similar conflicts of interest not end well. It goes right to the heart of the conflict issue of what is a broker-dealer. Is it your agent or is it a vested-interest principal?

The Sprott firm obviously disagrees with my position, and so in the interests of fairness, I invited them to lay out their case in a subsequent blog. I'm not trying to be hurtful, but I am trying to get to the truth. As you know, conflicts in the securities industry are issues that interest me.

In any event, they declined, but threatened legal action to force me to remove what they call misrepresentations of fact. To avoid a lawsuit, which neither they or I would be helped by, I am going to remove and/or edit statements where I think it's the right thing to do.

One matter you may not hear much about is that there are hundreds of penny stock paper pushers in Vancouver who know the stock promotion business " at a certain level in any event " and to a great many of them, this is a paper game with a major mission, which is to separate you from your money. If their company happens to actually become a miner, that's probably a 1 or 2 in a thousand shot. Think about it: hundreds of players; 1 or 2 in 1000.

So, be careful with uranium. That was a point raised by mining people themselves last evening in a round-table discussion I had.

A final point on this uranium matter is that all over the world there are people exploring for material on the legitimate basis of perceived demand in the future as government tries to find alternatives to oil-based energy needs. But, have you thought about the implications?

As the research shows, Uranium is naturally radioactive, and is a carcinogen. It must be handled with greater care than say gold.

I have zero interest in getting into a personal discussion of this, and I know that those of you who are bullish on uranium are going to be 100-pct dismissive, whether the basis is information or emotion. But, a win-win would be for independent and objective experts to discuss this here.

Please; independent and objective experts only. If you are heavily invested, we know what the rest of you think.

With respect to the Canadian Minister of Finance decision to introduce materially changing legislation that would tax Canadian-based income trusts, Although I am taking an unpopular position, I reiterate my support for the tax ruling, and I remind you that the hue and cry is going to come from broker-dealers who were behind this tax avoidance scheme in the first place, and whose clients are now understandably very upset.

There is a fundamental difference between my intention to move to Bahamas where there is no income tax and these income trusts, which are plans contrived by vested interests to avoid tax for Canadian domiciled individuals and corporations.

Countries that are or were once in the British Commonwealth of Nations typically have the same income tax system, which is different from the American system. Americans are taxed on the basis of birth and citizenship, whereas the British based system taxes income on the basis of domicile.

So by my changing domicile, I subject myself to a different type of fiscal system. Let nobody misunderstand: Bahamas and jurisdictions that have no income tax act are probably prudently managed from a fiscal perspective. I know Bahamas is. Revenues of government are merely raised in different ways than income tax.

The problem is where individuals and corporations and their technical advisors, who choose to be domiciled in high tax jurisdictions like Canada also choose to try to beat their national tax system by deceitful means or by tax avoidance schemes like income trusts. Behind every one of these loophole seeking schemes, you will find a public relations campaign that sells the notion to the very people who are disadvantaged that the scheme is to their advantage. That is patent nonsense, and just because you hear a bank or broker-dealer tout the party line doesn't mean it's the fundamental reason for the scheme's existence.

When it comes to money, those who have it in relatively large amounts pay relatively small amounts to legal, accounting and financial technicians and the mass media to push their storyline. Yesterday, Canada's Minister of Finance finally said: "Enough is enough! Here are the facts!"

The widening gap between perception and reality is the biggest concern the average person ought to have; unfortunately, ignorance is bliss. Ignorance, however, is not going to protect your wealth. So, I'm going to talk about these issues (income trusts, uranium, etc) in order to facilitate discussion between people who are informed and interested in sharing and extending their knowledge.

To those of you who think I'm selling something, let me say you are wrong. If you don't like my presence in the blogosphere, find another blog that satisfies you. Trust me, you will not be missed.

Btw, the Crystallex permit that was received this week is precisely what the company stated in the press release: "The environmental permission required for the drilling was received from the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources ("MARN") in Venezuela on October 26th, 2006." This is not the environmental permit to mine the Las Cristinas property, but only to further drill out its reserves.

The drilling permit, however, is another positive sign that MARN will soon issue the permission to start mining.

Crystallex needs to develop larger reserves asap in order to get maximum value for shareholders when the takeover bid is received from Goldcorp following the requisite MARN permit. Yes, I have reached a point where I believe (99.99 pct sure) that it was Goldcorp that took down the private placement share offering in KRY early this year. These documents are private, but lawyers or the staff who prepare such legal documents almost always talk, and the word has been getting around Toronto's financial district for months.

This week, Crystallex held a special meeting of shareholders to approve a resolution that would give the company additional rights under the rules and regs related to receiving take-over offers. Clearly the company could not wait until next year's AGM because they have reason to believe the proposal is coming, and Im saying it's going to come from Goldcorp.

Crystallex merely want the opportunity to shop the deal, which will help the current shareholders. Goldcorp could effectively use their private placement shares (when registered) to short the KRY in order to keep the share price as low as possible.

So, with the final permit in hand (whenever it comes), the KRY shares will pop. I hope they triple, and then I hope that Goldcorp is forced to put their publicly stated +35-pct bid premium (they say is needed) on the proposed take-out price. That would be ironic, to say the least.

In any case, I have been around long enough to know that the true value of KRY shares based on a Price to Net Asset Value basis will be north of US$10 after the final permit is received and perhaps $12-$13 before the shares are exchanged for Goldcorp.

So the best play here is to short GG/G.TO against KRY/KRY.TO.

On the issue of permitting; traders do not generally recognize the seriousness of this situation. Mining companies today have extreme difficulty in getting environmental permits. I don't think there will ever be another mine involving cyanide in almost all the States of the U.S.

Typically, it takes a company three years or more to get the requisite permits. So in the case of Crystallex, this delay is not unusual.

Regarding further purchases of Canadian income trusts, after the current shake-out, I'd think the market will adjust to a basis of discounted after-tax cash flow, and then will be attractive again to income-oriented accounts where the quality and safety is apparent.

Regarding the current housing industry crisis, I think the U.S. housing industry problem will become as bad as 1990 or worse. Anecdotes can often provide a sign of things to come. Last evening I met with a "name" many readers know -- he lives in a distant country outside North America (but I have known him for years), and he said his next door neighbor recently listed his house for US$17 million, but that the listing agent, who is his close friend, told him the owner's instructions are to take any offer down to $10 million.

Another fellow who had joined us, is a permanent resident in the south of France, and does most of his business in Monaco. He said (I'll paraphrase): "I see a lot of properties that are listed at 10 million Euro, that will likely not sell until maybe 2 million €. People who, in previous cycles, never had debt, now appear to be loaded up."

Does this say something about the precarious state of the real estate market -- not just in the U.S., but everywhere? I also chatted up a well known promoter who claimed that collecting on private placement subscriptions was almost impossible. He said: "I can't seem to squeeze $35,000 out of investors who already signed the documents. These are people who normally write me $100,000. Now they are telling me they have a monthly nut to look at."

I think that the financial problem of people today is much worse than people are admitting, and at this point I'm starting to think of recession -- something like 1990 or possibly even worse.

Darth Vader David Rosenberg, who is head North American economist for Merrill Lynch was interviewed yesterday on Morning Call at ROBTV. Although he hadn't yet issued a "hard landing" research paper, the writing was on the wall. I haven't checked, but the interview may be available on the ROBTV video Replay. I'll try to get more of his work to upload here for you because I now think David is tops in his field.

Finally, yesterday Rob McEwen issued a press release: "Founders of McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine to Receive Tiffany Mark Award.

Andrea Hopson, VP of Tiffany & Co, will present the award to Rob and Cheryl at a private cocktail celebration at the Tiffany's Toronto Bloor street store on Monday, November 6. My wife and I will be in attendance.

"The Tiffany Mark Award is about professional achievement and hands-on support of a charitable organization."

The Ontario Court yesterday heard the arguments presented by all the parties in McEwen's request for a shareholder vote on the Goldcorp-Glamis deal. Although highly procedural (read boring, at times), this was excellent law, and the three-judge decision will be a good one. That decision will be released on Monday after the market close, right before the Tiffany Mark Award presentation.

I said to Rob that I hope it becomes a celebration party.

During the day, I was invited to lunch in the wonderful Great Hall at Osgoode Hall with Rob McEwen's four lawyers, and two staff. Preciousss.

It's a beautiful clear day in Toronto today. I'm going to take the time to enjoy it.

Have a good day.

ADDENDUM

There was a mistake in calculating per share figures in my original article on Silver Wheaton (SLW). I made the correction soon after publishing it, but I gather my work is being picked up by other publishing sources, and readers have sent me a stream of "excuse me, but..." letters. Sorry. But doesn't this prove something? I do my own research and analysis, and the opinions I give are mine. I'm human and, besides, I have only so much time to produce so much output, and I know that sometimes I produce errors. Often, I never re-read a single word before publishing, and often I'll correct things, where I see there is a mistake -- mostly in spelling and grammar but occasionally in content.

Readers know this is a free blog, and that I make no warranty or guarantee of any kind. I won't even play the disclosures game because this is a non-commercial site. For my readers, I commit to being independent, objective and as accurate as time and circumstances permit, and so if anybody wants more assurances from my blog than that, please don't hesitate to go elsewhere. I am what I am. That happens to be -- like it or not -- one of the few people you read who isn't a shill for vested interests.