Credit where due Retska, I cited those kitco charts as evidence against industrial demand a while ago on these forums and didn't get much in the way of a reply.
I guess it's quite obvious that industrial demand hasn't exploded enough to drive the price alone, but I do see logic in the theory that people are using silver as a currency hedge, industrial consumption can only help underpin that demand.
The worry is that if the USD tanks and the world economy with it, industrial demand for silver collapses with it.
Visiting the link (sorry can't use html well enough to embed pictures)
http://www.silverinstitute.org/supply_demand.php
Will give some slightly more up to date supply/demand metrics, it seems in 2010 there was genuine growth in industrial demand, but over 10% of supply went into investment portfolios.
Would be very interesting to see how those numbers are panning out for 2011 so far.
