Instead of quad posting, you could edit your original post, you know. Unless your intention is to bump your own, slightly obscure, thread.
What i want to know is why normal people should care about the hording of silver, it's not like the hording of resources is anything new, does whatever an ETF is make it any different than when De Beers hordes diamonds or China's hording of gold?
Exactly. China went from 500t of gold reserves in 2001, to an estimated 4500t in 2016. Of course this is still trumped by the States with around 8,100t, or the Eurozone with 10,700t (or around 3.5% of GDP) Like Corky says, this is nothing new.
ETF = Extra-Terrestrial Fumpnnugget Makes much more sense now doesn't it? On topic, is this really a serious thread. Seems a bit more like a public service announcement that should you happen to have a cave full of silver, you should probably sell quite soon for teh profitz.
But what has it got to do with silver. Wait a minute I do wear a silver foil hat on the occasion of a full moon as you cannot be too careful.
Exchange Traded Funds? Nothing too obscure, just an investment funds that raises money to buy investments and the shares in it are traded on the stockmarket.
Not sure why this thread exists, but it's made me try to imagine thousands of tonnes of gold and my brain can't do it. Curious as to what kind of volume that actually is, I googled and found this article which reveals that 171,000 tonnes of gold (one estimate for all the gold on Earth) would be a cube 20m long on each side. Which is frickin' tiny and makes me realise just how dense gold is. Some astronomy program/video I saw once claimed that all the gold in the known universe (or in the Milky Way galaxy?) would fit into a cube around 1km along its edges. I'm not sure how accurate that is, or how precisely they know - something to do with how big a star has to be to produce gold, how long it takes and how many there can have been so far. I'm almost certainly remembering it wrong. /tangent
Silver is less of an investment in the uk though. Here silver is subject to VAT, whereas 'investment' gold isn't. That means to purchase physical silver you're paying 20% over the spot price as well as any premium from the seller. ETFs offer one way to bypass that, but where is the fun in having a piece of (probably electronic) paper when you can have the real thing?
that video was pretty interesting. if any one wants to try lifting one of those gold bars, you can go to the bank of England measuem, and towards the end of the visit they have a large round room with a glass cage and a hole in it, you can put your hand in and a little of your wrist, and then lift the bar up and down. Gold is a reasonable weight, its pretty heavy I was surprised. I read once that India has 14% of the worlds gold in the form of the lady's gold, so family gold for reserve. I like the appericance of gold as much as silver, silver is nice to look at as well I guess the order of 1st gold and silver 2nd is fair.
$2,130,952,380 = B2 Bomber = 33.14 Tonnes of Gold @ $2000 / oz Couple years back when Gold was less valuable, a B2 Bomber was literally worth more than its weight in pure Gold. With the price of Gold going up, finally Gold is more valuable in weight than a B2 Bomber. The Northrop Grumman B2 Spirit Bomber program cost $44.75 Billion for a total of 21 units built, that averages to $2,130,952,380 per unit and the same value in Gold @ $2000/oz can be seen on the semi-trucks on the right. To the left you see a Semi truck with $2.13 Billion dollars. Doesn't matter how you choose economically between the semi truck of cash, the Gold trucks or the B2 Bomber, they're all worth the same. All the Gold in the World - Mined in History - 166,500 Tonnes - Stacked in 400oz Gold Bars All the Gold in the world, displayed in 400oz bullion bars. Keep in mind the Gold bars have a lot of wasted space between them, making the stacks of gold appear larger than they really are. Further Reading Clicky "Nice illustrations".
Not at the point of sale, but when it comes in through customs any relevant taxes and duties should be paid
