Moderator: Peak Moderation
Hubberts Peak for Silver.
According to stats from Silver Institute, total fabrication demand for 2004 stood at 836.7 million ounces. However, overall mine production was only 634.4 million ounces. Supply of silver from above-ground stocks decreased by a dramatic 39.8 million ounces to 202.3 million ounces. So should we be more concerned that world is running out of silver?
Fair enough, but today I'm wearing my Doomer Hat (DH). Expect gold to surge, but only for a very, very short time. Maybe as little as a couple of months. After that people will laugh at your gold for a very long time and they will tell you to eat your gold when you try to exchange it for food. And remember that whatever you switch you gold for, the term "ownership" is just an agreement which is only worth anything as long as all involved parties are honouring the agreement. Remember the farmers in Zimbabwe. They thought that they "owned" land, but suddenly the agreement of "ownership" was not honoured by all parties anymore. And the "land owners" were in minority and had not prepared any defenses. Tough shit.andyh wrote:Yes I am looking at getting some silver as well - its fundamentals look very sound and its pricing now looks out of kilter with its big sister gold.
I think folks comments about investing in 'useful' things are right up to a point. Land will be VERY useful, as will tools etc. But there will be an intermediate phase in which metals, particularly gold, become seen as the ultimate stores of value - I am thinking of what happens as confidence is progressively lost in paper currency. A swich into an asset like gold now, may hopefully mean that years down the line one can buy more land, more tools, etc than if one had merely kept paper based assets. At any rate I am initially sticking with shifting 5% of cash into gold - it seems that now and the next few months is the time to do it (buy on the dips) as historically Feb/Mar/Apr are poor ones for the gold price. Co-incidentally they are also it seems for the oil price to, and as the two are moving in tandem........
Later in the year I may revisit the issue and move another 5% into gold, depending on what the markets are doing.
Well, I dont know really. I recognize the "goldbug-mantra" from many websites, but I'm not sure I find it in many other places. The stories from the Argentinian collapse speak more about gold jewelry than gold coins, and above all PlayStations, and Soviet? Dmitry Orlov describe vodka, razorblades and toiletry as valuable, but dont mention gold. Cuba? The same, razorblades, condoms and toiletry.andyh wrote:Hmm I keep hearing this arguement that 'you wont be able to buy anything with your gold'.
Can any who adheres to this view please indicate when and where in human history that this occurred? Even in the Nazi concentration camps small amounts of gold (usually from gold teeth) acted as the reserve currency in the camps and often bought the last rinds of bread to be had. To go back to your example of Zimbabwe, a collapsed economy if there was one, what has become the defacto black market currency? gold. What about Russia during its collapse? Same answer - gold.
However this is to some extent neither here nor there; the trick is being in the right asset class at the right time - be it gold, land or toothpicks; even under the extraordinary conditions of peak oil collapse. Its just that every historical precedent puts gold as the place to be........
Listen to yourselves, debating how many razor blades would fill a garageMacG wrote:Actually not. Remove the packaging, and it's a couple of kilos only. Roughly 0.25 meter cube. Soap is much bulkier.Ballard wrote:In gold ?5000 is approximately the size of a tube of extra strong mints, the same in razor blades is gonna fill your garage.
*Hmpfh!* No hair conditioner for you. At any price! Naughty girl!Tess wrote:Listen to yourselves, debating how many razor blades would fill a garageMacG wrote:Actually not. Remove the packaging, and it's a couple of kilos only. Roughly 0.25 meter cube. Soap is much bulkier.Ballard wrote:In gold ?5000 is approximately the size of a tube of extra strong mints, the same in razor blades is gonna fill your garage.
I think that there are to many variables and dependencies to make detailed predictions. Historical examples show that discontinuities happen though. Economies crash pretty regularly, and the conditions during and immedeately after the crash are pretty well known. In the longer run, I hesitate to make any predictions at all.SILVERHARP2 wrote:MacG - I think you are trying to condence the "long emergency" into too short a time frame, Peak oil will play out over 20 years minimum and within that period there are going to be times when oil is $200 down to $10. There will be times when economic activity falls faster then oil supply, so the idea that people in Europe will be constantly starving from the start is not likely in my view. Confidence in financial assets will drop, farms will be cheap because the banks will have repossed the the large industrial farms, if you have an alternate money that isn't being inflated or frozen buy the banks then you will be able to pick up property 5%-10% of current values. Gov policy in Europe will switch to encouraging small farms so land is unlikely to be confiscated, larger farms will probably be broken up in places as there won't be demand for lthe output of large monoculture farms.
That's where I feel the problem with the "invest a couple of grand in Gold" idea. I would imagine you'd have to put tens of thousands in for this scenario to play properly.SILVERHARP2 wrote:you will be able to pick up property 5%-10% of current values.
