Does the recent price dip confirm....

[HawkHybrid]

5 minutes ago, AgCoyote said:

While most of us can probably afford to accumulate gold or large amounts of silver, gold is certainly going to be out of reach for the vast majority especially once financial panic sets in and gold rises. Where else could they realistically turn? There's a reason silver is called the poor man's gold.

 

90% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the people.

how much wealth do these poor people have to

chase up the price of silver?

would this help to explain why the silver frenzy

when it does happen is short and sharp? cos

there's no sustainable volume of wealth chasing it?

 

HH

[AgCoyote]

7 minutes ago, Platinum said:

It is easier to brainwash someone than make someone who is brainwashed realise that said person has been brainwashed.

In other words it will be like talking to a wall most of the time you interact with people who does not know about this. Or for the matter, care.

Most people do not care, and will not care, until it is burning at their own doorstep, and when that happens they cry out for help that had been offered to them which is no longer of any use for the fire is already there.

Very true. It might be a harsh view but I find that many deserve what's coming.

[AgCoyote]

6 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

 

90% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the people.

how much wealth do these poor people have to

chase up the price of silver?

would this help to explain why the silver frenzy

when it does happen is short and sharp? cos

there's no sustainable volume of wealth chasing it?

 

HH

A fair point.  The evidence suggests JP Morgan clearly likes silver and they've manipulated the price in order to keep it low to accumulate physical.  So whenever the next crash happens, it'll depend on whether big financial institutions will have the ability or desire to keep the prices suffocated. Undoubtedly there will be more public demand(perhaps a somewhat meaningless amount, there's no way to know at this point) and that will make any attempt to control price difficult. 

[sixgun]

Just now, goldking said:

Guys, I am not asking you what it is.  I know what it is.  I am asking you to explain to me why, WHEN THE GOLD PRICE WAS FIXED did the ratio to silver continue to move from one extreme to the other? 

The gold price was fixed. Gold was the ultimate currency and the value of the world reserve currency was fixed against that at the Bretton Woods accord. 
The United States of America dollar had been fixed against silver when it started out and it was defined by a weight of silver but in the Bretton Woods accord it was a fixed amount of gold. Currencies like Sterling, French Franc and so on were fixed against the US dollar. Silver was not fixed - it was floating and the price rose and fell and so the ratio of gold to silver rose and fell. That is why there was fluctuation of the GSR with a fixed gold price.

6 minutes ago, goldking said:

You've using the current gold price as the reason for why silver is "undervalued"

Well i am partially using historical ratios are a guide to silver being undervalued. It is not my complete story but in part the historically very high GSR indicates to me something is out of kilter.

10 minutes ago, goldking said:

If the GSR is to be used as a metric for claiming that silver is undervalued compared to gold (or vv.), then the ratio needs to show historical evidence of this otherwise you're just making stuff up as your claims have no basis.

The GSR can be plotted back over time - we see a very high ratio of the USD price of gold compared to silver. It is on the charts - nothing is being made up.

 

21 minutes ago, goldking said:

If the GSR had been a flat line prior to 1971 when the gold price was fixed, or at least only shown minimal fluctuations either way, then you'd have historical evidence to use for your argument today about silver being undervalued (or equally, gold being overvalued) because the ratio has changed from its historical norms.  But that is not the case.  The ratio between the two metals had absolutely no consistency whatsoever, even when one of them was a fixed price, moving between a 97:1 ratio in one direction and 15:1 ratio in the other.  The proof is right

You make my case here - the ratio fluctuates - sometimes it is high and sometimes it is much lower. When it was high silver was undervalued and when it was low it was overvalued. This is how price moves - from overvalued to undervalued and then somewhere in between.

24 minutes ago, goldking said:

Do you see a flat line anywhere  prior to 1971?  If you don't see a flat line then tells you 100% that the GSR is a completely meaningless metric for claiming what the price of what one metal should be based on the price of the other.

A US dollar is a US dollar. It is fixed at one US dollar. The price of goods against the dollar varies. Sometimes your dollar buys less, sometimes more. Sometimes something is expensive and sometimes cheap. Fixed or floating there is nothing invalid in comparing how many ounces of silver you get for your ounce of gold. We do that with how much silver we get for £1 - it varies over time. If you got 15 oz of silver for £100 in the past and now got 100oz for £100 you would say - bloody hell silver has got cheap. Indeed comparing with gold is better b/c gold is outside central bank/bank generated inflation.

36 minutes ago, goldking said:

The line illustrates with absolutely no question that the price of gold has no bearing on the price of silver whatsoever (nor vice-versa) as the silver price moved up and down based on industrial demand, completely independent of gold whose price did not change.

BUT traders trade the GSR - i have heard this directly from metals traders - members here swap in and out depending on the ratio. I known paper traders who do ratio trades with futures and options going long one and short the other. So i know first hand one is played against the other. i have done this myself from time-to-time.

We have differing opinions. i just look for evidence - i don't agree with your interpretations. As i said we will bicker over this but whichever you prefer to stack carry on stacking. 

[sixgun]

35 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

90% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the people.

how much wealth do these poor people have to chase up the price of silver?

would this help to explain why the silver frenzy when it does happen is short and sharp? cos there's no sustainable volume of wealth chasing it?

HH

During the Hunt Brothers rally the silver price went very high - there was a syndicate of investors - not just the Hunt Brothers. Tim Morge who is a famous Andrews fork proponent was the syndicate's chartist. He tells the story. He made a fortune and got out soon enough. Big money was chasing price up.
In the 2010/11 bull run - big money will have been chasing price - and then bigger money smashed it down.

The silver market is so small it does not need big money - it is tiny as it goes - if all the silver stackers in the USA went all in, it would explode the market.

[Pete]

It is very easy to talk up the merits of stacking gold when it is trading near its peak, especially if you are showing a nice paper profit or potential healthy return.
What a great investment etc.
What would we all be saying around the time silver reached its peak of about £30 per ounce I wonder ?
Some of us old-timers started stacking silver and watching it rise ( double in value ) believing we were clever investors but all we did was follow the herd.
Would we not, at the time be bullshitting in self-certified glee and finding all sorts of justifications and theories for its sudden rise ?
I even recall one of the USA regular Youtube "expert gurus" almost guaranteeing that the price of silver would sky-rocket in weeks due to global shortage and the huge demands from China.
Silver tanked as we can see but why ?
Platinum was once considerably more expensive as a precious metal than gold but not today.
Personally my tea leaves predict gold as being overpriced and ready to collapse back to around £1,000 per ounce and silver to rise to a GSR of about 60.
Platinum should reach parity with gold as well.

These predictions of course are pure fantasy but regardless of what people forecast, no-one can guarantee diddly squat.
Just felt it necessary to put a dampener on the merits of buying gold right now.
Of course there is a 50% chance that gold will continue to rise but if those who bought gold in the past couple of weeks see a sudden 10% fall it could be an awfully long time before recovering.

[goldking]

@sixgun I disagree with everything you've written.  None of it has any relevance to the topic at hand and as usual you've gone off on tangents.  I prefer to stick to hard facts that can be backed up with evidence, not just confirmation bias opinion.  You can lead a horse a water but you cannot make it drink...

You and all the other silver pundits will still be here when gold gets to $2, 5 or even 10k screaming "but! but! GSR!!!!!11" whilst scratching your heads wondering why your britannias are still only worth £13 a piece.

Crack on.

[sixgun]

2 hours ago, HawkHybrid said:

the in ground available gsr is still 15:1. 

(it's no miracle that nothing has changed in world geology. small point but gold is actually harder (more expensive in energy) to mine than before)

the actual mined gsr is closer to 9:1

why?

silver is currently significantly mined as a by product. ie miners mine gold and they get a bonus of some silver. as they have already mined it with the

gold they choose to sell it for whatever they can get for it. how many major silver miners are there?

fresnillo owns a very large silver mine, they are 50% gold by turnover. same with hocschild, but 40% gold.

(hocschild has a recent closed mine ready to re-open should the silver demand push the price up for it to be profitable to do so. ie the silver is there to be mined, but the demand for it is not there yet)

the reality is there's not enough silver demand to get buyers for that extra 6 toz of silver for every 1 toz of gold mined. silver miners are only able to sell 9 toz profitably. so they only mine 9 toz of silver for every 1 toz of gold.

silver is vital for modern life but we only need 9 toz for every toz of gold that is in demand.

(when was the last time industry slowed down due to the lack of physical silver?)

HH

i have just been chatting with a mining engineer who works in Peru - it is copper mining but they get silver out as well. i have known this guy a while - he is one of the people to do with Kinesis.
The ratio of gold to silver is estimated at 17.5:1 Silver:Gold.

The mined supply ratio is 8 or 9:1.
The mined supply is less than demand - there is a stockpile of silver which is gradually being reduced over time. Without the stockpile there would be a shortage of silver and there is a shortage of silver b/c it is not economic to mine other than byproduct or the easy stuff. Even then pure silver miners struggle to make money and in a number of years have not. They have to include gold to make ends meet. 
So the price is nothing to do with demand or lack of demand - there is a big demand in thousands of items. The numbers increase all the time. It is to do with the stockpile. This means the like of the BIS and JPM can more easily manipulate price through paper contracts. The stockpile can be tapped - not sure who exactly holds this stockpile - but there has to be one b/c there has been a silver supply deficit for 15 years or something similar as far as i am aware. 

Traders trade the GSR - silver is an easy lever to use on gold to get the gold price down - i have heard this for profession metals trader/wholesalers. 
Once the stockpile runs out there will be a shortage and miners will have to step up production and that means the price will have to go up b/c that silver is harder to get and against that backdrop miners can demand more. The problem has been the money in silver hasn't been there so the exploration and development of mines hasn't occurred like it probably ought to have so there are problems over the horizon. 
Fiat currencies are failing - people will demand something that has intrinsic value - ownership over tangibles. This is why i am keen on the precious metal backed cryptos. i expect China will have one - a state crypto is about - i expect Russia will have one. Other countries will adopt partnerships with cryptos - like Indonesia and Kinesis. Demand for silver goes up when cryptos have silver backing and very quickly you get a shortage - Indonesia is not using the KAG - the silver Kinesis coin, they will be sticking with KAU's and gold vaulted in a joint Indonesian/Kinesis vault. But the principle is there.
i am 100% sure that gold is 100% bullish - i am not 100% sure with silver but i am pretty sure with what i know. 

[sixgun]

18 minutes ago, goldking said:

@sixgun I disagree with everything you've written.  None of it has any relevance to the topic at hand and as usual you've gone off on tangents.  I prefer to stick to hard facts that can be backed up with evidence, not just confirmation bias opinion.  You can lead a horse a water but you cannot make it drink...

You and all the other silver pundits will still be here when gold gets to $2, 5 or even 10k screaming "but! but! GSR!!!!!11" whilst scratching your heads wondering why your britannias are still only worth £13 a piece.

Crack on.

If you would supply me with 1 oz silver Britannias at £13 a piece plus postage that would be great. 

[Platinum]

I think you both waste energy on nothing. Gold and Silver can be connected and disconnected from eachother, it all depends on what perspective you hold.

Roll with the view that is right for you.

[silenceissilver]

2 hours ago, goldking said:

You're using the current gold price as the reason for why silver is "undervalued", but when the gold price was fixed, the silver price - and by extension, the ratio as well - continued to see comparatively big movements either way, exactly the same as we've seen in the past 40 years since the end of the gold standard when the price was fixed.  Think about that for a second.  If the GSR is to be used as a metric for claiming that silver is undervalued compared to gold (or vv.), then the ratio needs to show historical evidence of this otherwise you're just making stuff up as your claims have no basis.

The historic GSR shows a pendulum with silver currently at the low end. That's the indication that silver has potential to catch up and swing back to the high end. Why should the pendulum have stopped while only one of the metals was fixed?

[sovereignsteve]

1 hour ago, sixgun said:

The ratio of gold to silver is estimated at 17.5:1 Silver:Gold.

The mined supply ratio is 8 or 9:1.

what ratio is estimated at 17.5 : 1  ?

The mined ratio is 8-9:1 therefore it is not rare and there is a huge stockpile. The current low price suggests there isn't a great demand for it. You say the Chinese are stacking silver like there's no tomorrow because they are going to reset the price at a GSR a lot lower than it is now. If that were the case why aren't they buying every last ounce of silver they can get hold of in preparation for this great event? They can buy silver for less than $17 now which will be worth over a $100 after the great event (I use the USD as a comparator simply for convenience in the present time). If I were in their position, this is what I would do. They would probably have to pay closer to £20 if they went after every available ounce but that would still be a bargain. If silver is such a huge bargain today, surely they would be buying less gold and hoovering up every ounce of silver available?

 

[sovereignsteve]

15 minutes ago, silenceissilver said:

The historic GSR shows a pendulum with silver currently at the low end. That's the indication that silver has potential to catch up and swing back to the high end. Why should the pendulum have stopped while only one of the metals was fixed?

people still do not get it.

mean reversion is only valid between two commodities if the their relationship does not change. you are still clinging to the belief that silver is still used for the same purposes that it was 150 years ago.

[silenceissilver]

31 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

people still do not get it.

mean reversion is only valid between two commodities if the their relationship does not change. you are still clinging to the belief that silver is still used for the same purposes that it was 150 years ago.

It swung between the extremes also in the last decades. I'm not sure how much silver was used for industrial purposes 40 years ago but I assume you referred to the time around 1870 for a reason?

 

But even if not, it swung substantially even in the last ten years. - with us currently being at the high end of this swing.

[sixgun]

21 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

what ratio is estimated at 17.5 : 1  ?

The mined ratio is 8-9:1 therefore it is not rare and there is a huge stockpile. The current low price suggests there isn't a great demand for it. You say the Chinese are stacking silver like there's no tomorrow because they are going to reset the price at a GSR a lot lower than it is now. If that were the case why aren't they buying every last ounce of silver they can get hold of in preparation for this great event? They can buy silver for less than $17 now which will be worth over a $100 after the great event (I use the USD as a comparator simply for convenience in the present time). If I were in their position, this is what I would do. They would probably have to pay closer to £20 if they went after every available ounce but that would still be a bargain. If silver is such a huge bargain today, surely they would be buying less gold and hoovering up every ounce of silver available?

 

@HawkHybrid said the ratio of gold to silver in the Earth was 15 to1 - i checked up with a mining engineer who was mining copper (which included silver) and he said it was 17.5 to 1.

The ratio being mined out of the ground is 8/9 to 1. 

The price of silver means it is not worth chasing it like you would gold. So they go for easier silver - byproduct silver and easier to mine silver. If they chased as hard as they do for gold then they probably could get a mined ratio of 17.5 to 1 but it just isn't worth it.

Well gold is very rare and being 17.5x more abundant makes in precious enough - ironically the low price makes it rarer b/c it isn't economic to dig more out and refine. So yes it is rare compared with a lot of other metals.

Well there is a stockpile - i have heard David Morgan say it was a billion ounces - i have never been able to determine who exactly held this silver - depending on who is counting things. It is rare compared with the amount of gold. A billion ounces is 31 250 tonnes - i had to do the sum a couple of times b/c that is bugger all. Allegedly China has more gold than this. This is why it is said there is more gold than silver. There is. The price is so low it is not worth digging a lot of it out.

Quote

You say the Chinese are stacking silver like there's no tomorrow because they are going to reset the price at a GSR a lot lower than it is now.

Did i say that? i said certain countries are stockpiling it. The price of gold and silver will be reset - he who has the gold makes the rules - if the Chinese have amassed the most they can dictate the price. This is one of the reasons for building up a massive reserve. You corner the market. 

Who knows exactly what the Chinese are doing - JP Morgan deny they have any silver in their name - so whose is the silver? A candidate put forward is China. There are various stories about the activity of China in the COMEX. China keeps its cards close to its chest. 

[HawkHybrid]

32 minutes ago, sixgun said:

@HawkHybrid said the ratio of gold to silver in the Earth was 15 to1 - i checked up with a mining engineer who was mining copper (which included silver) and he said it was 17.5 to 1

 

for the record, I quoted you for that figure, having not

done the research recently. I know since historic times

estimates puts it at 12-17:1 so your figure looks about

right.

my point was that they could mine ~50% more silver.

(the availability is there, ie silver pumpers claiming that

it's impossible to mine much more silver at near the

current prices, are not supplying the data to back up their

claims.) the only reason why they don't mine 50% more

silver is that they can't find buyers for it around the

current prices.

1.1 billion toz of mined silver is currently sufficient for

the worlds needs in silver. there is 50% more accessible

silver should we want it. we are not running out of

accessible silver.

if they really wanted to, someone could stockpile half

a billion toz per year and it wouldn't affect mined

supply.

 

HH

[sixgun]

39 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

people still do not get it.

mean reversion is only valid between two commodities if the their relationship does not change. you are still clinging to the belief that silver is still used for the same purposes that it was 150 years ago.

This is a good point. What we are looking at is the comparative value placed on gold and silver by the LBMA/Comex - and whatever the pricing authorities were before them. We actually compare gold and silver with the GSR b/c gold and silver are a currency pair in Forex. In the past they would be compared b/c we had bimetallic circulating currency systems.
What is happening is gold and silver are valued in USD and it is their USD values that are then compared. We are getting close to the target when we say gold and silver are compared with the value of King Dollar - confidence in the dollar is paramount. 

If the uses and status of the metals remained constant then it is easy to compare. The argument being made by some is silver's status has declined. It was a monetary metal - it was in circulating coins until the 1960's and China was on a silver standard until 1935 i think. Now we are told it is not a monetary metal - it is an industrial metal and should be measured by a different yard stick. 

That is the nub of the argument - gold is money - silver is an electrical component. Silver has been demoted from the Premier League. Catch up stackers - the game has moved on. This is why it's value compared to gold is less and the GSR rises. In fact gold and silver are so different these days it is questionable why they are even being compared at all. It is a nonsense and why can't right minded people see that? They must be stupid or have stacked too much and have confirmation bias. 🤔

i do understand the argument - i just made it. The powers that be have made the argument about gold - it is archaic, it is a relic of the past, it is for rings and things but it is not money. We had the question from Ron Paul to Bernke - why do central banks have gold reserves? Tradition was the answer - i would say he didn't want to give the real answer. The narrative that gold is a relic has worn out - the man in the street might have believed this but the rest of the world didn't and much of the gold has gone East. i will say the same applies to silver but we haven't got there yet. Silver is absolutely vital to modern life and it is money. i don't think it will be too long before history will tell us the answer. 

[sovereignsteve]

you still haven't answered the question. if silver is so cheap and it's price is going to be reset at a much higer value, why isn't China and Russia buying every available ounce?

[sixgun]

11 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

you still haven't answered the question. if silver is so cheap and it's price is going to be reset at a much higer value, why isn't China and Russia buying every available ounce?

i did answer the question by effectively saying i don't know. No-one knows what China is doing - no-one knows what Russia is doing. 
Who is to say they aren't buying every available ounce one way or another - they have allegedly got 40 000 tonnes of gold despite some people would say the price remaining low. Some people say the JP Morgan stash is China's. i recall it being mentioned that China lent the US a big stash of silver and it wasn't returned. Some people recently claimed there is a Whale operating on the silver Comex and it is China. China is not going to tell what is going on. What China has her claws into - what is claimed - where it is and so on.

[sixgun]

21 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

my point was that they could mine ~50% more silver. (the availability is there, ie silver pumpers claiming that it's impossible to mine much more silver at near the current prices, are not supplying the data to back up their claims.) the only reason why they don't mine 50% more silver is that they can't find buyers for it around the current prices.

1.1 billion toz of mined silver is currently sufficient for the worlds needs in silver. there is 50% more accessible silver should we want it. we are not running out of accessible silver.

if they really wanted to, someone could stockpile half a billion toz per year and it wouldn't affect mined supply.

HH

No-one is making the argument silver is running out, well not in this thread - the point it is a lot of silver is uneconomic to mine at the present price. So with this stockpile wherever it is to tap into this means silver that could be mined isn't. If gold were $5000 an ounce uneconomic mines become profitable and would in due course be mined. If silver went to $5000 an ounce then potentially landfills around the country would be dug out to get the cast off electronics.

So they can't mine 50% more silver at present price - they would go bust.

[Seth]

3 hours ago, goldking said:

@sixgun I disagree with everything you've written.  None of it has any relevance to the topic at hand and as usual you've gone off on tangents.  I prefer to stick to hard facts that can be backed up with evidence, not just confirmation bias opinion.  You can lead a horse a water but you cannot make it drink...

You and all the other silver pundits will still be here when gold gets to $2, 5 or even 10k screaming "but! but! GSR!!!!!11" whilst scratching your heads wondering why your britannias are still only worth £13 a piece.

Crack on.

Glad I'm not the only one who has very similar views to you.

Here's my take on it, if I didn't get to keep the silver that I found last year, the only silver I would own, would be what's around my wrist, in my ears, and the rest of my piercings,  I woudn't have bought a single ounce, I would have stuck to gold.  In fact once the Queens Beasts series of coins is finished, I'll be cutting right back on my silver purchases, I'll either just buy silver Britannias every year just because I have every year and version sinve they were released in 1997, or something that I've been thinking about doing and the thought has been gaining more traction the more I read up on silver and the precious metals market and business in general is to trade in almost all my silver - everything except the proofs, for gold, even if I'm swapping 100 ounces of silver or slighly more for 1 ounce of gold, christ knows it would free up quite a bit of space for me.  The more I look into silver the more I see it becoming nothing more than an industrial metal in reality and remaining a precious metal on paper due to it's history and it's historical significance, just look at it's spot price, it's that low that we actually throw silver away and leave it in landfills.

 

11 hours ago, Roy said:

Collect silver, stack gold.

There is money to be made with silver but it's not by its weight. It takes a bit of skill and application (or flipping RM products).

Some coins are beautiful and collectible but stacking weight? Nah (IMHO, of course)

The more time I spend on this forum and the more threads that I read, the more that I suspect that most of the members here are not stacking silver for weight, as in trying to accumulate as many ounces/kilograms of silver as they can, but rather collectors, hunting for the next most saught after collectable coin, series of coins, just look at how often minage numbers is mentioned, how often the minter's honesty about they're stated mintage nimbers it brought into question - just look at one of the threads on the Brexit silver proof 50p, how often GCT is ignored, and to a certain extant VAT

[HawkHybrid]

1 hour ago, sixgun said:

No-one is making the argument silver is running out, well not in this thread - the point it is a lot of silver is uneconomic to mine at the present price. So with this stockpile wherever it is to tap into this means silver that could be mined isn't. If gold were $5000 an ounce uneconomic mines become profitable and would in due course be mined. If silver went to $5000 an ounce then potentially landfills around the country would be dug out to get the cast off electronics.

So they can't mine 50% more silver at present price - they would go bust.

 

they already have access to the half a billion toz

at current prices. the in ground ratio of 17.5:1

verifies that. they choose to only mine 1.1 billion

toz at current prices, why? would it be because

they can't find a buyer for such a vast amount?

finding a new buyer, any buyer for 50% of the world's

mined silver on top of what is already used right

now s not a small feat.

 

HH

[sixgun]

10 hours ago, HawkHybrid said:

 

they already have access to the half a billion toz at current prices. the in ground ratio of 17.5:1 verifies that. they choose to only mine 1.1 billion

toz at current prices, why? would it be because they can't find a buyer for such a vast amount?

finding a new buyer, any buyer for 50% of the world's mined silver on top of what is already used right now s not a small feat.

 

HH

i am not sure about your logic here.
You have said 1.1 billion ounces of silver are mined. According to the Silver Institute it was a billion ounces in 2018.
We are told the mined ratio of gold and silver at something like 9 to 1.
i was told the ratio of gold and silver in the ground is 17.5 to 1.

i think you are saying that for every 1 tonne of gold extracted, 17.5 tonnes of silver would also be extracted, they refine 9 tonnes but they are leaving 8.5 tonnes behind or not processing it or something.
That assumes gold and silver ores are found together in the ratio of 17.5 to 1 - i agree silver is often found with gold and sometimes they might by chance occur together in the 17.5 to 1 ratio but that isn't uniformly so. 
The 17.5 to 1 ratio is the average. 

To imagine silver is somehow left behind once it has been mined is implausible.
Ore is mined with heavy machinery - they can't pick out gold ore and leave behind silver - the ore goes to the ore crushing plant - it will be processed - if there is economically extractable silver with the gold it will be extracted.

There is less silver mined per year than is used and the rest comes from recycling and the mythical stockpile.

Every year there is a deficit. In 2018 the deficit was 80 million ounces.
https://www.silverinstitute.org/silver-supply-demand/

In the end this isn't about what exactly miners do, it is we have different ideas about what is happening in the precious metals markets. You don't accept there is any (significant) manipulation of price. If the price of silver is low it is b/c no-one wants the silver or is prepared to pay a higher price. 
You also have what i surmise are wholly different views on the prospects from silver are. As you don't think the market is heavily managed and there is plenty of silver, indeed a surfeit of silver, your vision of the future for silver is reasonable. 

i started watching a video on Arcadia Economics interviewing some guy called Jeff Clark. It all the usual stuff about the silver price will double and treble and fly to the Moon. i switched it all after a few seconds. The guy was talking ****. 

[Seth]

14 hours ago, Roy said:

They were paid in salt too.

Don't you just like how people harp on about the hitoric GSR going back 100+ years, but seem to forget that a little over half a century ago the salt trade dwarfed the value of the gold trade, granted most of the costs in the salt trade back then were due to the transportation of it, but it still none the less made the gold trade look like a drop in the ocean.  Wars have actually been faught over salt as recently as the American Revolutionary War, battles were faught over salt, in the War of 1812 soldiers were paid with salt brine.  Salt used to be a very verey valuble commodity until quite recently.

[Pipers]

4 hours ago, Seth said:

 

 

The more time I spend on this forum and the more threads that I read, the more that I suspect that most of the members here are not stacking silver for weight, as in trying to accumulate as many ounces/kilograms of silver as they can, but rather collectors, hunting for the next most saught after collectable coin, series of coins, just look at how often minage numbers is mentioned, how often the minter's honesty about they're stated mintage nimbers it brought into question - just look at one of the threads on the Brexit silver proof 50p, how often GCT is ignored, and to a certain extant VAT

Correct, there seems to a lot less stackers on here than a few years ago.

Though there seems to be a new type on the forum ' the proof stacker'. 

A proof stacker gets excited and buys every new coin released by the Royal Mint!!! No matter what the price of the coin, in fact the higher the price and lower the mintage the better, the design of the coin is secondary to the mintage!!!! 

The proof stacker likes the box and paper work which are  just as important as the coin.

Another way to spot a proof stacker is he likes to throw his money around, as soon as he gets his coin he wants to spend more of his money on that coin by getting it slabbed bringing the costs of owning the coin even higher!  

The Proof stacker usually started out as stackers but have been nudged over to the dark side by YouTube videos. They believe they are all going to make big profits, though they never talk about the vast majority of coins that lose money.  

The Proof stacker looks down at the stacker and looks up to the coin collector.  Unlike the stacker or coin collector who doesn't look up or down at anybody.