Silver - 5 times as present in the earth's crust as gold we're...

Silver - 5 times as present in the earth's crust as gold we're told. Above ground, in processed form, it's rarer than gold. And it's going to stay that way! It's being consumed or hoarded at a faster rate than industrial production. And that aint gonna change except at vastly higher prices.

Bought another 20 kgs silver bullion yesterday. Easy as ordering groceries this time. My electronic transfer banking limit had been raised to $20k, so a quick phone call to a Gold & Silver Merchant located through the Yellow Pages, followed by an online transfer of funds was all it took. Five minutes. Again, I could not get all the 1 kg bars I wanted. They would only sell me 6 X 1kg bars, and the balance was a 14.6kg Broken Hill bar (.9999 fineness) Prices were $532/kg and $522/kg respectively.

To say bullion's the equivalent of cash would be going too far. It's not as convenient: I can't go to woolworths and settle in bullion; but all it takes is to arrange a courier, or personally travel to a merchant, to exchange it back to fiat currency. Also there's the merchant's profit margin to consider. Of course in a critical financial meltdown of a hyper-inflationary nature, or a major banking crash, bullion will be better than cash. There's no capital gains tax on bullion (that I know of), and compare that to money held in the form of a term deposit. After you account for real inflationary dilution of value, then tax on interest, what's left of the nominal gain from a term deposit? It might even be a negative return.

Here's a little gem of an article that's worth a reprise from time to time:

78 Approaching Forces For Higher Silver Prices