Land-Raping the Peruvian Andes for Fun and Profit

I know this Rich Old White Dude (ROWD) who owns controlling interest in a lime mine in Peru.

Lime is an essential mineral needed to efficiently mine gold.

As you learned in 7th grade World Geography, Peru has a lot of gold.  A lot.  So a lime mine is, as the saying goes, a gold mine.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am in fact related to ROWD, but his wealth is not mine (he enjoys reminding me of this).  I struggle to make my mortgage and heating oil is so expensive these days I spend most of my time at home in four layers of clothing.

I had a conversation with him recently about the mine.

It is difficult to do business in Peru.  Corruption, for one thing.  Also these PEOPLE have all kinds of HOLIDAYS when they just don't WORK.  And efficiency is just unheard of - like, how hard is it to get back hoes and generators the size of a small house to a village in the Andes?  Apparently quite hard.  Assuming they do not then get stolen.  Not that all these people are poor or anything.

And of course there are the constant strikes and actions against the companies doing the mining.  These companies pay the locals pennies for the little land they have, land they use to scrape out existence through farming.  Then the companies literally scrape the land for lime and gold, using precious water for the sluices, water that becomes so adulterated it cannot be used for farming let alone drinking.

And the SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT, which lately has been insisting these companies more fairly compensate the locals.  Hey, the locals signed CONTRACTS!  They got paid, what's their PROBLEM?

Yes, ROWD, the central issue is basic contract law.

In ROWD's defense, he was already cranky during this conversation.  The discussion took place over his car phone in his 2012 Camaro convertible as he drove home from his vacation property.  He was peeved because he was driving home.  Why would this annoy him?

Because the weather was too poor for him to fly home in his private plane.

Listen, it's hard to be a rich white man in America.

I'm going to Peru in March.  I hope I can keep my mouth shut.

But I will tell you all about it when I get back.

Viva la revolucion.*




*Yeah okay that's a Mexican expression but whatever.