The current idea that Silver is being manipulated has more credibility when supply/demand is factored in. Far from just jumping on the "Kill JPMorgan" bandwagon, it is more likely that interest groups such as the SUA are the real culprits, JP and others are just the instrument( and like all Bankers expect a return for this service).
The end industrial users have a strong incentive to see Silvers price held to low levels. While there are, in some cases, alternatives to Silver, they cannot be implemented easily or cheaply. For example, Palladium was the metal of choice for catalytic convertors until the price went ballistic(2000ish/oz), then Platinum, while less efficient but cheaper, was substituted. The predominant supply of Palladium is from Russia. The Russians manipulated the price by withholding vital supplies. This caused the major car makers(and others) to "run" on Palladium, which caused the price to explode. Subsequently the Russians flooded the market, reaping a huge profit (and incidentally saving themselves from defaulting on debts). Quite a few billion dollars worth of Palladium wound up in the inventories of the likes of GM and Ford, purchased at the highly inflated price( GM to the tune of $4B). Now see the price of Palladium. They got burned big time. But, it was not such a big leap to substitute Platinum. That lesson is probably still burning hot in the memories of some ( especially the Purchasing Officers of GM and Ford).
Silver on the other hand, has yet, no peer for many of it's uses. So we can see then that there is a strong incentive to keep prices low. The only thing that may challenge Silver in SOME applications is Graphene( as in Solar PV systems). But even that is still some time off. Conversely, in many aplications Silver has no equal. As a quasi-monetary metal, there are no substitutes. I cannot see peoples perception of Silver as money changing any time soon. After all, we could say that a lump of Limestone has intrinsic value(which it has)but could you make people beleive it....not likely.
