silversky

Remind me the difference between stagflation, inflation, deflation or intoxication. 😛
What would the effect be in the current economic situation and what would cause it? 

I dont know how many thousands of videos I have watched from experts over the last year, but no one seems to know anything really. The most accurate analysts I have come across is Lynn Alden & the most angry, but often correct would be Peter Schiff.  

Would be nice in some way to make a logical guess from all of these expert options. But your right everyone is talking about inflation now & its one of the more noticeable things as it hit us peasants first and last. 

Seems to me that with what looks like the dreaded stagflation starting to creep in (inflation everywhere but disappointing employment and economic activity), as other commodities rise, it's going to get harder and harder to knock silver down in the wee hours.  I'm not expecting moonshots or much excitement over the next month or two.  But I do think that a floor was finally put in last week and that the bears have had their fill.

Seems to me that with what looks like the dreaded stagflation starting to creep in (inflation everywhere but disappointing employment and economic activity), as other commodities rise, it's going to get harder and harder to knock silver down in the wee hours.  I'm not expecting moonshots or much excitement over the next month or two.  But I do think that a floor was finally put in last week and that the bears have had their fill.

I bought a lot of silver from Germany when coins were rated at 7% VAT before rising to 19%.
Then I switched all my purchases to GS.be and some other German dealers that were operating the very low "differential VAT" scheme.
Also I started buying some silver and platinum from Estonia - The European Mint - who were totally VAT free.
You are very fortunate that you still can buy from these two suppliers and avoid the penalties of full VAT.

I want to paraphrase something Maloney said in one of his videos on the History of Money. He asked a room full of children which was the odd one out - when shown a picture of US dollars, Monopoly money and a $20 gold coin. They said something along the lines of 'the gold is money because its valuable, the others are just paper'.
Young children are less conversant in the doublethink of modern society and less articulate with repeating semi-truths or even non truths. There is no filter, they just say it as they see it, with little recourse to how their friends/society might always view them.
Now whilst I don't claim to be a Maloney follower in the sense that gold/silver are going to the moon, the anecdote resonated with me.
I've always loved history, and I first became interested in coins as a young child. I blame my gran who was frugal and taught me to save for a rainy day. So yeah I developed a love of money both current and historic. My dad had previously collected coins, mostly farthings, but had some 1887 silver coins too. He gave them me, c.1989/1990. Well that was it, I took a keen interest.
Even as a young kid though I quickly took a shine to gold and silver. He asked me if I want to collect copper/bronze coins and was met with a flat refusal.
In my head the distinction was clear, there's good - quality money, and there's base metal junk. I even looked down my nose at 50% silver as if it was some kind of con trick.
I don't know where this sense or attitude came from but it felt natural, that gold and silver were inherently precious (maybe I'd watched too many Indiana Jones/Goonies type films).
So why do I collect silver? Simply because I always have. I believe silver to be pretty, intrinsically valuable and historically interesting and I like the way it feels.
So why not gold? I can't afford it, is the simple answer. I could (and did) when it was sub $350 an oz. But I sold off what I'd bought in around 2009/2010 just before the peak of the market, made a nice profit too. I haven't bought any since as it's out of my price range.
As for VAT... Buy eight, tenth or twenty-sixth hand silver.
All my silver is over 50 years old.

Mainstream media only highlight its when the horse has already bolted from the stable. Because they can inform thier mates...... but you really need to ask who those mates.... really are? Its not the common man, that I will tell you! For the record the daily express also is sensationalist drivel like the daily mail.  A fearmongering tabloid, that actually creates panic and anger amongst the middle working class, a classic psyop paper. Back on topic SLV is a paper psyop, thats rigged the markets for years. And JP Morgan is getting sued again....thier fines now rack up to SO FAR - a measly 42 BILLION.. Compare that to the amount theyve made in shorting silver - its Trillions.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/florida-miners-lawsuit-accuses-jpmorgan-manipulating-silver-prices-2021-10-01/

 

That video is the complete truth. Outstanding.
Too many people will deny it while watching Eastenders, Kim Kardarshian and all that p*sh.
Its full steam ahead with the asylum @HerefordBullyun

All paper markets are manipulated.  It's a sad reality, but there's nothing particularly special about the manipulation in Silver.  Yes it's annoying, but other commodities see highly leveraged, non-deliverable shorts, attempting to force their prices down.  Some do it for an instant profit, others so that they can buy cheaper deliverable futures from legitimate producer sales.  Some producers get squeezed into selling at a loss, just trying to keep going and pay the bills, with some eventually ending up going bust.  Supply drops off and physical shortages mean that the paper price detaches from reality.  In a healthy market, paper and physical would be closely correlated.  But these types of problems are popping up everywhere.  It's really about the financialisaton of everything.  A huge industry has been built up around making money from producing no product or service for anyone but the trader.  The futures markets were supposed to offer producers long term security, but instead they've become a casino for banksters and hedge funds.  But even like this, Silver producers still use the futures market!  And they still accept the poor prices for their product, because it offers some stability and the ability to choose ore grade in advance of production.  They only abandon the paper markets when the discount becomes too crazy and they end up just accepting the physical rate on the day.
When paper becomes that stretched from reality, buyers and sellers of physical are still trading.  They just do it off exchange in private deals.  If the demand is significantly higher than supply though, and there really is nothing left to deliver, then there's nothing on earth that can stop that from being expressed in their agreed physical price.  Nothing!
Take for example the newspapers recently complaining that petrol stations were gouging the poor motorist.  It was seen as disgraceful that petrol stations were selling fuel at £2 a litre!!  Clearly as supply ran short, the price went up.  What's actually wrong with that???  In fact, I think it didn't go up quick enough, and not enough stations got round to raising their prices!!!  If more of them had ramped the price up quickly, those who barely drive would've stayed at home rather than filling up both cars full. Just about everyone I know has a full tank of fuel now, and they're not going to need any more of it for a while.  Prices will be back to normal soon in those independent stations.
Everywhere you look, there's a battle between producers, retailers and users.  It's been going on for centuries in the rice futures market, and it's not going to come to an end even if we abandon fiat currency.  It's the nature of buying and selling for profit.
Anyway, these days, Silver is essentially performing like a base metal.  People might wish for it to perform as a monetary instrument, (myself included btw), but it's not going to until the day that fiat currency is completely destroyed in a hyper inflation catastrophe.  Only then, when gold is too expensive for the masses, will Silver make a comeback.  But those conditions for Silver to return to being precious, are highly unlikely in the current system.  For now at least, it remains an industrial metal with a value essentially related to the cost of mining it, and to it's future scarcity as deposits wane. Silver regaining the glory days of being a monetary instrument is I'm afraid, just a pipe dream. 
Now, if they were to stop charging VAT on physical copper... and they started making lovely ten kilo Britannias... I'd be a copper bug in a heartbeat!!! 

Bringing us a little bit closer to being on topic (wrong currency I know), the price of silver in USD has now just risen above last week's close.  Price in GBP is already strongly above last week's close but that's less important than the dollar close.
Last week and yesterday it certainly looked bleak.  Those pesky kids were at it again, taking out the stops before running for cover.  But I still remain confident in my prediction last week, that the bottom will be in by the end of this week.  As reiterated yesterday at the low, I expect to see a close above last week's.

The metal markets are mainly paper contracts. The metals are currencies. The London spot gold and silver market is primarily an FX currency market. The metals are counter currencies - they stand counter to national fiat currencies. This is for sure with gold but somewhat less with silver b/c of its other uses.
What factors are used to price gold (and silver)? It is mainly other currencies, interest rates, bond rates. The price of gold and silver moves hard with financial and banking news b/c they are financial 'products'. 
Some people call them commodities and don't believe they are money and currencies, but you only have to look at the price chart around FOMC, NFP announcements to realise they do not behave like commodities - they behave like a financial product. 
The futures market for gold was set up following the USD coming off the gold standard and US citizens being allowed to own gold. US citizens cannot trade on the spot market - they are captives of this futures market. In the Wikileaks leaked document it is clear the reason for the COMEX was to get Americans into paper contracts and keep them away from physical. You can have resources diverted from physical into a paper contract with no physical behind it. Until recently the COMEX was all but an undeliverable market. Many brokers will close futures positions at expiration and do not allow an investor to take delivery. 
The GLD and SLV are similar surrogates. Ordinary people buy these - they think they own gold and silver but they can never take delivery. How much is really backing these ETF's is not really known. Many don't believe there is as much as there is claimed to be and if there is some would question if that gold / silver hasn't been borrowed / lent out. Indeed gold in the GLD is borrowed for the Bank of England and so one might say it doesn't really exist.
There are many stories about investors who invested in unallocated bullion who then went to take delivery only to be told - sorry - here's your cash now clear off. Legally there doesn't have to be any gold / silver. Money which was intended to go into metal is taken by the bullion banks are used elsewhere. There never was any metal. It appears there are these hoards of physical gold / silver when in reality there is nothing but paper certificates. We also get metal rehypothecated. It is apparently legal to rehypothecate to infinity in the City. Metal can be used as collateral multiple times so there are multiple claims on the same bars. 
So for every ounces of real metal there is, there are many, many more of fictional metal. Some people might consider it fraud but this is banking and they do this sort of thing. i am not even covering all the antics on the markets carried out to rinse investors out, to create negative sentiment, then often misleading views coming from the controlled financial media output. 
People like those on this forum who hold actual physical are in the minority. The aim has been to keep us in the minority. If even a small fraction of investments went into allocated physical metal the price would have to climb much, much higher. Instead much of the small fraction that actually goes into 'metal' is conned into unallocated non-existent metal, into ETF's with dubious reserves and the casino of the futures market. Those who want large amounts of physical do not pay the paper price - there are premiums to pay. Some silver refiners are sold out for the rest of the year, so you won't get anything from them. When there is such dislocation between physical and paper - one might ask what is the paper market? What does it actually represent other than a dot on a screen.

The unmet demand is allegedly being satisfied with ancient bars which will soon run out!  Bars which are over a hundred years old and therefore must be coming from the back of nearly empty vaults!
Maybe this is true, and maybe it isn't, but it certainly makes a compelling and exciting story!
All of the big moves in human affairs require a compelling story.  A story which sounds true, and implies a secret that only a clever few possess.  Stories like that can lure in vast numbers and change the course of history.  Wars are fought over fictional WMD's that never existed, and huge profits are made producing cures for illnesses that are mostly harmless.  Otherwise intelligent people, often get caught up in these powerful memes (Richard Dawkins original definition circa "the selfish gene") and in many ways it's one of the colourful things that makes life so interesting and exciting.
The Silver bullion market certainly doesn't disappoint, and it has more than its fair share of compelling stories flying around.  I must admit that I do enjoy reading them, and that I enjoy letting their tantalising intricacies play across my mind.  But I always try to remind myself that Silver is just a plain old boring commodity these days, and it has absolutely nothing to do with being real money.
The odd sparkle from time to time suggests that maybe one day it'll regain its former glory, but an older and wiser self tucks that idea away, knowing that only catastrophe will bring about that outcome.  When I was younger I would have rated the chance of catastrophe as very very low.  But there have been far too many other unrelated moves which are putting big fat fingers on those scales all across the world.  I now rank catastrophe (in my lifetime) as medium risk, and this is why I possess physical.  It's a hedge against an event I don't want to see.
As I've said before, the system is so inherently corrupt now, that it's impossible to change it through political means. Very few people have the capacity to understand why the system is so corrupt, let alone vote for someone who might set it straight.  Every single restraint on free market capitalism has slowly been subverted and twisted into rules and procedures that often resemble the complete opposite of their original protective intent.  The merchant class now dominate every sphere of life, and they hold complete dominion over the west.  This is why it's dying at such a rapidly increasing pace.  There are no modern day Andrew Jacksons waiting to wrestle the ring of power off these vipers.  Our political classes have ALL been bought up by the merchants and they have betrayed us.  It's therefore simply a matter of time before complete collapse causes war and destruction.  But things can struggle on for far longer than one imagines, and this is why I rank it only as medium risk in my lifetime.
There's a very good reason why the merchant class have historically been regarded as one of the lowest in society all around the world.  When kept in check, they provide a valuable service like many of the other classes, but allowed free reign and dominion, they devour a society from within, trading their way up to being gods.  It's precisely because of their inherent greed, that some societies specifically retain their ancient usury laws.  These laws provide a very real threat of capitol punishment for those who would attempt to steal their way to the top,

The unmet demand is allegedly being satisfied with ancient bars which will soon run out!  Bars which are over a hundred years old and therefore must be coming from the back of nearly empty vaults!
Maybe this is true, and maybe it isn't, but it certainly makes a compelling and exciting story!
All of the big moves in human affairs require a compelling story.  A story which sounds true, and implies a secret that only a clever few possess.  Stories like that can lure in vast numbers and change the course of history.  Wars are fought over fictional WMD's that never existed, and huge profits are made producing cures for illnesses that are mostly harmless.  Otherwise intelligent people, often get caught up in these powerful memes (Richard Dawkins original definition circa "the selfish gene") and in many ways it's one of the colourful things that makes life so interesting and exciting.
The Silver bullion market certainly doesn't disappoint, and it has more than its fair share of compelling stories flying around.  I must admit that I do enjoy reading them, and that I enjoy letting their tantalising intricacies play across my mind.  But I always try to remind myself that Silver is just a plain old boring commodity these days, and it has absolutely nothing to do with being real money.
The odd sparkle from time to time suggests that maybe one day it'll regain its former glory, but an older and wiser self tucks that idea away, knowing that only catastrophe will bring about that outcome.  When I was younger I would have rated the chance of catastrophe as very very low.  But there have been far too many other unrelated moves which are putting big fat fingers on those scales all across the world.  I now rank catastrophe (in my lifetime) as medium risk, and this is why I possess physical.  It's a hedge against an event I don't want to see.
As I've said before, the system is so inherently corrupt now, that it's impossible to change it through political means. Very few people have the capacity to understand why the system is so corrupt, let alone vote for someone who might set it straight.  Every single restraint on free market capitalism has slowly been subverted and twisted into rules and procedures that often resemble the complete opposite of their original protective intent.  The merchant class now dominate every sphere of life, and they hold complete dominion over the west.  This is why it's dying at such a rapidly increasing pace.  There are no modern day Andrew Jacksons waiting to wrestle the ring of power off these vipers.  Our political classes have ALL been bought up by the merchants and they have betrayed us.  It's therefore simply a matter of time before complete collapse causes war and destruction.  But things can struggle on for far longer than one imagines, and this is why I rank it only as medium risk in my lifetime.
There's a very good reason why the merchant class have historically been regarded as one of the lowest in society all around the world.  When kept in check, they provide a valuable service like many of the other classes, but allowed free reign and dominion, they devour a society from within, trading their way up to being gods.  It's precisely because of their inherent greed, that some societies specifically retain their ancient usury laws.  These laws provide a very real threat of capitol punishment for those who would attempt to steal their way to the top,

Had a quick look around and so far all I can gather is the LBMA has a exemption. So currently not going to happen. But you know how these things are, different interpretations all over the place.

How can it be honoured i.e if there is more paper than silver? It's the paper that's killing the real intrinsic value and price of your commodity.  
And furthermore what do insurance underwriting companies do? Make up clause's so they don't honour the contract and pay out. 
It's honestly beggars belief that some people here hold gold and PM's to have sound money but still adore the economics based on Keynesian lunacy....
You cannot now take the punch bowl away. It's enslavement by debt.
This is going create the next financial crash. Love or hate him Schiff called the last one and he'll be right again.
 
 

The unmet demand is allegedly being satisfied with ancient bars which will soon run out!  Bars which are over a hundred years old and therefore must be coming from the back of nearly empty vaults!
Maybe this is true, and maybe it isn't, but it certainly makes a compelling and exciting story!
All of the big moves in human affairs require a compelling story.  A story which sounds true, and implies a secret that only a clever few possess.  Stories like that can lure in vast numbers and change the course of history.  Wars are fought over fictional WMD's that never existed, and huge profits are made producing cures for illnesses that are mostly harmless.  Otherwise intelligent people, often get caught up in these powerful memes (Richard Dawkins original definition circa "the selfish gene") and in many ways it's one of the colourful things that makes life so interesting and exciting.
The Silver bullion market certainly doesn't disappoint, and it has more than its fair share of compelling stories flying around.  I must admit that I do enjoy reading them, and that I enjoy letting their tantalising intricacies play across my mind.  But I always try to remind myself that Silver is just a plain old boring commodity these days, and it has absolutely nothing to do with being real money.
The odd sparkle from time to time suggests that maybe one day it'll regain its former glory, but an older and wiser self tucks that idea away, knowing that only catastrophe will bring about that outcome.  When I was younger I would have rated the chance of catastrophe as very very low.  But there have been far too many other unrelated moves which are putting big fat fingers on those scales all across the world.  I now rank catastrophe (in my lifetime) as medium risk, and this is why I possess physical.  It's a hedge against an event I don't want to see.
As I've said before, the system is so inherently corrupt now, that it's impossible to change it through political means. Very few people have the capacity to understand why the system is so corrupt, let alone vote for someone who might set it straight.  Every single restraint on free market capitalism has slowly been subverted and twisted into rules and procedures that often resemble the complete opposite of their original protective intent.  The merchant class now dominate every sphere of life, and they hold complete dominion over the west.  This is why it's dying at such a rapidly increasing pace.  There are no modern day Andrew Jacksons waiting to wrestle the ring of power off these vipers.  Our political classes have ALL been bought up by the merchants and they have betrayed us.  It's therefore simply a matter of time before complete collapse causes war and destruction.  But things can struggle on for far longer than one imagines, and this is why I rank it only as medium risk in my lifetime.
There's a very good reason why the merchant class have historically been regarded as one of the lowest in society all around the world.  When kept in check, they provide a valuable service like many of the other classes, but allowed free reign and dominion, they devour a society from within, trading their way up to being gods.  It's precisely because of their inherent greed, that some societies specifically retain their ancient usury laws.  These laws provide a very real threat of capitol punishment for those who would attempt to steal their way to the top,

One obvious difference is that you're not allowed to insure your house 400 times!  (or whatever the current ratio is said to be)
Edit:  Life assurance is of course different.  As many people as wish can take out an assurance policy on a person.  But that's because the event (death) is not just likely to be delivered, it's absolutely certain!  It's therefore priced accordingly and doesn't risk bringing the whole system down.   Insurance on the other hand is not expected to be delivered, which is why leveraging it up is unacceptable in law.  The risk of contagion is deemed to be too large.

I'm certainly not for it.  In an ideal world, the futures markets wouldn't be leveraged up with all those non deliverable contracts.  And the paper spot market wouldn't be capable of drifting so far away from the physical market, because it wouldn't be two orders of magnitude larger than it.  The whole point of futures markets in the beginning, was to smooth out production risk and allow farmers to sell their crops in advance, funding themselves throughout the year.  It was essentially a loan from a buyer who wanted the product to be produced..  But these days, most of the contracts don't want to buy or sell the product.  They're simply borrowing vast sums of money and dwarfing the real markets.  They pay next to no cost for this pleasure because the interest rates are zero.
There is no solving these issues calmly and sensibly.  Only war and chaos now can unwrite a century of provisions written into code that allows for rapacious mercantile robbery.  Pretty much all of the derivatives, in all classes now, have had their original intention usurped.  None are fit for purpose these days.
All you have to do is look at a few other commodities to see some real problems.  Cocoa for example is a nightmare.  Can't imagine how the poor farmers deal with it.  They end up having to sell to middle men who then supply the chocolate companies, who short their market!  Absolutely wonderful.  It's real life or death stuff out there on the edge, caused by the very market that's supposed to smooth things out for them.  Silver by comparison, is a few large spoof orders from time to time, smashing and grabbing in the quiet periods.  The physical is still bought by consumers for real money, and life goes on.  If it really does ever finally run short, we'll know about it when you can't buy any.  People will finally start demanding delivery and the system will collapse.  Not saying it's right, just recognising that the whole system is corrupt, and overloaded with leeches.

There's a difference between supporting and accepting.  I do the latter and treat metals as a hedge against a reaction to the excess.  As part of that acceptance, I dont buy into the thesis that, with a playground of trillions of $ in hundreds of different markets, there is a group out to suppress two markets long term.  It is difficult and expensive to push down prices over long periods, I'm yet to hear where the unmet demand is that's being suppressed all this time. 

One obvious difference is that you're not allowed to insure your house 400 times!  (or whatever the current ratio is said to be)
Edit:  Life assurance is of course different.  As many people as wish can take out an assurance policy on a person.  But that's because the event (death) is not just likely to be delivered, it's absolutely certain!  It's therefore priced accordingly and doesn't risk bringing the whole system down.   Insurance on the other hand is not expected to be delivered, which is why leveraging it up is unacceptable in law.  The risk of contagion is deemed to be too large.

I'm certainly not for it.  In an ideal world, the futures markets wouldn't be leveraged up with all those non deliverable contracts.  And the paper spot market wouldn't be capable of drifting so far away from the physical market, because it wouldn't be two orders of magnitude larger than it.  The whole point of futures markets in the beginning, was to smooth out production risk and allow farmers to sell their crops in advance, funding themselves throughout the year.  It was essentially a loan from a buyer who wanted the product to be produced..  But these days, most of the contracts don't want to buy or sell the product.  They're simply borrowing vast sums of money and dwarfing the real markets.  They pay next to no cost for this pleasure because the interest rates are zero.
There is no solving these issues calmly and sensibly.  Only war and chaos now can unwrite a century of provisions written into code that allows for rapacious mercantile robbery.  Pretty much all of the derivatives, in all classes now, have had their original intention usurped.  None are fit for purpose these days.
All you have to do is look at a few other commodities to see some real problems.  Cocoa for example is a nightmare.  Can't imagine how the poor farmers deal with it.  They end up having to sell to middle men who then supply the chocolate companies, who short their market!  Absolutely wonderful.  It's real life or death stuff out there on the edge, caused by the very market that's supposed to smooth things out for them.  Silver by comparison, is a few large spoof orders from time to time, smashing and grabbing in the quiet periods.  The physical is still bought by consumers for real money, and life goes on.  If it really does ever finally run short, we'll know about it when you can't buy any.  People will finally start demanding delivery and the system will collapse.  Not saying it's right, just recognising that the whole system is corrupt, and overloaded with leeches.

I'm certainly not for it.  In an ideal world, the futures markets wouldn't be leveraged up with all those non deliverable contracts.  And the paper spot market wouldn't be capable of drifting so far away from the physical market, because it wouldn't be two orders of magnitude larger than it.  The whole point of futures markets in the beginning, was to smooth out production risk and allow farmers to sell their crops in advance, funding themselves throughout the year.  It was essentially a loan from a buyer who wanted the product to be produced..  But these days, most of the contracts don't want to buy or sell the product.  They're simply borrowing vast sums of money and dwarfing the real markets.  They pay next to no cost for this pleasure because the interest rates are zero.
There is no solving these issues calmly and sensibly.  Only war and chaos now can unwrite a century of provisions written into code that allows for rapacious mercantile robbery.  Pretty much all of the derivatives, in all classes now, have had their original intention usurped.  None are fit for purpose these days.
All you have to do is look at a few other commodities to see some real problems.  Cocoa for example is a nightmare.  Can't imagine how the poor farmers deal with it.  They end up having to sell to middle men who then supply the chocolate companies, who short their market!  Absolutely wonderful.  It's real life or death stuff out there on the edge, caused by the very market that's supposed to smooth things out for them.  Silver by comparison, is a few large spoof orders from time to time, smashing and grabbing in the quiet periods.  The physical is still bought by consumers for real money, and life goes on.  If it really does ever finally run short, we'll know about it when you can't buy any.  People will finally start demanding delivery and the system will collapse.  Not saying it's right, just recognising that the whole system is corrupt, and overloaded with leeches.

All paper markets are manipulated.  It's a sad reality, but there's nothing particularly special about the manipulation in Silver.  Yes it's annoying, but other commodities see highly leveraged, non-deliverable shorts, attempting to force their prices down.  Some do it for an instant profit, others so that they can buy cheaper deliverable futures from legitimate producer sales.  Some producers get squeezed into selling at a loss, just trying to keep going and pay the bills, with some eventually ending up going bust.  Supply drops off and physical shortages mean that the paper price detaches from reality.  In a healthy market, paper and physical would be closely correlated.  But these types of problems are popping up everywhere.  It's really about the financialisaton of everything.  A huge industry has been built up around making money from producing no product or service for anyone but the trader.  The futures markets were supposed to offer producers long term security, but instead they've become a casino for banksters and hedge funds.  But even like this, Silver producers still use the futures market!  And they still accept the poor prices for their product, because it offers some stability and the ability to choose ore grade in advance of production.  They only abandon the paper markets when the discount becomes too crazy and they end up just accepting the physical rate on the day.
When paper becomes that stretched from reality, buyers and sellers of physical are still trading.  They just do it off exchange in private deals.  If the demand is significantly higher than supply though, and there really is nothing left to deliver, then there's nothing on earth that can stop that from being expressed in their agreed physical price.  Nothing!
Take for example the newspapers recently complaining that petrol stations were gouging the poor motorist.  It was seen as disgraceful that petrol stations were selling fuel at £2 a litre!!  Clearly as supply ran short, the price went up.  What's actually wrong with that???  In fact, I think it didn't go up quick enough, and not enough stations got round to raising their prices!!!  If more of them had ramped the price up quickly, those who barely drive would've stayed at home rather than filling up both cars full. Just about everyone I know has a full tank of fuel now, and they're not going to need any more of it for a while.  Prices will be back to normal soon in those independent stations.
Everywhere you look, there's a battle between producers, retailers and users.  It's been going on for centuries in the rice futures market, and it's not going to come to an end even if we abandon fiat currency.  It's the nature of buying and selling for profit.
Anyway, these days, Silver is essentially performing like a base metal.  People might wish for it to perform as a monetary instrument, (myself included btw), but it's not going to until the day that fiat currency is completely destroyed in a hyper inflation catastrophe.  Only then, when gold is too expensive for the masses, will Silver make a comeback.  But those conditions for Silver to return to being precious, are highly unlikely in the current system.  For now at least, it remains an industrial metal with a value essentially related to the cost of mining it, and to it's future scarcity as deposits wane. Silver regaining the glory days of being a monetary instrument is I'm afraid, just a pipe dream. 
Now, if they were to stop charging VAT on physical copper... and they started making lovely ten kilo Britannias... I'd be a copper bug in a heartbeat!!! 

All paper markets are manipulated.  It's a sad reality, but there's nothing particularly special about the manipulation in Silver.  Yes it's annoying, but other commodities see highly leveraged, non-deliverable shorts, attempting to force their prices down.  Some do it for an instant profit, others so that they can buy cheaper deliverable futures from legitimate producer sales.  Some producers get squeezed into selling at a loss, just trying to keep going and pay the bills, with some eventually ending up going bust.  Supply drops off and physical shortages mean that the paper price detaches from reality.  In a healthy market, paper and physical would be closely correlated.  But these types of problems are popping up everywhere.  It's really about the financialisaton of everything.  A huge industry has been built up around making money from producing no product or service for anyone but the trader.  The futures markets were supposed to offer producers long term security, but instead they've become a casino for banksters and hedge funds.  But even like this, Silver producers still use the futures market!  And they still accept the poor prices for their product, because it offers some stability and the ability to choose ore grade in advance of production.  They only abandon the paper markets when the discount becomes too crazy and they end up just accepting the physical rate on the day.
When paper becomes that stretched from reality, buyers and sellers of physical are still trading.  They just do it off exchange in private deals.  If the demand is significantly higher than supply though, and there really is nothing left to deliver, then there's nothing on earth that can stop that from being expressed in their agreed physical price.  Nothing!
Take for example the newspapers recently complaining that petrol stations were gouging the poor motorist.  It was seen as disgraceful that petrol stations were selling fuel at £2 a litre!!  Clearly as supply ran short, the price went up.  What's actually wrong with that???  In fact, I think it didn't go up quick enough, and not enough stations got round to raising their prices!!!  If more of them had ramped the price up quickly, those who barely drive would've stayed at home rather than filling up both cars full. Just about everyone I know has a full tank of fuel now, and they're not going to need any more of it for a while.  Prices will be back to normal soon in those independent stations.
Everywhere you look, there's a battle between producers, retailers and users.  It's been going on for centuries in the rice futures market, and it's not going to come to an end even if we abandon fiat currency.  It's the nature of buying and selling for profit.
Anyway, these days, Silver is essentially performing like a base metal.  People might wish for it to perform as a monetary instrument, (myself included btw), but it's not going to until the day that fiat currency is completely destroyed in a hyper inflation catastrophe.  Only then, when gold is too expensive for the masses, will Silver make a comeback.  But those conditions for Silver to return to being precious, are highly unlikely in the current system.  For now at least, it remains an industrial metal with a value essentially related to the cost of mining it, and to it's future scarcity as deposits wane. Silver regaining the glory days of being a monetary instrument is I'm afraid, just a pipe dream. 
Now, if they were to stop charging VAT on physical copper... and they started making lovely ten kilo Britannias... I'd be a copper bug in a heartbeat!!! 

@Bigmarc Have a look at the best financial doucmentaries thread, I started - Its all relative to the whys, we collect silver and other PM's. When I left the military I had to join the dots - why was I going to war? what was the real reason. It came down to one single thing. Money. Theres a wealth of good docus on there if you havent seen them.