David Morgan

Recently it was announced on a Chinese news service that silver bullion is now being offered to the Chinese public. Please note this is a very small operation and at this point none of us knows if this will really catch on with the Chinese investing public.

Chinese Silver Currency - There are some subtleties going on in China that not too many people write about. China actually has a fairly long history with silver and I might suggest that readers check out the archive section at Silver-Investor.com and read what Charles Savoie has written on this subject. I know many of my colleagues are not as bullish on silver as I am, yet going back many years I recall reading an article in Barron's by John Doody.

By David Morgan

How does silver perform during a deflation? A question many of our readers have asked.

Today, most investors are fairly convinced that gold does fairly well during a deflationary environment. Since gold has held better than all asset classes these past several months, many mistakenly believe that gold does best during inflations, but they are not sure about gold during deflation. The fact is, from times past, gold actually does best during deflations, rather than inflation. The seminal work on this topic was produced by Professor Roy W. Jastram of the University of California at Berkeley when he penned the book called, The Golden Constant.

By David Morgan

Many of us who write about the precious metals field have put out their 2009 forecasts and predictions for the New Year. This writer is no exception, but it seemed to me that it might be nice to look at my mission statement and determine if I could compose a simple story that might engage the reader to think about the current dire state of affairs in the economy and how an honest “money” system might help on an individual basis.

My mission statement is, “To teach and empower people to understand the benefits of an Honest Monetary System.” Although the words gold and/or silver are not even mentioned in my mission statement, they are both very important components in an honest money system—they instill trust. And the lack of trust is the core issue of today’s economic problems. Our banking institutions and well established investment firms do not trust each other, and the system is grinding down. This has even affected the “Big Three” automakers, who are experiencing problems in this economy . . . but it wasn’t always that way.

By David Morgan

“Junk silver” and “junk bags” are terms that refer to $1000 in U.S. coinage—dimes, quarters, or half dollars minted 1964 or earlier; commonly known junk bags consist of 90% silver. Junk bags of silver dollars are sold separately and have always held a higher premium.

We are talking about coins that are only in fair condition and have no collectible value above the bullion value or the “melt value.” The word “junk” refers only to the value of the coins as bullion, and “junk” is not scrap silver.

By David Morgan

This headline should grab anyone’s attention, especially those interested in the silver market. Before going forward, let me explain that fully 70% of silver is produced as a result of mining other metals, mostly base metals. Copper mining, for example, is responsible for 28% of the silver mined in 2007. Lead/Zinc mining yielded 32% of the silver mined in 2007. Finally, gold mining brought about 10% of the silver mined, again in 2007. All data is from GFMS World Silver Survey 2008, page 31.

How Investing in Precious Metals Will Help Baby Boomers Retire Comfortably Without Fear

By David Morgan

Baby boomers, with every year that you get older, do you become more and more afraid of retiring? I don’t blame you at all. The worldwide economic slowdown epidemic that is forcing homeowners into foreclosure, halting consumer spending, driving up credit card bills and crashing stock exchanges on a global basis are seriously hurting many baby boomers’ plans for retirement.

Many boomers have become very fearful of their future because they were relying on their 401Ks and IRAs for a comfortable retirement. Now, they’re watching their profits freefalling downward. Many boomer investors are now seeing lots of red in their portfolios – so how can they retire?

Hyperinflation in Germany

Many of you are probably too young to appreciate the full impact of the hyperinflation in Germany after WW1. It was devastating. This picture shows you the amount of paper that was equal to one silver dollar, or ¾ of one troy ounce of fine silver. After seven years of constantly accelerating inflation, the mark is finally stabilized at the rate of over 4 trillion to a U.S. dollar. The black market rate, however, was an incredible 12 trillion to the dollar at this time. The pre-inflation exchange rate for the mark was by contrast a modest 4.2 to the U.S. dollar. Can anyone say Hyperinflation?

Before getting into this missive, I would like to state that other silver commentators make a very strong case for silver being a metal that does well in good, prosperous times. I absolutely agree. If the world at large were gaining in real wealth and the economy were humming along, we all might be purchasing flat screen TV’s and using even more silver than we do today. Bottom line, silver does not need bad times to do well.

However, I am experienced enough to know two people can look at exactly the same thing and see it differently. This is what makes the world go round—an exchange of ideas. In fact, I am on record as stating there is nothing more important in a true free market than the free exchange of ideas.

By David Morgan

What drives the price of silver? Certainly it is a function of buying and selling pressure, and primarily, this price setting mechanism takes place on the COMEX. However, so much has been written recently about short selling, price management, and naked sales, and on and on, that I wanted to take a more basic look at demand. Real demand and investment demand, regardless of how the price is set, fall into two main categories. We have investment demand (monetary demand), and we have industrial demand. In this year’s World Silver Survey 2008, sponsored by the Silver Institute, under the Investment Chapter it states, “Investor activity was the main driver of the high and volatile silver price in 2007.”

Ah ha! Just as always maintained by me (and others), the main driving force for silver prices will be investment demand! It seems even Gold Fields Minerals Services (GFMS), which compiles the study, agrees with us.

David Morgan
Ask almost anyone to define million in terms of thousands and you will get the answer that a million is a thousand thousands. Although the word millionaire still connotes a degree of financial freedom in today’s world, as the saying goes, “she ain’t what she used to be”—meaning a million today is not as valuable as a million 10, 20, or certainly 50 years ago. An area that I would like to explore is that of distinguishing the meaning of the word millionaire in terms of silver and in terms of “dollars.” If we do a quick search on the Internet, we find there are roughly 2.6 million millionaires in the United States alone. This of course is in terms of net worth as expressed in U.S. dollars. So there are literally millions of millionaires in the United States. In fact, according to this 2005 article from MarketWatch, 8.9% of Americans are millionaires. Again, that translates to roughly 2.6 million people.