by Jason Hommel, October 11, 2006
Paper money is now a total fraud, and has no gold backing, none whatsoever. The U.S. gold has not been audited since the 1960’s, and may no longer even exist. If it does, the “official” U.S. gold hoard of 261 million ounces can back up the currency with one ounce of gold for every $40,000 dollars in the U.S. domestic banking system.
There has been less than 5 billion ounces of gold mined in all of human history, worth about $3 trillion dollars. But there is about $50 trillion of paper money in the world, and about $50 trillion of debt. So, gold should go up in value at least 10-15 times, or more.
Gold is money, because of its fundamental nature; it is a great store of value; it’s liquid, portable, rare, a luxury item, lasting, durable, divisible, recognizable, verifiable, and can’t be counterfeited.
Silver is like gold, but better, because silver is being used up by industry. More silver is used up by industry, jewelry and photography than is mined every year.
Silver demand may not decrease with higher prices, because silver jewelry can become more fashionable as prices rise. And in most industrial applications, silver is a tiny percentage cost of the overall product.
Further, as silver prices rise, investment demand will increase, as it’s hard to beat 30% gains every year, as silver has been doing since 2003.
Silver can protect you from rises in gas prices! Oil is now about $60/barrel, but silver is only about $11/oz. In 1980, oil peaked at $43/barrel, and silver peaked at $50/oz.! And in 2000, oil bottomed at $10 barrel, and silver bottomed at $5/oz.
Peak oil experts say that there is only about a 40-year supply of oil left in the ground, but there is only about 14 years supply of silver reserves in the ground! Silver’s the better investment.
As silver and oil prices return to historic ratios, silver prices will rise to about $30-$70/oz, up from $11/oz. today, and if oil moves even higher, silver will move higher with it!
If silver could be counterfeited, our copper clad coins would look a lot more like silver than they do. Silver coins are easily recognized by anyone who has ever held one, and felt the difference in weight.
Silver is so rare today that many of the best experts say that there is barely 300 million ounces of silver in refined, deliverable form. With 300 million people in the U.S., then if you have even one single ounce of silver, then you may have “more than your fair share”, and are either an evil, greedy, capitalist pig, or a wise steward of your own wealth.
A day’s wage over 100 years ago used to be up to a silver dollar, or as little as a silver dime. You can buy those same silver dollars today for much less. Get some.