The demand for physical silver is absolutely through the roof.
The mainstream media has finally caught up with a story we began reporting on back in July. Yesterday, Reuters reported booming worldwide demand for silver coins:
The global silver-coin market is in the grips of an unprecedented supply squeeze, forcing some mints to ration sales and step up overtime while sending U.S. buyers racing abroad to fulfill a sudden surge in demand. The U.S. Mint began setting weekly sales quotas for its flagship American Eagle silver coins in July because it can’t meet demand, and the Canadian mint followed suit after record monthly sales in July. In Australia, the Perth Mint sold a record of more than 2.5 million ounces of silver this month, nearly four times more than in August, and has begun rationing supply of a new line of coins this month, a mint official said.”
Investors have withdrawn a record amount of gold from the Shanghai Gold Exchange over the past year, signaling a steady increase in demand in the world’s largest gold consuming country.
Bloomberg reported the most recent numbers:
Withdrawals jumped 37% to 1,891.9 metric tons through Sept. 18 from 1,380.9 tons a year earlier, according to data on the bourse website. Trading increased 150% in the first eight months, said Liu Liang, a spokesman for the exchange, the world’s largest spot bullion market.”
Every week, various government agencies trot out economic facts and figures, and every week, the media breathlessly reports the “good news.” Here is some of the news beyond the news reported by the mainstream media over the last week.
As USA Today reported, consumer spending and personal income rose last month. But while Commerce Department numbers show healthy gains in consumer spending (0.4% in August), a Gallup poll asking actual people about their spending indicates a continual decline. According to the poll, daily spending averaged just $89 in August, down from the same time period in both 2014 and 2013. It was the fourth month in a row the poll indicated a year-on-year decline. Spending was at its lowest since March, based on the poll.
Following up on his recent arguments with Scott Nations on CNBC (watch them here and here), Peter Schiff compiled a new collection of his 2006 warnings of a housing crash. The parallels between then and now are striking. Just as financial news anchors laughed at Peter in 2006 when he predicted what would become the Great Recession, they are now chiding him for suggesting the Federal Reserve is pushing the United States into a new recession.
We argued about interest rates and whether or not the Fed was about to raise them. Scott’s position was that it was a virtual lock that the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates before the end of the year. They’d probably go in September, but certainly by December. My position was that the Fed was not going to raise interest rates at all in 2015, and in fact they may actually do quantitative easing 4 in 2016…”
Physical silver and gold isn’t just for preserving your savings. It’s also the world’s oldest form of money.
You can bypass the Federal Reserve’s worthless paper dollars by spending precious metals with friends, neighbors, and businesses which accept sound money. We’ve created a brand new Barter Metals page with all of the information you need to get started conducting business using physical gold and silver – and links to our most popular barterable products.
Barter may seem outdated, but as Peter Schiff points out, it has a long history in the US:
USAWatchdog interviewed Nomi Prins, who formerly worked as a managing director at both Goldman-Sachs and Lehman Brothers. She is the author of All the President’s Bankers and a vocal critic of central bank monetary policies. Prins agrees with Peter Schiff that more quantitative easing will come from the Federal Reserve, however, she doesn’t think they will call it that. She believes the easy money may come in the form of currency swaps between central banks.
More importantly, Prins believes that eventually the financial problems in America will become so great that normal US depositors will be forced to “bail-in” the banks one way or another, if they want to keep money in standard accounts. That’s why she recommends holding cash and buying physical gold.
India will soon have its own national gold coins.
Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation (MMTC) will manufacture and market the gold coins, set for release in October.
According to the Times of India, MMTC managing director Ved Prakash said the company plans to produce two gold coins, one weighing 5 grams and the other 10. The coins will feature engravings of Ashok Chakra and the face of Mahatma Gandhi.
While many countries have their national coins, India did not have one. These gold coins will be regarded as the national coin of India.”
Of course, gold’s value lies in its scarcity.
But just how scarce is it, really? We all have a vague idea, but you will probably still find the reality quite shocking.
A series of 12 stunning visualizations of gold published by Visual Capitalists puts the rarity of gold into vivid perspective.
Demonocracy.info put together this series of 3D visualizations showcasing all of the world’s gold mined thus far using gold bullion bars. (Note: these visualizations are a couple of years old and optimistically have the value of gold pegged at $2,000 per ounce, presumably for the ease of calculations.)
For months, Peter Schiff has argued that the Federal Reserve cannot and will not raise the interest rate.
Most recently, Peter told CNBC Asia the Fed is pulling a “long con” on the global markets when it comes to its monetary policy. The Fed wants people to believe that a rate hike is coming, but Peter argues that we will actually see a fourth round of quantitative easing.
Now we’re beginning to hear echoes of Peter’s position on interest rate hikes from other global analysts.
In August, Peter Schiff was a guest speaker at The Jackson Hole Summit, a gathering of free-market activists warning of the dangers of overreaching central banks and irresponsible monetary policies. The Summit coincided with the official central bank conference held every year in Wyoming.
Peter’s speech was titled “Monetary Roach Motel: There Is No Exit from the Fed’s Stimulus”, and he reprised his consistent message of how the Federal Reserve created the economic problems it is pretending to solve. Peter also spent some time exposing Janet Yellen’s terrible track record as an economic forecaster.
