Talk:Barrick Gold

Regarding Bush Admin

this section from Greg Palasts book should be NPOV'd and added to the article

In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rush-era act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could “perfect its patent” on the estimated $10 billion in ore—for which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $ 10,000. Eureka!

Barrick, of course, had to put up cash for the initial property rights and the cost of digging out the booty (and the cost of donations, in smaller amounts, to support Nevada’s Democratic senator, Harry Reid). Still, the shift in rules paid off big time: According to experts at the Mineral Policy Center of Washington, DC, Barrick saved—and the U.S. taxpayer lost—a cool billion or so.

Upon taking office, Bill Clinton’s new interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, called Barrick’s claim the “biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy.” Nevertheless, because the company followed the fast-track process laid out for them under Bush, this corporate Goldfinger had Babbitt by the legal nuggets. Clinton had no choice but to give them the gold mine while the public got the shaft.

Tagged as being non Neutral Point of View

This article make clear statements in the section on Pascua Lama about what the mining practises will be, which are in clear conflict with the published positions of both Barrick and the Chilean government. No sources have been referenced to validate the environmental claims against the Pascua Lama mine. Rather than repeating the discussion on this issue, please look at the talk page for Pascua_Lama.

This article has clearly been written from an anti-mining perspective ignoring to gather Barrick's status and the most powerful gold companies and one of the more enviro-cooperative. The information on Pascua Lama is just plain wrong. Someone needs to fix this.

disagreed and no, its poorly written but more or less correct.

Which means absolutely nothing without sources. This is an article on the company, not a "see who can list the most poorly-written criticisms" contest.--DMCer™ 23:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not the information is correct, the whole article is just a detailed list of things that Barrick has done wrong. --The Dark Side 01:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment; the article emphasizes the evil nature of the corporation, without showing any of the beneficial parts. For example, how many employees do they have, how much money has been added to local economies by the mines, and how much taxes do they pay, among many other questions not discussed in the article. As a matter of fact, there are more things left out than are in the article. I do not recommend that the "anti-Barrick" points be removed unless they are out-and-out false, but I do recommend that more information be added so that readers can get an honest impression of the company; something which they can't at this time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.181.33 (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This article is very poorly written. I think the language is slanted both ways, depending on what part of the article you're reading. Wikipedia should be about verifiable facts, not speculation on legal actions against the company. Mining company legal concerns in third world countries are very difficult to sort out and are often extremely muddy. This article should stick to the known facts about Barrick Gold. Perhaps a page should be made for environmental concerns about the company. A3camero (talk) 03:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I think most of use agree. I'll try to get to it when I get a chance, but I'm pretty busy at the moment. That'd be great if someone can go ahead and move all the NPOV info to a new article about the environmental criticisms or the like. That pretty much includes everything after the intro, though some paragraphs towards the bottom discussing the company's acquisitions can be left in the main article. —DMCer™ 05:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I've cleaned it up per our discussions. 90% of it was actually pasted directly from environmental activist sites. It's archived here.—DMCer™ 08:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Environmental activists are notorious for their ignorance of the mining process. They are even worse than generalist journalists who never let the facts get in the way of a juicy story. Wikipedia seems to be full of much the same sort of commentator who is only interested in raking up the dirt on mining companies and not telling us anything about their activities or operations. Why, for instance, is the Blanchard episode included when the case was thrown out of court and he apologised? It was all a nonsense from the start and anyone with the remotest knowledge of the gold market could have told you so years ago. Do any of the contributors to this article have the necessary technical background to be able to assess these various accusations and determine whether they are significant? It doesn't look like it.Egoli (talk) 18:08, 27 October 2008 (UTC)