Opinion: Peak Silver Is Upon US

Definitely could be, and very dependent on energy to get it into bars or coins. Since they say it's closer to the surface, and comes along with mining other metals, should be plenty of it still around for years to come.

I agree that this could be happening. We already know that all of the established oil fields in the world are producing at either their max or have declined somewhat in recent years. New fields (and mines) can always be discovered but that is a slow process that can take years to have any impact upon the market. If demand continues to rise for silver and gold while mining delivers fewer ounces of purified metals, the prices will rise as people bid on what metal (or oil) is available.

I hadn't heard that it would be metals only but did hear a couple of months ago that it would be opening in Hong Kong. That made a lot of sense to me because HK is a world banking center on a par with London, Zürich, and New York.

I wonder what the effect would be on the US paper PM markets if there was a metals only market available to US PM customers? Would it attract scads of money? It might... at least from those of us who prefer REAL commodities to paper ones.

One thing about the US paper PM markets that gets me is that they can short this market without putting up PMs as collateral or payment for the short position. That in and of itself seems contrary to the idea of buying and selling metals vs. buying and selling paper. OTOH, paper trading seems to rely on its leveraged position of somewhere between 50 and 100 to 1 of paper vs. real metal. Seems as if that would come to a screeching halt if REAL metals were involved in these trades at any point. Thoughts?

I think some of the major ETF's are backed pretty well by physical holdings. I saw a special where they visited the vault in New York City that is holding the gold owned by the GLD ETF. The thing looked very impressive. Of course they could always be lying bout who owns it and it is possibly leased. Of course there are probably some stocks that just track the market. Some of those guys are always out to get your money with as little work or physical investment as possible. I would only go with the major ETF's.

isn't it all wonderful on how all these markets are being manipulated.....gold and silver back nothing as far as the Dollar is concerned....the production levels, which can be manipulated are supposed to be an influence on the market's supply of what comes out of the ground and the need for its use, and the extra for commodtie ,,,,,,That is the ultimate
Idea....to influence supply and demand, and price...factor the production of the mines...it's 200,000,000 OZ per year need to supply the needs of the commercial use..notice it .does not
disappear... still further....those who still have silver in there homes, are the Quintesence of that it will be all be gone in a few years due to the use of industry and the mining output...if this was the fact silver should rise at a solid state and value...BUT IT DOES NOT.....
one must now think in terms of how high it will go or are you holding the bottom value...which effects our great Morgan dollar...for our coin collectors here

Correcting an error of fact. 26,000 miles give or take is closer to the circumference of earth. Diameter is 7900 miles, add 25 miles at the equator.




We can also make gold from lead, but at what cost per ounce?

The thing that keeps them from mining deeper is high temperature. I saw a special on CNBC where one of the guys visited a two mile deep gold mine. Temperatures were around 140 degrees F.

"So maybe they need to do a combined ops mission with a geothermal energy company that would convert this heat into electricity and inject the resulting chilled air back into the mine?"

I like that idea. I often say I am killing two, three, four birds with one stone, lol....

In my 17 years working restaurant/bars, if I did not learn to become as efficient and organized as possible, I would have gone totally insane long ago. Murphy knew what he was talking about, as in my industry you are either idle doing nothing, or full speed fifth gear....

And back to your point, when you can solve two problems with one solution, you are staying true to that nature. Things like consolidation of steps, efficiency, organization, being OCD and major attention to detail, these are things I live by....