As Canada celebrates its huge successes in the Winter Olympics, revelling in the transient passion of a gold in men's hockey, leave to Elvis "Why Does He Cry So Much" Thrust to bring you the shocking and scandalous TRUTH about our misplaced belief that we did "well" in "the" "Olympics":
"Silver has heavy demand by industry, while gold has limited demand, other than for jewelry. In terms of its necessity to a modern society, silver has the highest value and the greatest utility...For 60 years more silver has been consumed by industry than produced. That's the most bullish circumstance possible for a commodity. Silver is in much greater demand by industrial users worldwide than is gold. Yet gold sells for fifty times the price of silver.
For the past 60 years silver was dumped onto the market without much regard to price. The U.S. Government sold off inventory of five billion ounces. This silver has been used up by industry and is gone forever. A few years ago the U.S. Mint announced they would have to buy silver on the open market.
That's only part of the story. You may be shocked to learn that there's more gold around than silver. About five times more gold is documented in above-ground supplies than silver. Furthermore, there are less years of silver production remaining underground to be mined than gold. These powerful facts are not currently reflected in the price. However, some day they will be. That's why the opportunity for profit exists in silver like no other opportunity in history. Nothing in the world has the potential to multiply your net worth like silver...Today, world silver inventories are at the lowest point in 200 years."
In short, Dr. Theodore Butler (unclear as to if he is actually a doctor, but it just seems to make sense, what with his smarts and logical points), thinks that silver will be, long-term, more valuable. And with 90% of Olympic athletes prepared to sell their medals at pawn shops (statistic unverified, in fact largely made up), this means that we've got a much less valuable haul staying north of the border.
And yet another trustworthy internet page with nothing but a white background and simple Arial font--perhaps a Geocities page--lists the following statistics:
ounces of gold remaining in the world http://www.gold.org/discover/knowledge/faqs/index.html.
identifiable silver bullion left in the world http://www.silverinstitute.
org/publications/index.php (World Silver Survey 2004).
Firstly, we cannot ignore the urgency of these numbers, as they come from the World Gold Council and the Silver Institute, which are real organizations which likely house a number of supervillains with mutant powers. But while Sidney Crosby prepares himself for national canonization for his overtime gold-medal winning goal past American goaltender Ryan Miller, perhaps truly it would've been far more heroic for him to have to snuck it past his own goaltender.
Factually yours,
Elvis Thrust
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1 comment:
For some reason I decided to investigate these baffling and improbable claims.
The Silver Institute (which does, indeed, sound like a school for mutants) says that the world mine production of silver was 680 million ounces in 2008, which represents the most recent datum in a steady upward trend since 556 Moz in 1999.
If what you're telling us is true, and there are only 671 Moz left, total, anywhere, I can only assume that, like the last palm tree on Easter Island, these too will be quickly gone.
Gold production and reserve statistics evade my search. Interestingly, though, the annual world demand for silver has averaged about 900 Moz--25.5 million tonnes--per annum for the past decade. Gold demand is down at something like 35 HUNDRED tonnes. Every year, people want to buy 7200 times more silver (by mass) than gold.
What does this mean? 1) Since gold is only twice as dense as silver, there actually is a lot more physical silver demand than gold demand. 2) Correspondingly, there is probably a lot less gold production.
The relative prices stand at an average, quick-and-dirty ratio of about 10 to 1. It costs about $350 to get an ounce of gold to market (which you will be able to sell for $1100: well done) and, depending on what you read, somewhere from $2 to $10 to get an ounce of silver (which you will be able to sell for about $9: STUPID!).
The profitability of gold, if it can be located, is therefore somewhere north of 300% today; the profitability of silver is hard to determine because I don't know how much it costs to produce but it may be more or less than that.
Conclusions: 1) I have to shower and can't believe I wasted my morning doing this.
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