Currently Paper Gold is selling @ over 100 X amount mined for the year, and Silver is worse at north of 400 X the amount mined.
I'm not going to research gold in depth for this article, but Silver mining produces around 1B Troy Ounces a year currently so its about $30 B a year in new silver worldwide, a very small amount of Gross World Product of 100T, but with paper trading over 400 they turn it into a $12T churn.
Most silver is mined as a Byproduct of other mining, Gold ,Aluminum, Copper, and other . Several reports that China is buying up silver pre-refining and that isn't reported in the 1 B ounces. Will do research and confirm or deny with sauce.
Silver is the most conductive elemental metal and that is it's usefulness in Electronics, Batteries, Solar Panels. Without the conductivity of the silver where needed, all of the above would be unpractical in regards to power transfer efficiency. Over Demand for silver has been the case for a few years, but the amount of silver stockpiled up by industries, central banks, and bullion collectors, etc... Is massive.Silver is also antimicrobial and used in internal and external medicines
Another bright spot will be when silver is legal tender and in common use. A downside is lesser demand because Meh solar, and electric cars suck.
Gold @ 100 Paper per actual oz mined, which is crazy numbers high too. Gold is also used in electronics, but a lot more sparingly, its purpose is where staying shiny and untarnished matters like CPU and connector pins. They don't have to be solid because bost electricity travels along the surface of the wire. Gold is used in dentistry, but its not that big of market. Some estimates put gold at over 50% in Jewelry, but I think that is misleading. All the Central Banks are sucking it up and have been since their inception.
Gold is more steady in % of ups and downs, but silver is way more useful, Link shows ratio of mined/ price etc. of gold and silver From link:
Geologists estimate that there are approximately 19 ounces of silver for every ounce of gold in the earth’s crust, with a ratio of approximately 11.2 ounces of silver to each ounce of gold that has ever been mined. Interestingly, the silver-gold ratio in ancient Egypt was 1:1.
Current Gold silver ratio is about 85, so gold is way over valued compared to scarcity and silver's usefulness.
So what does this mean for gold and silver prices?
12000/oz silver when shtf?
Hmmmm, sounds a bit unrealistic, but then again, I DID ask the question, so I know less than you do on the subject.
It's not THAT unrealistic. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it'll even out at that level, but I and many others believe it'll be anywhere from that much to over $25K an ounce for a period of a couple months when shtf.
You have to realize, there's more factors to this than just mining rates and overall reserves. For example, when prices start going up rapidly EVERYONE with a little bit of money and hopes of getting rich will start throwing money at the silver market, driving up demand to insane levels and driving supply down at the same rate. All the crypto people and other wannabe financial gurus will start shilling for silver as "the opportunity of a lifetime", and even normies will probably get interested after seeing the new on it. FOMO and other psychological factors will help drive it up to unsustainable levels for a few months before it crashes back down to more reasobale prices when people can no longer afford to drive it up.
The best thing I can compare this too, ironically, is the bitcoin run in 2017 and 2018. Over the course of a few months, bitcoin went from being a couple hundred a coin to just under $20K a coin, or like in the past couple years where it went from a few thousand a coin to 40-60K a coin.
It won't STAY at these insane numbers, but it'll be there for a few months time before crashing back down to something more reasonable like 2-5K an ounce.
You're quite possibly right on these points, but no matter what silver does in the markets, I will stubbornly hang onto mine. As I've said elsewhere, silver is NOT an 'investment' to me, it's a hedge against total societal and currency collapse... end times stuff. No banks, no law enforcement, no civil protections, a dystopian world where survival becomes a day to day struggle.
If that ever happens, I plan to gather with my closest neighbors and form a protective force for our area, and hunker down ready to repel invaders. Silver will be my only means of making transactions.
Just the fact that paper to physical silver is 400:1 When all those folks holding worthless paper want their physical silver, the price must jump.
Just to clarify, you're saying that silver paper certificates exist (and presumably have been sold) that are 400 times greater than the actual availability of physical silver? If so, that is one hell of a Ponzi scheme.
Well stated.