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In this day and age most people hand over their investment decisions to a financial advisor or pick a few mutual funds to put in their IRA or 401K with a click of a mouse. Then there are some of us who have great distrust for the financial markets and for the people pulling the strings behind the scenes. An even smaller amount of us have zero investments in the stock market. Some of you have real estate, farms, collections, small businesses and quite possibly like myself precious metals. For me and my family we have put our future into, Poor man´s Gold, The Devils Metal, The White Metal or better known as Silver.

Silver is significantly cheaper than gold. Almost everyone in the world can afford it. The historical Silver to Gold ratio is 16-1 today as I write this the ratio is 56-1. If we took the traditional 16-1 ratio silver should be priced around $100. Silver is being used up while Gold is being hoarded. In the 1950´s there was over 10 billion ounces of silver available worldwide. Today we have around 1 billion ounces of silver available.

This should set the alarms off within any investors mind.

The silver market is miniscule compared to other markets. The total silver market is worth around $28 Billion. A few big investments by institutional investors can play havoc in the market. The solar industry is requiring more silver. According to the VM Group Silver Survey, the use of silver in the solar industry will increase by 17.5% annually. To as much as 70 million ounces per year by 2020 and another 60 million ounces to be used in solar power concentrator power plants. That is over 15% of the current total silver mined annually. Hospitals are realizing that the biocide and antimicrobial uses of silver are invaluable in the battle against antibiotic resistant bacteria like, MRSA (methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus), which have been plaguing hospitals worldwide. Silver nano-particles are making their way into medical clothing, instruments, furniture and equipment. The use of silver in electronics has more than doubled in the last ten years. The mines cannot keep up with demand. In 2011 the worldwide production of silver came to 761 million ounces. The total silver used was 876 million ounces. Scrap silver supplied 256 million ounces of silver to the market to make up the short fall. With the use of silver in film rapidly declining, less will be available from scrap. Numbers are from, The Silver Institute website. If there is a worldwide economic slowdown the miners will be bringing less silver to market. Silver as well as many other rare strategic metals is mined as a by-product of minor metals like copper and zinc. Due to this relationship the miners will not be bringing as much silver to market because they will be mining less minor metals. The silver price manipulation as exposed by GATA. I believe the days are numbered for this scheme. To find out more about this please visit GATA. The government stockpiles are all but gone. When governments start to take freedoms away from their citizens the people will naturally be attracted to hard assets like silver. Worldwide mistrust in fiat currencies. Countries can´t devalue their currencies fast enough. It is a race to the bottom. Recently countries like Brazil said that they will devalue their currency in order to keep their exports competitive. The days of the US Dollars reserve currency status are numbered. China has 16 currency swap agreements with other nations bypassing the US Dollar and counting. Iran and India have decided to trade oil for gold bypassing the Petrodollar. The BRIC´s have had multiple meetings concerning trade and currencies. The Euro crisis, nobody knows what will be the end result. Uncertainty leads people to safe havens like gold and silver. There will be a flight to physical metal when investors find out that there is little or no metal backing their ETF´s. Sprott Asset Management has an ETF backed by fully allocated silver, PSLV. The PAGE (Pan Asian Gold Exchange) will offer 320 million customers of the Agricultural Bank of China the ability to buy silver and gold. This could be a significant market in the years to come. The demand from India and the Middle East continues to grow. Recently there was a precious metals conference in Dubai and silver was the star of the show. Silver is less prone to fakes than gold because of its lower value. There are plenty of fake older coins on the market so buyer beware. Stick to known mints and government issued bullion. Above all silver will always have value and will never go to zero.

Where will you be putting your hard earned currency in 2012? Soon we have an election in the USA that will have major ramifications for your assets. Many Americans are rather nervous about the path the current administration has taken in regards to personal assets. Also with the future of the Eurozone in peril, how will this affect precious metals? Keep in mind offshore diversification to help protect your future. Silver is an option that can provide peace of mind to the average investor. Will you be buying any silver?

By: Randy Hilarski - The Rare Metals Guy

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