Why Silver is a better investment than Gold?

Silver has all the same monetary properties of gold, and more!

The historic price ratio of silver to gold shows that about 10 ounce of silver would buy one ounce of gold, a 10:1 ratio. Recently, the ratio is about a 50:1 ratio (with silver at $13/oz., and gold at $650/oz.) As the silver to gold ratio returns to historic values, from 50:1 to 10:1, you may make over 5 times more money investing in silver, than gold!

Silver prices may rise to exceed the 10:1 ratio, for the following reasons:

More than all of the silver produced by the mines each year is consumed by industry, which leaves little to no room for substantial investment demand. The tiniest bit of investment demand will drive prices sky high.

Supply prices aren't going anywhere. Higher prices in silver may not cause increased supply (production). Why not? Because most silver is produced as a by-product of mining gold, copper, zinc, or lead. Thus, higher silver prices will not substantially increase the amount of silver mined each year. In 1980, when silver prices went up to $50/oz., less silver was mined than in 1979!

Demand prices aren't going anywhere either. Higher prices may not cause reduced demand (consumption). Why not? Because most silver consumed by industry is used in such tiny quantities in each application, such as in film or electrical contacts, that rising silver prices will not easily slow down the growing industrial demand.

Additionally, as paper money continues to fail, people will buy silver and gold without regard to price, or they will buy simply because prices are going up!

Each year, silver mines produce about 650 million ounces of silver, about 200 million ounces come from scrap recycling, and about 100 million ounces used to come from investor selling, or government selling. That's a total of about 950 million ounces. Of that, about 42% is consumed by industrial use, about 28% consumed by jewelry, 20% consumed by photography, 5% consumed in coins and medallions, and that's 95% of total available silver each year! This implies either a "surplus", or "investment demand", of about 5% of the total. Investment demand remains small, but is growing!

Due to silver use, or consumption, since the 1950's, silver may now be more rare than gold, in above ground, refined, deliverable, forms. It is estimated that there are about 200-300 million ounces of silver available to the market at the present time. There are about 125 million ounces of silver at the NYMEX, the big commodity exchange in New York.

Each silver contract at the NYMEX is a promise. There are too many contracts, too many promises to deliver silver that may not exist. Each contract is for 5000 ounces. There are often over 175,000 contracts for 5000 ounces, that's a total of 437 million ounces of silver, promised to be delivered. Yet the exchange has only about a third of that in real silver. How can they promise to deliver more silver than exists? If they fail to deliver silver, according to the promises and contracts that they have made, then confidence in the world's entire financial system may collapse. Industrial users of silver may have to shut down their factories. To prevent this, the users will bid silver prices much higher.

Due to the risk of default in the silver futures contracts, I suggest that you avoid buying futures contracts, avoid options, and avoid storing your silver with anyone else! Take delivery of your silver, and put your silver in your own safe!

Despite silver's intrinsic properties as money, silver began to lose its status as money starting in the late 1800's, as nations stopped using silver, and started using only gold as money. Over 100 years of this "demonetization" has caused a serious drop in silver's value, and this trend is about to be reversed as investors learn about silver's intrinsic properties (and market fundamentals) again.

In the end, as paper money fails completely, the neglect of silver's use as money will be over. Once again, silver will be valued based on other measures of value, such as a day's wage, or a ratio to gold. If silver exceeds its historic value, as I expect it will, due to the scarcity, from its importance in electronics and photography, then perhaps a silver dime, silver quarter, or silver dollar's worth of silver will be worth far more than a day's wage, as it once was.

How high will silver prices go? You do the math on what a day's wage should be, and you tell me!
Will people be hurt if silver and gold prices rise? Not you if you own some! But also, honest weights and measures used in commerce are supposed to produce prosperity for all of society, not poverty.

But you must act to benefit from this information.

Don't wait for silver to rise before buying it. Silver prices could rise by over $20/day to exceed $100/ounce at any time if large funds or billionaires buy with desperation.

Gold:A perfect Commodity for Futures Trading!!

• Gold is money, because of its fundamental nature.
• Gold is liquid and easily traded, with a narrow spread between the prices to buy and sell (about 1%).
• Gold is easily transportable, because it has a high value for its weight.
• Gold is money because it is divisible, you can divide it into coins, or re-melt it into bars, without destroying it.
• Also, gold is interchangeable. It can be substituted for another piece of gold with no hassle.
• Gold is also nearly impossible to counterfeit, as genuine gold is easily recognizable.
• When measured by weight, gold is easily countable, and verifiable.
• Gold is money because it is a great store of value. It is not subject to decay, rot, or rust.
• Gold has an intrinsic value, because it is rare, highly desired by the world over, and is a luxury item.

There is not a single other commodity with those attributes, except, perhaps, for silver. Since silver is less valuable than gold, and since gold is too valuable to be used for small transactions, there is potentially more monetary demand for silver. When gold becomes money again, silver will be desperately needed to make change. Platinum and palladium may come close to gold, but they are not so easily recognized by the masses, and are used mostly by industry.

Ethanol:No Sugar, No Oil

One tankful of the latest craze in alternative energy could feed one person for a year

The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry.

We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources.

This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel.

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year. If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand.

Worldwide increase in grain consumption

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that world grain consumption will increase by 20 million tons this year, roughly 1%. Of that, 14 million tons will be used to fuel cars in the U.S., leaving only six million tons to cover the world's growing food needs.

Already commodity prices are rising. Sugar prices have doubled over the past 18 months (driven in part by Brazil's use of sugar cane for fuel), and world corn and wheat prices are up one-fourth so far this year.

For the world's poorest people, many of whom spend half or more of their income on food, rising grain prices can quickly become life threatening.

Once stimulated solely by government subsidies, biofuel production is now being driven largely by the runaway price of oil. Many food commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and sugar cane, can be converted into fuel; thus the food and energy economies are beginning to merge.

The market is setting the price for farm commodities at their oil-equivalent value. As the price of oil climbs, so will the price of food.

In some U.S. Cornbelt states, ethanol distilleries are taking over the corn supply. In Iowa, 25 ethanol plants are operating, four are under construction, and another 26 are planned.

Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner observes that if all those plants are built, distilleries would use the entire Iowa corn harvest. In South Dakota, ethanol distilleries are already claiming over half that state's crop.

The key to lessening demand for grain is to commercialize ethanol production from cellulosic materials such as switchgrass or poplar trees, a prospect that is at least five years away.

Malaysia, the leading exporter of palm oil, is emerging as the biofuel leader in Asia. But after approving 32 biodiesel refineries within the past 15 months, it recently suspended further licensing while it assesses the adequacy of its palm oil supplies. Fast-rising global demand for palm oil for both food and biodiesel purposes, coupled with rising domestic needs, has the government concerned that there will not be enough to go around.

Less costly alternatives

There are truly guilt-free alternatives to using food-based fuels. The equivalent of the 3% of U.S. automotive fuel supplies coming from ethanol could be achieved several times over - and at a fraction of the cost - by raising auto fuel-efficiency standards by 20%. (Unfortunately Detroit has resisted this, preferring to produce flex-fuel vehicles that will burn either gasoline or ethanol.)

Or what if we shifted to gas-electric hybrid plug-in cars over the next decade, powering short-distance driving, such as the daily commute or grocery shopping, with electricity?

By investing not in hundreds of wind farms, as we now are, but rather in thousands of them to feed cheap electricity into the grid, the U.S. could have cars running primarily on wind energy, and at the gasoline equivalent of less than $1 a gallon.

Clearly, solutions exist. The world desperately needs a strategy to deal with the emerging food-fuel battle. As the world's leading grain producer and exporter, as well as its largest producer of ethanol, the U.S. is in the driver's seat.