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Post Boomer Club: Why a Post Boomer Club Resource Center?


Why a Post Boomer Club Resource Center?

The idea for a Post Boomer Club came to me in Q4 of 2019 as a I mulled the question, why is the junior resource sector dying and why are younger audiences not embracing it? I first addressed the problem in my XPLOR 2019 presentation in October 2019 in Montreal. I expanded on the theme in my MIF November 2019 presentation in which I developed the idea of an emerging inter-generational conflict between Post Boomers symbolized by Greta Thunberg and Boomers symbolized by the oldest of the Boomers, Donald Trump. I am at the younger end of the Boomer generation and as a secular humanist I am at odds with much of the audience that has historically embraced the junior resource sector. I am also appalled at the disdain many in the Post Boomer generations have for mining, and by extension the exploration and development sector. And I am horrified by what appears to be a regulatory agenda to suffocate the resource junior eco-system by severely restricting the capital inflow pipeline to a tiny percentage of the population which has either already been captured by cabals who channel that capital into their own money-making vehicles or which is more interested in capital preservation than making lots of money from small investments while having a lot of fun doing so. The Post Boomer Club Resource Center is my attempt to illuminate a way for younger audiences to discover the junior resource sector, appreciate why it is essential for their longer term future, not feel dirtied by dabbling in a domain seemingly dominated by unhappy End Timers, and, if the tragedy of the climate change problem ultimately cannot be overcome, outwit the Boomers at a game the Boomers think they own. Although aimed at them, it is not an exclusive club for people born after 1964; it is for anybody willing to learn how to play the game of resource junior speculation.

The junior resource sector faces an existential crisis created by three main factors.

One factor is that the sector has been deemed "unsuitable" by the brokerage establishment for anybody aged 55 and over. This now includes the Greatest Generation (born before 1946) and all the Boomers (born 1946-1964). In so far that this traditional audience for the resource juniors wishes to trade resource juniors, its members are forced to do so through "discount brokerage" accounts which do not have a financial advisor. They must rely on public corporate disclosures and third party commentaries for deciding what to buy, hold and sell.

The second factor is that the Post Boomers, namely everybody born after 1964 which includes Generation X (1965-1980), Millennials (1981-1996 also known as Generation Y) and Generation Z (1997 onwards, pronounced GenZee), know very little about this division of publicly listed high risk ventures, and very often what they do know inclines them to shun "mining" as something harmful to their future.

The third factor is that the primary funding mechanism for public companies discriminates against individuals who do not have six figure incomes or qualify as "millionaires" under the "accredited investor" exemption needed to participate in a private placement.

The ageist marginalization of Boomer and Greatest Generation investors through the "unsuitability" declaration, the economic class discrimination against the 99 percenters, and the general ignorance about how to research and speculate on resource juniors undermines the diversity and viability of the resource junior exploration and development eco-system.

Complicating matters is an over-arching conflict between the goals of Post Boomers and Boomers who will not live to witness the consequences of processes like climate change, environmental degradation and rising resource scarcity. The outcome is an End Times mentality seeping into all generations that fuels nationalist populism among fearful Boomers and inter-generational hostility over the perception that the future is being sabotaged for the benefit of the Boomers at the expense of the Post Boomers. The result is an environment of growing uncertainty and conflict which encourages a fatalism that stimulates the pursuit of outsized gains such as is possible in the junior resource sector.

The Post Boomer Club does not attempt to solve this bigger conflict because its goal is the more modest one of saving the resource junior sector from extinction by making it accessible and relevant to the Post Boomer audience as well as Boomers seeking better ways to bet on resource juniors. The Post Boomer Club Resource Center hopes to accomplish this goal by teaching how to place intelligent bets on resource juniors with the primary goal of making a lot of money and the secondary goal of highlighting those juniors whose fundamental success would in some manner positively impact the longer term goals of Post Boomers, goals I suspect are shared by a surprising number of Boomer and Greatest Generation members.

The best way to save the resource junior eco-system is to teach new audiences the valuation models that underpin mining and demonstrate how quantifying the "size of the prize" can identify potential ten-fold or even hundred-fold gains. The unspoken truth is that most Boomers have no clue about how to value an exploration play, having historically relied on broker run whisper networks of "it's going higher" that no longer exist.

The trend of rising uncertainty is not going to reverse any time soon, and although gold is not overly useful in serving our material world, it operates in the psychic world as the best hedge against uncertainty. Finding a new gold deposit that is economic at the prevailing gold price will deliver huge gains. So will a major repricing of the real gold price into the $2,000-$3,000 per oz range do for existing gold systems that aren't worth mining at the prevailing gold price. The only impact a new gold mine will have is on the net worth of shareholders who bet early. Just because gold has been hijacked by ideological scolds from the Boomer and older generations does not mean it is out of bounds for younger generations that cringe at the mindset of an apocaplyptic gold bug.

Gold is where the upside action for resource juniors is right now, but we are also looking for non-gold opportunities where a future mine has a positive impact that goes beyond a boost to personal net worth. Post Boomers are sufficiently clear-eyed to recognize the pessimistic outcome, but sufficiently youthful to be biased in favor of an optimistic outcome. The Post Boomer Club will thus also highlight juniors which qualify for "impact investing" where the allocation of one's risk capital makes an incremental difference beyond boosting personal net worth.

New discoveries and new mines don't happen without capital going directly into the treasuries of resource juniors which spend it on their projects. The audience we are trying to cultivate for the junior resource sector in general does not qualify for the "accredited investor exemption" that allows them to participate in private placements, the primary funding mechanism through which public companies raise capital. This creates the problem that resource juniors can raise capital from only a tiny wealthy segment of the potential audience which has generally been captured by groups that channel their capital into a fraction of the 1,200 publicly listed Canadian juniors. An exemption which allows the 99 percenters to participate in private placements with certain restrictions was created a few years ago, but it is ineffective because it requires an individual to already own shares in a company when it announces a private placement in order to be eligible to participate. It is a restriction that has no justification unless it is an acknowledgement that the regulatory disclosure system is inadequate to support decision making or so poorly enforced that it is unreliable. As somebody who uses the Canadian reporting system I can testify it is quite robust. The "existing security holder" requirement needs to be eliminated. Lobbying for this reform is a key objective of the Post Boomer Club Resource Center.

The companies featured as members of the Post Boomer Club are companies that are the subject of a KRO Bottom-Fish, Fair or Good Spec Value rating. Some are 2020 Favorites. They have been selected to help illustrate the concept of high impact investing for both personal profit and a greater good, and are not a substitute for a paid up KRO membership. Blog and Tracker comments tagged as "Post Boomer Club" and Discovery Watch comments are unrestricted. Tracker comments intended for KRO members will sometimes be made unrestricted after a suitable members only period. News releases are KRO members only.

The Post Boomer Club with its emphasis on seeking outsized gains and having an impact beyond personal gains easily addresses the Greed and Good components of the 3G Trio, but what about Glory? I hope eventually to achieve glory for Post Boomers through the ShareCollective, an Australian backed startup I have been involved with since 2016. Its purpose is to solve the problem afflicting the resource juniors where the public does not understand how to quantify the "size of the prize" and the regulatory regime does not allow the companies to do so for the public without first publishing a QP (qualified professional) backed 43-101 report, a feat that costs considerable time and money and is thus useless to investors trying to decide whether or not to place a bet on a junior premised on a fundamental outcome that would be the basis for such a future 43-101 event. If Post Boomers do not know how to place a bet on a resource project outcome, the juniors cannot raise capital to advance their projects, and the junior resource sector will never attract an audience to replace the Boomers and their Greatest Generation paraents.

The ShareCollective is a platform which allows members to visualize potential outcomes and share them into the platform for everybody else to see, criticize and perhaps share their own alternative scenarios. Because the ShareCollective assumes all members have an agenda of profiting through their sharing activity, the members are only identifiable by their user name. As such they all start as untrustworthy, and can only evolve a reputation through their sharing activity within the ShareCollective which remembers everything.The platform is thus a free-for-all where anybody can emerge as an influencer shaping expectations and market activity in an unregulated competitive environment that operates in parallel with the regulated worlds of the companies and the stock exchange. The ShareCollective, once it is fully designed, will furnish the Glory part of the 3G Trio for Post Boomers already well versed in the influencer culture. The Post Boomer Club Resource Center is intended as an educational gateway for the valuation logic that underpins the visualized outcomes shared into the ShareCollective.

 
 

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