Property Rights Proposal]

Excellent reply Bill ! That plan sounds like a good way to keep us all earth bound and tied up in our favorite red tape forever. I prefer the concept that anything in space is held in escrow (while being developed) for those who will live there one day. It will save a nasty war from happening. Governments on earth should not expect to control anything outside their own boundaries. So passing laws on earth is like my 8 year daughter issueing a proclamation that she is queen of the universe. It doesn't mean anything.
Mitchell James
The model you discribed is the model used by the Canadian government
to develop the North. What has happened is that all the land and
mineral rights are owned by companies who never intend to devlop the
property. They own it for the sake of keeping it off the market. There
is no recourse around this situation so people don't go up north.
The fact is that the end of the chain could be a tax write off not a
mining company. And the owners effectively keep th competition at bay
by not selling rights.
Your model will work if the property in question is worth more on the
market than as an insurance against future competition.
Bill
>
> I disagree. My opinion is that it should be acceptable to own
mining
> rights to an asteroid or part of an asteroid without developing it
or
> handling it in any way. Such an ability would attract investors
willing to
> gamble that a space asset would increase in value over time. This
could
> result in a market of investors who are buying and selling mining
rights
> based on perceived future increases or decreases in the values of
those
> assets. Market prices would arise, and this price-signaling
mechanism
> would be useful to the functioning of the space economy. (Perhaps
there
> could even be 'secondary markets' in which investors would trade in
> derivatives such as futures or options with respect to future swings
in the
> prices of mining rights.)
>
> The owner of a mining right would be interested in making money. He
or she
> could keep it out of circulation, and make no money as a result.
The
> investor would have to sell the right --- to a developer (i.e., an
actual
> mining operation) or another investor --- in order to collect.
Investors
> would not be motivated to sit on mining rights forever, and there
would
> ultimately have to be a mining company at the end of the chain.
>
> Let's get this property out into the private sector as soon as
possible.
> If we impose the restriction that one must handle or improve the
asteroid,
> then we'll have to wait a lot longer, and this property will remain
in a
> nebulous and uncertain legal state.
>
> Ron Menich
>
"Raven"
>

> et2net.dk>
[ssi_list] Re: [Fwd: Property Rights Proposal]
> 02/26/01 12:47
AM
> Please respond
to
>
ssi_list
>
> ...
> > The worst thing that you can do is to sell off property rights in
> > space without requiring the owner to be physically on site. What
will
> > happen is that companies that buy claim early and then use that
> > purchase to exthort huge sums for the privilege of using the
property
> > in question.
> Quite agreed. But if you're a corporation wanting to buy the
> property rights to some unvisited roid, who will have the right to
sell
> them anyway? I'll volunteer if everybody wants me to. :-)
>
> > What needs to be done is to tie the exploitation of the property
with
> > its ownership, or we will end up with millions of
people/corporations