Friday, November 12, 2010

Apparent Silver Consumption Per Capita



As seen within the historical mineral statistics link:

Apparent consumption data represent the total quantity of silver that was consumed for industrial, art, and coinage purposes.

The price for 2008 was $528,700 per metric ton. That works out to $16.44 per troy ounce. Today's price is $26.04. That's a 58% increase in the last 2 years.

If you think the world (China in particular) can continue to afford silver at $26.04 per troy ounce then by all means keep buying silver. You might want to look at what silver consumption looked like during our Great Depression and its decline during the 1970s before deciding entirely though.

Just a thought.


Source Data:
USGS: Historical Mineral Statistics
Kitco: Silver Price
Census: Historical US Population
St. Louis Fed: Population

9 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

This post was inspired by Pentium_Six from the Yahoo message board.

*** Why Silver will hit $5000.00/oz within 5 yrs ? ***

When all the silver is depleted .. one ounce of silver coin can buy you a Car

8 people think his "strong buy" post was worth a "good" rating.

Stagflationary Mark said...

I should add that he posted yesterday. SLV was down 5.87% today. There's 4.997 years remaining on his prediction.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Mark -
Could you add the "mining" tag to this post? It's not technically mining, but it's the same topic as, uh, I can't quite put my finger on what makes it the same topic.

Historic supply and demand for metals? Something like that.

In any case, a very interesting post.
-jus me

watchtower said...

Maybe Pentium_Six needs a 'Cramer disclaimer'.

Or maybe a Robert Burns disclaimer:

"The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!"

mab said...

"The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!"


watchtower,

Nice, I enjoyed that!

Stagflationary Mark said...

watchtower (& mab),

Love the quote.

And now for something completely trashy. ;)

There once was a man, a fanatic
Who hoarded a coin, so fantastic
It bought him a car
At the local town bar
It was the ultimate win, so romantic!

Stagflationary Mark said...

jus me,

The missing "mining" tag has been added. Thanks for catching that!

I figure if I am referring to the USGS data, then it definitely deserves a mining tag.

EconomicDisconnect said...

If you consume too much silver you turn blue!

Stagflationary Mark said...

GYSC,

Argyria for the wince! ;)