réfutations des préjugés sur l'argent métal

y compris de la part des goldeux

super article à lire absolument

www.lemetropolecafe.com


Dear Bill
Hello from Dubai
You might remember that I wrote a while back about rediscovering a 2500 year old Archimedes methodology and its successful application to investing in precious metals.
Good to see so much buzz about Silver. It’s certainly a welcome change from earlier days when most commentators referred to it in an afterthought as "(and silver)".
Some of the commentary has been so virulently negative that you’d think the integrity of the writer’s mother was in question at the very least.
I know I’m speaking to the chorus here but thought you might want to hear some arguments from a different perspective than the usual so here goes:
To start, it must be pointed out that Silver has ALWAYS had a large industrial component always much larger than Gold. Going back in history, and in parallel to it being used as money, Silver was first jewelry, ornaments, ceremonial artifacts and mirrors in ancient times to which later were added more religious artifacts with the proliferation of churches in the western world as well as tableware and cutlery later on during the industrial revolution and Victorian era followed by photography, appliances, hi-fi, accessories and finally electronics which became ubiquitous and affected every aspect of modern life. Note that these applications vary over time but are cumulative so that today Silver is used in ALL the previously described applications as well as many new high-tech ones and that is why some call it the INDISPENSABLE metal.
So the claims that Silver has somehow magically transformed itself lately into an industrial metal is just bunk.
Second, there are some people out there claiming that tons and tons of Silver are lurking in homes as tea-sets and formal dining room silverware waiting for the critical price that will trigger a flood of supply into the market. This is a completely silly argument. How many people do you know that have solid Silver teapots or cutlery ??? Last I checked everyone bought their tableware from IKEA ! And even if you were the lucky one among all the grandchildren to have inherited your great-grandmother’s antique Silver tea-set would you sell it for scrap when a large number of nice upper middle-class ladies from Mumbai or Shanghai would love to acquire it at a premium ?
That argument is obviously a load of nonsense.
Third, those that rant against the monetary nature of precious metals are on the losing side of history. Since the beginning of civilization usually defined as the start of the first Olympic games in 776 BC the world has operated on a bi-metallic precious metals monetary standard and often tri-metallic if you include copper. The first coins minted about 2700 years ago in the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor by king Midas’ neighbor, Sadyattes, who was the grandfather of the famous king Croesus and were made of a metal called Electrum which is actually a natural mixture of Gold and Silver. Soon thereafter the metals were separated and coins of Silver began to circulate as currency alongside Gold coins which were used for larger transactions. Ever since that time both precious metals have been used as money worldwide. The ONLY exception to this rule is that for the last 40 years since Nixon’s little gambit in 1971 the world has operated on an "official" fiat currency standard. But has it really ?
During those past 40 or so fiat currency years PRECIOUS METALS HAVE RISEN FOR OVER 20 YEARS AGAINST FIAT CURRENCIES. That’s over 50% of the total fiat currency era !
The governments and central banks of this world may think they have decreed fiat currencies to be the only real money but somehow people seem to think and vote otherwise. End of argument.
Many commentators, including some very prominent ones, question the ability of Silver to perform as money even as they are wildly bullish about Gold. Now, if they took basic economics 101 they would have learned about SUBSTITUTES. Hotdogs and hamburgers are substitutes. Coke and Pepsi are substitutes. Corn and wheat are also substitutes. Champagne and Spumante as well. If the price of one rises too much people buy the other instead.
Gold and Silver are, simply, MONETARY substitutes and for practical purposes they have always been so.
The only thing that varies over time, which in this case spans thousands of years, is the degree to which they are substitutes. So the relationship is elastic but it is undeniably there and can therefore be quantified.
The quantification of that relationship can be expressed by the Gold / Silver PRICE ratio. Over the past centuries this ratio has varied from as low as about 10 to as high as 100. However only on a couple of periods each lasting about 15 years and both in the past century did it go above 50 due to some very exceptional circumstances but for the most time it has remained well below 40. So, really, only now are we starting to get back to the norm.
This price ratio should not be confused with the geologic ratio in the Earth’s crust of around 17 that we so often hear about but that ratio is not of any practical relevance. There is a big difference between what is the theoretical amount of metal in the crust compared to the amount in the ores being mined and in turn compared to the final metal PRODUCED from the smelters. You can NEVER get 100% recoveries.
The actual Gold /Silver ratio that should matter to us is 8.65 which is 735 million ounces of Silver versus 85 million ounces of Gold PRODUCED in 2010. All else is just theoretical rhetoric, just like the amount of Gold that you could extract from the Earth’s oceans. This 8.65 is probably close to the best ratio it will ever get for the foreseeable future since we are using the latest technology to squeeze the most out of the ores being extracted today.
As Gold and Silver continue to appreciate against fiat currencies, due to Silver’s substitution elasticity, it will tend to appreciate faster and THE PRICE RATIO WILL TEND TOWARDS THE PRODUCTION RATIO OF 8.65.
Furthermore, It doesn’t matter that the big boys want or believe that only Gold will be monetized because only Gold is held by central banks. What really matters is what people choose.
To illustrate this let me take you back 30 years or so to the early days of the personal computer in the very late 70s and early 80s. The big boys with deep pockets which included the government, the military, the multinationals, the banks, etc...only wanted mainframe computers and tolerated minicomputers (small mainframes really) in large branches or departments. PCs were viewed with derision and contempt by the establishment and used by geeky hobbyists and some universities to alleviate valuable mainframe time. Then PCs started to proliferate with a plethora of small producers starting up in their basements or garages to great joy from a small band of enthusiasts and early adopters but dismay by the bureaucratic establishment. Eventually PCs started sneaking through the backdoor of large corporations and pretty soon mighty IBM threw in the towel and was reluctantly forced to come up with their own version fast and so it had to use off the shelf components, processors and operating system to the great delight of Intel and Microsoft respectively . And the rest, as they say, is history...
The PC won because it was THE CHOICE OF THE PEOPLE. Whatever people chose will win in the end. IF THE PEOPLE CHOOSE IT SILVER WILL WIN. It’s as simple as that.
Oh, and by the way don’t think that "the people" is only you and your friends and neighbors in the good old USA and maybe Western Europe like it was in the past. It’s not anymore.
Just like the WTIC has become irrelevant to the international price of oil, "the people" that matter to the price and choice of precious metals are in China and India and Brasil and Russia and Mexico and Africa and the Middle East.
They are the ones that will decide the fate of this precious metals bull market and as far as I can tell they don’t seem to give a damn if central banks only want to hold Gold or not.
Finally, I noted, as I’m sure you did too, that Silver has recently punched through the $35 level reaching for its all-time high of $50 and has come back to test the $35 support level again where an interesting battle seems to be developing. Somehow it seems that this $35 level is morphing into something more important than I first realized.
It got me thinking... and then I remembered : THE LAST TIME A MONETARY PRECIOUS METAL BLASTED THROUGH $35 WAS 40 YEARS AGO; AND IT CONTINUED ALL THE WAY TO $880 PER OZ !!!
Just a thought...
All the best
DFK

I'm A Crazy Silver Bug...Why Aren't You?!!

By Bix Weir

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/597.cfm


What do you think of the term "Crazy Silver Bug"? Sound familiar?
Let's face it...it's hard to be an investor in silver. Every day the financial
media tells you that "It's In A Bubble" and every day the price swings
wildly in the wind as if someone were deliberately shaking the foundation upon
which you built your investment decision (wink, wink). Rarely do they ever talk
about the fundamentals of supply and demand influencing price. Nor do they talk
about silver's relationship to the mass printing of un-backed fiat currencies.

And don't even TRY to talk to your friends and family about silver because
there is no quicker way to alienate your loved ones. From Uncle Joe who lost
his shirt in the real estate market to Aunt Martha who sunk everything she had
into "Pets.Com" at the height of the internet bubble...they all claimed
that they've learned the hard way that bubbles pop hard and you should run for
the hills and get out of your silver investment.
What is it about this investment that automatically turns the world against
you for even bringing up the subject?
I think it has something to do with the person delivering the message...YOU!
That's right, it's all your fault! These people KNOW YOU. They've known you
from when you were just a child. They've ridden your ups and downs and your
failures validate and reinforce their ingrained belief that YOU are no different
than THEM. If you were to be RIGHT in your assessment of silver from the very
beginning it means that THEY were not able to see the same signs that were available
to YOU. Many of them have even made investments in Gold but won't buy ANY silver.
So of course when silver went up near $50 you were VERY LUCKY to have gotten
in early and when it fell back to $35 you were VERY DUMB to invest in that silver
bubble.
THE TRUTH IS THAT YOU DID YOUR HOMEWORK AND ACTED UPON YOUR BELIEFS WHEREAS
THEY HAVEN'T YET!
Understanding silver is not difficult but ACTING upon your understanding and
purchasing the physical metal is PSYCHOLOGICALLY a VERY difficult thing to do.
You will always second guess the timing, always be told you are crazy for paying
REAL MONEY for a piece of metal and ALWAYS be having to justify your ACTIONS
to those who have taken NO ACTION.
It's tough to be an investor in precious metals!
But it even goes further these days as it is EVEN MORE DIFFICULT to be an investor
in SILVER rather than GOLD! All those "refined and established investors"
in Gold have come out of the woodwork during the latest silver plunge and have
said "I TOLD YOU SILVER WAS NOT A MONETARY METAL...JUST LOOK HOW FAR IT
FELL COMPARED TO GOLD!" The Wall Street Journal even jumped on the band
wagon and published this article about the Gold vs. Silver debate:

Why Gold Will Outshine Silver
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681904576317364107515614.html
I find it very telling that in this article the author lays out his case that
the REASON gold will outperform silver is, essentially, that silver went up
too high in price and then came down like a crashing tulip bubble. That's pretty
much his whole analysis and argument in the vast gold-silver debate. "Silver
sucks because it's too volatile and looked like a crashing bubble so STAY AWAY!!!"
No wonder our friends and family act the way they do...THERE IS NO HONEST REPORTING
ON WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING TO SILVER!
So now I'm going to lay out my reasons for owning silver over owning gold just
for those of you thinking that silver is the wrong place to be. It seems the
more the manipulation of silver drags on the longer this list gets! For those
of you who have made the jump into silver I'd ask you to send this on to all
those who have not had their SILVER AWAKENING yet. It might help them to "see
the light"!



33 Reasons To Switch From Gold To Silver!

1. Due to the tiny size of the Silver market and the lack of physical Silver
   available to the manipulators, the Silver battle is much easier to win than
   Gold. Ted Butler's discovery of massive Silver market manipulation should
   highlight the size, scope and importance of Silver to the current financial
   crisis.
   
   http://www.investmentrarities.com/ted_butler_comentary/08-22-08.html
   
2. Central banks have NO physical Silver to assist in the manipulation of
   the Silver market but they still have a lot of physical Gold (although much
   less than they claim).
   
3. The majority of Silver mined every year is consumed as an industrial metal
   in very small amounts and will never return to the market whereas the amount
   of above ground Gold grows year after year.
   
4. Silver has developed, due to its low price and superior physical properties,
   into a vital and necessary industrial commodity that makes it mandatory for
   modern life. If we woke up tomorrow and gold vanished from the face of the
   earth, life would continue pretty much as it was the day before. Without silver,
   modern life would change.
   
5. Due to the relative very low price of silver and very high price of gold,
   the man in the street, around the world, is in a position to buy silver in
   much greater quantities than gold.
   
6. In various forms there is an estimated 5B oz of above ground Gold and 5B
   oz of above ground Silver but Gold trades at $1400/oz and Silver trades for
   about $35/oz. Both metal prices are obviously manipulated but Silver appears
   to be manipulated more. As for Silver bullion that is "in play"
   for the manipulators, I estimate that less than 200M oz remain with a current
   market value less than $7B.
   
7. Silver has been in a supply deficit for over 50 years! Governments held
   approximately 10B oz of silver in 1950 and have been supplying that physical
   stock steadily into the market. Today there is no more of that surplus silver
   left to sell.
   
8. At current Silver consumption rates there are only 14 years of known Silver
   reserves remaining in the world. AFTER THAT SILVER WILL BE GONE FOREVER! Think
   about it.
   
   http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silver/mcs-2010-silve.pdf
   
9. Demand for Silver is "inelastic" in its industrial applications
   because it is used in such small quantities per application. An increase in
   price does not translate into a decrease in consumption.
   
10. The COMEX Silver short position is the largest concentrated short position
    of any commodity, on any exchange in the history of financial markets.
    
11. Throughout human monetary history the Silver to Gold ratio hovered in the
    10-1 range until the invention of futures and options trading in metals. After
    the massive manipulation maneuvers by the Banking Cabal the silver-gold ratio
    now stands at over 40-1.
    
12. The US Dollar as defined in the Coinage Act of 1792 is Silver, not Gold,
    and contains "three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth
    parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver."
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar
    
13. Silver is massively under reported in the media vs. Gold. Even Jim Rogers,
    the commodity guru, purposefully ignores Silver entirely in his bestselling
    book "Hot Commodities" even though Silver exceeds all other commodities
    using his metrics on what makes a strong commodity.
    
14. Very few investors have physical Silver in their possession. Reasoning:
    because they claim it is "too hard to store". Does that mean when
    Silver trades at over $1,000 oz people will be more willing to buy and store
    physical Silver? It is difficult to make up a more bullish argument to take
    delivery and store physical Silver TODAY...when the Cabal price rigging scam
    finally fails you can always buy your own Fort Knox to store all that pesky
    Silver you bought!
    
15. Gold's strong fundamentals are only exceeded by Silver's so when the gold
    manipulation stops and the Gold price takes off investors will be looking
    for the next under-priced investment with similar characteristics.
    
16. 470M oz of Silver owned by the US Treasury and used in the Manhattan Project
    for the construction of the atom bomb have all been melted down and sold into
    the physical market to support the "Strong Dollar Policy"
    
    The Great Silver Mystery...REVEALED!
    
    http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/135.cfm
    
17. Silver mineral deposits, as opposed to Gold, are usually very shallow in
    the earth's crust due to the nature of the geology so most of the large deposits
    of Silver have probably already been found and/or already mined limiting future
    discoveries.
    
18. There is a significant problem with counterfeit Gold coins and bars because
    of its high price. Silver coins and small bars have not, to date, had as much
    of a counterfeiting issue because its price did not justify the effort. (although
    there is a problem with counterfeit Silver jewelry which may significantly
    suppress Silver scrap recovery in the future...oddly bullish by-product of
    counterfeiting Silver!)
    
19. The total dollar value of the Silver market is a fraction of the total
    dollar value of the Gold market.
    
20. Most flat screen televisions use Silver in their internal electronics/screens
    and the US transfer from analog to digital signals has increased the demand
    for flat screen TV's.
    
21. Retail physical shortages of Silver are already beginning to appear around
    the world. The list of announced delays/curtailment by Government owned Mints
    now includes EVERY MAJOR SILVER COIN PRODUCING COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!
    
22. Hedge funds are bleeding from the credit crunch and they are looking for
    ways to save themselves. A single hedge fund can scoop up the remaining physical
    Silver and blow the price sky high.
    
23. In the US, Gold confiscation laws are still on the books but there are
    currently no silver confiscation laws.
    
24. As of early 2011 the Gold price is hovering around $1,400 or 165% of its
    historical high. Silver, on the other hand, is hovering around $35 or 70%
    of its historical high suggesting that Silver has a long way still to go.
    
25. Un-backed paper Silver programs such as silver certificates and unallocated
    pooled accounts are the "industry standard" these days and will
    be scrambling for metal when redemptions are called in by the investors. The
    most egregious example of fractional reserve silver is the iShares Silver
    ETF (SLV).
    
26. In the past few years the massive global money creation by central banks
    around the world has created huge reservoirs of cash sloshing around the asset
    markets looking for a safe haven. Although most mainstream press have discussed
    Gold as being a likely bucket to fill with this monetary firehouse, SILVER
    has all the same monetary metal properties as Gold except the Silver market
    is SO small it would be like FILLING A DIXIE CUP WITH THE FIREHOUSE!
    
27. The CFTC still has an open investigation into the manipulation of the SILVER
    market that is being conducted not by their investigative division but by
    the CFTC "Enforcement Division". Although the final conclusions
    have been purposefully delayed by the CFTC, the final outcome may finally
    be the END OF THE 50 YEAR MANIPULATION OF THE SILVER MARKET!
    
28. During the CFTC hearing on metal position limits, GATA announced that a
    whistleblower has come forward with specific proof that JP Morgan was rigging
    the silver market. The next day he and his wife were rammed in their car in
    an attempted murder. The suspect was caught but the police are not giving
    out any information about the suspect or others that were involved.
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9bU0r6JP4s
    
29. The growth of emerging economies in Asia will require more and more industrial
    silver to build out their electric infrastructure and provide a higher standard
    of living for their middle class. In a global market that has been in a silver
    supply deficit for years a silver bidding war will result in order to obtain
    the significant amounts of silver needed.
    
30. The truth about gold and silver price manipulation is spreading like wildfire
    throughout the world with the help of the internet such that the Banksters
    "shabby secret" is no longer a secret.
    
31. There are currently multiple class action lawsuits that have been filed
    against JP Morgan for blatantly rigging the silver market. Given that JP Morgan
    has previously claimed immunity from legal prosecution because they are an
    agent of the US Government I doubt the suits will ever be brought to trial...BUT
    the publicity of them "claiming immunity" AGAIN will be the "silver
    shot heard around the world".
    
32. The US Dollar has run its course as the world's reserve currency. The entire
    global financial markets know this and are positioning themselves accordingly.
    The "Dollar End Game" for the United States has never been to transfer
    economic power to Eastern countries as the dollar dies but rather crash the
    global markets and start fresh with a new domestically centered economic model.
    That transition is upon us:
    
    http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/261.cfm
    
33. Inventors around the world are making significant breakthroughs in the
    attempt to solve our energy crisis. From fuel cells to solar power to zero
    point energies that existed only in our imaginations breakthroughs are quickly
    coming down the pike. Since silver is the BEST CONDUCTOR OF ELECTRICITY in
    the world it is likely that the most powerful breakthroughs will involve the
    special properties of silver.
    

If all these reasons are not enough for you to run out and buy all the physical
silver you can get your hands on then I'm sure there will be new reasons not
far off on the horizon. Because for the last 10 years this list has continued
to GROW...RELENTLESSLY!
It's true that there are "NO SURE THINGS" in life...but an investment
in SILVER comes DARN CLOSE! Yes, you'll have to ride the tidal wave of price
manipulation but when the waves die down you will fully appreciate the power
and value of SILVER.
Don't believe the silver haters...load up on physical silver and keep it out
of the hands of those who want to control it. Take it home and stick it in your
safe. It may be your last chance!
May the Road you choose be the Right Road.
Bix Weir
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