No sooner had the global financial markets plummeted into crisis than the demand for gold rose. Gold has never been as expensive as it is today. “Gold is safe”, they say. But is that really true? And who wins and who loses in the gold trade? The USA is home to one of the largest gold mining outfits in the world. The Newmont company likes to play its cards close to its chest, but in 2008 it ‘won’ the “public eye award” – a negative award for companies who exploit their employees particularly badly. The Newmont mines in Peru und Ghana are the particular focus of criticism. At the edge of the town of Cajamarca in Peru lies the Yanacocha gold mine; it is the largest mine in Latin America. Despite the Newmont mine, Cajamarca is one of the poorest regions in Peru. The soils have been dried out and contaminated by the gold mining, and the people have fallen ill. The very substance that represents so much value in the industrial nations is making the people here poor, because in the gold rush, only the companies and the speculators make money. The film presents a boom’s winners and losers, about whom the people on the world’s gold markets know nothing.
Golden Age? The Duplicitous Gold Trade
Current Affairs / Politics and Economy
- Title: Golden Age? The Duplicitous Gold Trade
- Original title: Goldene Zeiten - Das heuchlerische Geschäft mit dem Gold
- Film by: Ralph Weihermann, Mirjam Leuze
- Format: 30', 45'
- Production: Kigali films for WDR
- Year of production: 2010
- Language / subtitle version: German, English
