I forgot to mention I'd left some comments/speculation to
this excellent article that looks at the Sprott three months to get my silver story, which includes some graphics of what 600t of silver looks like.
I also liked this
blog post by Catherine Austin Fitts, keeping things in perspective:
"Gold is a metal.
If everyone takes all their money out of operating enterprises and puts it in gold and pays people to watch their gold or dig up the earth to get more gold, the economy will stop.
The top guys bubbled real estate and used the money to buy up gold and silver cheap while imploding the emerging markets and forcing their way into big real estate and equity positions there. Now they will allow gold and silver to rise and shift their money back into real estate and land. The emerging markets will continue to rise. And of course there will be interim pumps and dumps along with the way. And technology, including of weaponry, is the wildcard. Our current economy is operating on 50-100 year old technology.
Of course, without law, that which can be stolen and protected rises in value. Operating enterprises require the rule of law or expensive private armies to retain value when times are lawless.
Hence, there is no one answer, no magic bullet. If there is a core, it is certainly not a metal. It is, rather, intelligence both human and divine.
“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.”
Great economies are raised one healthy child at a time. Sound currency certainly helps."Kid Dynamite's post on the Gallup finding that
"Thirty-four percent of Americans say gold is the best long-term investment" is also worth a read along with
Adrian Ash's take on it, where he notes
"that the gold bubble comes far more in media coverage than in actual investment decisions to date".