Investment Guide|Precious Metal Investment Expert » titanium elements

Titanium Chips Spy On Us

PreciousMetalInvestment.com — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:59:14 +0000

Did you know that your whereabouts can now be tracked from the banknotes in your wallet?

Well its true!

Since 2005 Euro bank notes and US $20 bills have had a minute titanium chip called an RFID incorporated in them – try microwaving one.

Retailers, with Wal-Mart and UK retailer Tesco in the forefront, are adding the same type of chip to a multitude of consumer items.

Information about this technology entered the public domain in 2003 and from that time on those in the know began to speculate on the extent these chips could intrude upon our privacy.

Last year it was suggested that the US government would make it mandatory for computer manufacturers to incorporate these spying chips in their products.

This would simply mean that all and every piece if information and communication stored or passing through our PCs could be accessed by the powers that be.

The UK now has more spy cameras installed than the rest of Europe put together.

Of course all this spying activity is excused in the name of security, and no doubt that this is true, even convincing, in the light of continuing terrorist threats, but we do have to ask ourselves – is this the thin edge of the wedge?

Governments will have access to our every source of communication with the exception of head to head, and even then our personal conversations can be eavesdropped upon unless we take precautions.

From our political beliefs to our philandering nothing will be secret and can be divulged or accessed to our disadvantage by governments and corporations seeking to either muffle us or make us part with our cash.

Even George Orwell could not envisage that every thought and activity of our every day lives would become an open book to our masters.

One further thought occurs.

Who and how many will be needed to monitor all this spying upon us?

One thing is certain it is the public who will pay the taxes that will pay the wages to our ever increasing number of overseers and the more we pay the more our civil liberties and right to privacy will be eroded.

Titanium Strategically Important Metal Loses Appeal

PreciousMetalInvestment.com — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:08:35 +0000

From toothbrushes to airframes, jet engines to spectacles golf clubs, to replacement joints in humans, and not to forget its growing use in fashionable jewelry, new uses for titanium seem to constantly hit the headlines.

Despite the versatility of this extraordinary metal, global recession has taken its toll on the price.

The Boeing strike, followed by order cancellations and delays to the Dreamliner program was arguably the principal catalyst in the metal and its producers losing investor appeal. The Boeing situation should not be taken out of context, the current order book will keep the company busy for a few more years yet.

It is the general malaise in base metal prices that has spilled over into this strategically important metal, and so far it has not yet begun to recover.

Titanium dioxide, the metals major derivative, is an essential component of paint, a product in the global firing line during this economic crisis, so it is hardly surprising that demand has taken a tumble.

Are we seeing a bottom and can we now expect to see a recovery in price, as users need to replace the stocks that they have run down since the economic downturn?

We wish we knew the answer but we are taking the opportunity to adorn our wives with titanium jewelry as a long-term investment rather than put our hard earned cash into titanium ingots and store them out of site in the cellar.

A masterstroke in domestic relations, we hope!

The alternative is to look at producers like Titanium Metals (TIE:NYSE), RTI International Metals (RTI:NYSE), this last having beaten earnings estimates despite net earnings being down by over 80% from 2007.

Who Produces Titanium?

PreciousMetalInvestment.com — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:47:26 +0000

Titanium is always found as a compound with other elements.

Despite being the ninth most plentiful element on the Earths’ surface and is distributed all over the world there are few concentrated deposits that make commercial extraction viable.

Titanium is found in most igneous rocks and their sediments primarily in the form of sand.

It occurs in the minerals anatase, brookite, ilmenite, perovskite, rutile and titanite and in a number of iron ores.

At present only ilmenite and rutile are commercially viable as sources of Titanium and it is difficult to discover new sources with sufficiently high concentrations to make extraction economically viable using the only available current process.

Principal producers in order of importance are annually :-

Australia – 1291 tons
South Africa – 850 tons
Canada – 767 tons
Norway- 382 tons
Ukraine- 357 tons

Other significant Titanium ore deposits are in New Zealand, Malaysia and Kenya.

An interesting and heartening development in Titanium production has been the joint association between a leading Russian producer and a US producer to provide Titanium products to the industrial, automotive and consumer markets but not to supply the military market.

The joint venture is known as Uniti Titanium

Potential investors should keep an eye open on Titanium Metals Corporation, a US based business, to get some insight on where the price of the metal is heading

Investment Guide|Precious Metal Investment Expert » titanium elements

Titanium Chips Spy On Us

Related Articles

Titanium Strategically Important Metal Loses Appeal

Related Articles

Who Produces Titanium?

Related Articles