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.
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.
For those with debts, such as houses, it may hopefully be a great way to pay them off for what amounts to a very small price now.