patrick.net

Onvacation says

I think it is worth at least $50 an ounce for nicely minted

The problem is, Silver mined for Coins only accounts for 20% of the purpose. Not all Silver is refined to Bullion and Coin quality.

https://www.silvercoins.com/uses-of-silver/

HeadSet says

I find it hard to believe that the government could not destroy Bitcoin if it felt the need.

They can tomorrow. Remember a plant, heck many plants.... I'll say it again plants are illegal in this country. If you think a traceable spreadsheet is safe, good luck. It could all end tomorrow and you'd be broke.

Cornering silver market would be somewhat more difficult than cornering gold market. Silver has a lot of industrial uses, so if price will go up, industry will find replacement and silver will keep flowing from industrial stacks to people's basements. Gold has relatively few industrial uses (ca.10%?), and if people keep buying it, it can not be drawn from another large pool. May be I am wrong but these are my considerations. The again I don't know why Hunt brothers chose silver and not gold. Perhaps volume in $$ is too high for gold.

richwicks says

Not exactly true. Rare coins (numismatics) can be worth significantly more than their melt value.

So when the dollar collapses and people are using coins to buy food, who's gonna care about your coin being "rare"? Or when silver is over $100/oz, who's gonna pay you more because it's "rare" silver?

NuttBoxer says

So when the dollar collapses and people are using coins to buy food, who's gonna care about your coin being "rare"? Or when silver is over $100/oz, who's gonna pay you more because it's "rare" silver?

Bullets buy food when the dollar collapses. Coins, fiat, spreadsheets, none of it matters. Bullets, water and food are it. Maybe a bow and arrow or large knife I guess.

The dollar won't collapse, just decline/stay low. Every other central bank in the world is employing zirp and extreme money printing. Relatively speaking the dollar will be ok for now, though inflation for goods, esp. local goods and services will keep its steady pace or even pick up a bit. No hyperinflation though.

Esp. for globally produced goods the cost of harvest/sourcing or manufacturing is still very low (low wages).

mell says

The dollar won't collapse, just decline/stay low. Every other central bank in the world is employing zirp and extreme money printing.

I've been wondering about this as well. The dollar is the worst currency, except when compared to all others...

mell says

The dollar won't collapse, just decline/stay low. Every other central bank in the world is employing zirp and extreme money printing. Relatively speaking the dollar will be ok for now, though inflation for goods, esp. local goods and services will keep its steady pace or even pick up a bit. No hyperinflation though.

This has basically caused global havoc. And the only they did was prop the dollar up. But we've watched assets inflate vs. all paper currencies. This is an experiment that has never been tried before on a global scale and it doesn't look like it is on a good path or will end very well.

NuttBoxer says

So when the dollar collapses and people are using coins to buy food, who's gonna care about your coin being "rare"?

In that situation, nobody.

NuttBoxer says

Or when silver is over $100/oz, who's gonna pay you more because it's "rare" silver?

Any coin shop.

I don't suggest buying numismatics. I'm saying that if you have 35 lbs of silver coins, you very well might have some valuable ones in there. I'd trade those out for more silver.

Rb6d says

Cornering silver market would be somewhat more difficult than cornering gold market. Silver has a lot of industrial uses, so if price will go up, industry will find replacement and silver will keep flowing from industrial stacks to people's basements. Gold has relatively few industrial uses (ca.10%?), and if people keep buying it, it can not be drawn from another large pool. May be I am wrong but these are my considerations. The again I don't know why Hunt brothers chose silver and not gold. Perhaps volume in $$ is too high for gold.

Silver is used in minute quantities. If the price goes up to $300, it won't change the cost of any products other than literal silverware.

richwicks says

Silver is used in minute quantities. If the price goes up to $300, it won't change the cost of any products other than literal silverware.

Silver has many industrial uses, accounting for more than half of annual demand worldwide over the last five years.

This means that economic growth can affect silver prices far more than it affects gold. Only 10-15% of annual gold demand worldwide comes from industrial use, the rest going to jewelry and investment.

Because of silver's physical strength, brilliance, malleability and ductility (it can be squashed or pulled into shape), people have also used silver in jewelry, tableware and fine art for thousands of years. Industrial applications use silver's conductivity (the highest of any element for electricity and heat) as well as its sensitivity to light and anti-bacterial qualities.

Today silver is invaluable to solder and brazing alloys, batteries, dentistry, glass coatings, LED chips, medicine, nuclear reactors, photography, photovoltaic (or solar) energy, RFID chips (for tracking parcels or shipments worldwide), semiconductors, touch screens, water purification, wood preservatives and many other industrial uses. Washington-based industry group the Silver Institute calls it "the indispensable metal".

https://www.bullionvault.com/silver-guide/silver-industrial-demand#

NuttBoxer says

richwicks says

Not exactly true. Rare coins (numismatics) can be worth significantly more than their melt value.

So when the dollar collapses and people are using coins to buy food, who's gonna care about your coin being "rare"? Or when silver is over $100/oz, who's gonna pay you more because it's "rare" silver?

No two situation are exactly the same, but during German or Russian occupations in WW1 and WW2 that my relatives lived through, gold weight of a coin mattered much more than if the coin was 16th century rare coin or just a common gold coin. Additionally, the purchasing power of gold and silver decreased quite a lot (while purchasing power of fiat currencies collapsed to something very close to 0). What became very expensive relatively speaking, was food, shelter, clothes, and fuel

Rb6d says

What became very expensive relatively speaking, was food, shelter, clothes, and fuel

Of course, but consider this - nearly everybody had gold or silver back then.

99% of the population doesn't have either today. We're in the Stupid Age.

richwicks says

NuttBoxer says

So when the dollar collapses and people are using coins to buy food, who's gonna care about your coin being "rare"?

In that situation, nobody.

NuttBoxer says

Or when silver is over $100/oz, who's gonna pay you more because it's "rare" silver?

Any coin shop.

I don't suggest buying numismatics. I'm saying that if you have 35 lbs of silver coins, you very well might have some valuable ones in there. I'd trade those out for more silver.

@Nutboxer

This is very good advice.

Ok, so the bullion banks let the price of silver go up about 10% and shorted as much as people would buy on the exchanges. They did this knowing that the margin requirements would be increased on the commodity exchanges. When the margin requirements changed, there were forced sales because of the higher cash requirements. The bullion banks then covered their new short positions at the lower prices caused by the forced sales.

Retail customers are looking at losses. I wonder if this will deter them from buying in the physical markets. The price in the physical markets is much higher than the paper markets. This tends to gravitate buyers to the paper markets, which are totally fraudulent. Who knows, maybe this time the shenanigans in the paper markets won't deter people from buying in the physical markets.

Now that the pump and dump with margin manipulation has played out, don't expect anymore press on the issue.

What part about rigged don't people get?

WookieMan says

Bullets, water and food are it. Maybe a bow and arrow or large knife I guess.

Yams?
Beltfed?
You should know better.

WookieMan says

Bullets buy food when the dollar collapses. Coins, fiat, spreadsheets, none of it matters. Bullets, water and food are it. Maybe a bow and arrow or large knife I guess.

Believe it or not, even in desperate times, not everyone is a sociopath. But if you don't have plenty of guns and ammo, you won't have your silver for long either.

Onvacation says

Yams?

Perhaps we should all go to wallstreetbets and suggest buying Yams futures?

NuttBoxer says

Believe it or not, even in desperate times, not everyone is a sociopath.

It only takes a couple.

I bet if we could diagnose sociopathy worldwide and label the small percentage of sociopaths, and watch them. We would live in a much nicer world.

Of course one man's sociopathic Insurrectionist is another man's freedom fighter.

Onvacation says

Of course one man's sociopathic Insurrectionist is another man's freedom fighter.

Right.

I think there was a good reason for them to exist, perhaps way back in hunter/gatherer days but maybe not so much anymore, or not so many. They aren't all bad like psychopaths.

Otherwise they'd have been bred out of the gene pool.

Patrick says

porkchopexpress says

I have 10,000 oz of silver buried somewhere.

If true, you shouldn't ever admit it. Makes you a target.

Won't matter. I don't know where it is.

just_passing_through says

I think there was a good reason for them to exist, perhaps way back in hunter/gatherer days

That's exactly what I was thinking.

porkchopexpress says

Won't matter. I don't know where it is.

So I'm not the only pirate who forgot where he buried the treasure.

Onvacation says

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Yup, it appeared that way.

Like I envisioned, there is no mainstream press related to the physical availability of silver. That info kinda dried up. The price of silver in the paper markets has gone down over the last couple of weeks, but I've read that the price difference between the physical and the paper markets is at an all time high. I'm not too sure about delivery being made, especially at the retail level. Here's an interesting article:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4407142-slv-to-skyrocket-and-s-why-you-should-buy-physical-silver-instead

Now I don't buy into the price spiral going out of control, like the author does. This is because SLV is owned by Blackrock and they ain't gonna collapse the financial system. Similarly, the brokerage firms will act in collusion and simply create (forge) more shares of SLV.

In the physical markets, expect a lot of "there's plenty of silver, just not that ounce size" rhetoric. They will continue the lies as long as needed.

Misc says

"there's plenty of silver, just not that ounce size" rhetoric.

Kilogram size is not that plentiful either. Spread between paper and physical is on the order of $6-10 per ounce, which is ridiculously high.

just_passing_through says

Right.

I think there was a good reason for them to exist, perhaps way back in hunter/gatherer days but maybe not so much anymore, or not so many. They aren't all bad like psychopaths.

I’ve researched sociopaths quite a bit. They’re characterized mostly by a lack of empathy, but often know how to simulate it effectively. That’s a skill the more successful sociopaths learn to better blend in with the normals and thus influence them. Their greatest threats are the true empaths, people who are very kind and helpful. Empaths will see through their charade and note that something about them is “off.” To this end, sociopaths like to target empaths with a preemptive strike. The sociopath will use a cabal of toadies (apaths) who might have genuine feelings but no moral center beyond themselves. The sociopath then gets his group to belittle and ostracize the empath, often falsely accusing him or her of something monstrous or embarrassing. The best outcome here for the sociopath is that the empath will withdraw from the group in shame and anguish and his cover will be solid.
However, some empaths have had enough experience with sociopaths to both recognize them and know how to defeat them. This is accomplished by networking with the group on an individual basis, one by one relating to each person (using the empaths skills) and finding out what the sociopath has been saying about everyone. Since sociopaths usually lie, and love to cause dissension and antipathy between their followers, he will have said something nasty about everyone behind their backs.
The empath only has to expose these lies to each person and then the whole sociopathic scheme falls apart. As the true monstrousness of the sociopath’s meddling is exposed, everyone turns against him.
This is usually when the sociopath leaves the group. Pretty much always. They’ll switch schools, clubs, or even jobs to avoid a group to which their true nature has been revealed.

I’ve done this to a sociopath twice. The first one was my boss. Once his schemes were exposed to all, nobody would work for him or listen to him and he got demoted, then later took an early retirement once it was clear he’d never enjoy what he did before. The second guy was exposed and pretty much everyone hated or actively disliked and mistrusted him. He quit.

Shaman says

just_passing_through says

Right.

I think there was a good reason for them to exist, perhaps way back in hunter/gatherer days but maybe not so much anymore, or not so many. They aren't all bad like psychopaths.

I’ve researched sociopaths quite a bit. They’re characterized mostly by a lack of empathy, but often know how to simulate it effectively. That’s a skill the more successful sociopaths learn to better blend in with the normals and thus influence them. Their greatest threats are the true empaths, people who are very kind and helpful. Empaths will see through their charade and note that something about them is “off.” To this end, sociopaths like to target empaths with a preemptive strike. The sociopath will use a cabal of toadies (apaths) who might have genuine feelings but no moral center beyond themselves. The sociopath then gets his group to belittle and ostracize the empath...

This was a great post. And, yes, these people will try to emulate some sort of high morality to hide their sociopathic behavior. There were two teachers at my last school who were the absolute worst people I've ever known. They would badmouth everyone behind their back. They would try to get people demoted or fired. And of course, they would lie about their classroom accomplishments and kiss admin's ass. It's not a coincidence that both of them are nonstop posting BLM nonsense on their facebook and planting signs outside their homes because they think it gives them some sort of illusion of morality, and to a large degree, it does work with the mindless automatons.

theoakman says

, it does work with the mindless automatons.

AKA: Democrat voters.

theoakman says

This was a great post.

It is a great post but I stand by what I said, "They are not all bad". In fact, not all sociopaths realize they are sociopaths! Case in point: I watched a documentary sort of show put on by a psychologist (I think?) where he'd discovered he was able to select sociopaths from non-sociopaths by looking at brain images. I think they were CT scans.

He used himself as a control. When he came across his own image he realized, "holy shit! I'm a sociopath!", and he goes on to discuss it with his live audience. Pretty funny guy too and not a bad person at all. He did reflect on some of his past actions and decided to work on things... I'm totally paraphrasing but yeah...

This isn't the video but this is the guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vii60GUGTQU

This clip mentions psychopathy which is worse. I'm nearly certain the talk he recorded to a live audience was about sociopaths not psychopaths which are worse but I'm probably wrong/mis-remembering....