ZenOps

Why would anyone return a penny for a larger coin? The US quarter is worth less than a US nickel in metal content, and roughly equivalent in value to two copper pennies. Canada has been melting down nickel coinage since 2003 through the "Alloy recovery program" to the tune of about 1,000 tons per year. I can imagine most of the dollar proceeds go to the crown (British Royal Family) but the metal itself probably goes to China. Melt US coinage in Canada? Perfectly legal. British Crown melting Canadas nickel and copper coinage, they have been doing it for at least nine years now. What is illegal is bringing more than $100 worth of US pennies or nickels across the US<>Canadian border. The US instituted penny and nickel capital flight controls December of 2006 (yes, usually a country will institute capital controls only in time of war)

The 8-gram US copper dollar is rejected even though it is legal tender as well. Many Canadians have never seen a 15.62 gram nickel dollar even though they were made from 1968 to 1986 (They were hoarded and rarely circulated) In fact, it seems that most people in the US will take a $5 bill over a one ounce Silver Eagle, as Mark Dice seems to have proven. Not that I'm surprised at all.

The US does have a $1 copper coin, they made Billions of them. They are called Susan B Anthony, Sacagawea, and Presidential dollars and at 8 grams, are slightly smaller than an old 1967 British penny (9.4 grams) Britain also does have a 5 Pound coin (converts to about $7.50) it has been made of 28.28 grams of cupronickel since 1990.

Yup, better product means little when talking about energy, especially solar. Million dollar uber high quality satellite solar panels *might* produce twice the energy by using gold indium arsenide dusted with platinum (ok, maybe not that exotic, but close) than an elcheapo silicon, but if it costs 1/1000th the price to simply just make two silicon panels that produce the same electricity... China wins in that scenario every time, because the US is not effective at mass production anymore. The US may have put one man on the moon with a million pounds of fuel, but if the people want 10,000 men to make it to the grocery store for a million pounds of fuel - you have to adjust accordingly.

Not necessary. All you have to do is take 1 car away from every 100 americans. Not quite 1% of the US uses bioethanol to fuel their car. It takes 232 kilograms of corn to create 50 litres of ethanol. Take that car away permanently and noone has to starve. For the price of one tank of ethanol, you can feed someone for a year (on the corn itself or the pork you can raise off the corn waste)

Well, here we go again. Silver up to $42.5 CDN an ounce again this weekend. We have still yet to break through the old peak back 31 years ago. Looks like they are bringing out the margin hammer for gold this week.

It might not be that simple anymore. If you can't find a job in your field, its not like you can simply work for the military or the post office anymore. USPS is chopping 120,000 jobs to start this year. Admittedly things are a little bit better in Canada, but contagion from the US is bound to affect us.

Hey - what happened to my "Higher education" asset or liability? http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/11/education.apprenticeship/index.html CNN is now tackling this issue. It is definitely becoming a liability as the US took away the ability to get rid of student debt by declaring bankruptcy in 2005. Student debt is for life - bankruptcy will not wipe away the debt. Student loan debt surpassed credit card debt last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/education/12college.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper IMO, it has the potential to be a much greater burden than mortgage debt. The college debt bubble is enormous.

Rent? What is that? Maybe one might still have to pay rent in Canada, but not in the US. http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-05-12-foreclosures-taking-longer_n.htm It takes over 900 days for the banks to foreclose in New York nowadays. Which means that many people who were forced or decided to foreclose and stop all payments are still technically living at their residences until they are forced out. No mortgage payment, no rent, no tax - for nearly three years. No need to pay rent. Just squat an abandoned foreclosure, or pay the whole $16 and yearly tax for three years and go for full ownership.

Report what? I would say slight liability in some areas and massive liability in others. http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html When a house is foreclosed, and the bank also refuses (or cannot) pay taxes - it usually a sign that a house is barely worth much more than the taxable liability each year. Yes, historically there have been many times that houses and large properties have sold for $1. Dates all the way back to potato famines and the like - where landowners would simply give away land to remove themselves from the tax burden.

Nickel is definitely in a strange phase. Here in Canada we have one of two mines in the world that produce the vast majority of the worlds nickel. 30% from Sudbury Ontario and 40% from Norilsk Russia. The rest of the world produces a surprisingly tiny amount. Our government has decided to reduce the nickel content of loonies and toonies from 99% to 2% nickel this year (2011) It may be a last ditch attempt to keep the prices low, and keep inventories available so that we can prop up the US. Just like there is little reason to keep oil in the ground when you are the main producer of it - if you really want to be nice you sell it to the US so that they can put it into the ground (US Strategic petroleum reserve) Has nickel been kept artificially low based on US dollar spot? Probably, just like Silver was (and perhaps still is). The breakout to $23/pound when there was a shortage in 2006 should be a warning sign.What tells me that there never was that much nickel to start with - is that when Canada moved from silver dollars to nickel dollars in 1968 - they did not even *try* to maintain the size or weight of the silver dollar. Metal analysis of Canadian metal dollar: 19531967 23.33 gram 36.00 mm 80% silver, 20% copper 19681986 15.62 gram 32.13 mm 99.9% nickel 1987-2010 7.00 gram 26.5 mm 91.5% nickel 8.5% bronze plate 2011? - Less than 7 grams, 26.5 mm probably 94% Iron.

True, Canada also had 25% cupronickel nickels from 1982-1999 (before we decided in 2000 to move to plated iron for all change with the exception of loonies and toonies) I see nickel to copper content, as gold to silver content. I mean, you have your 24K gold, but most circulation gold is actually 22K. Jewellery goes down to 18, 14 and 10K. The only drawback to using pure nickel is that it can be confused with iron becuase of its magnetic properties (and sound test, a 25% cupronickel makes a nice ring - a pure nickel just "thuds" which is also easily confused with iron) Too much copper though, and its a bad thing: 70% Cu, 24.5% Zn, and 5.5% Ni has been a disaster for the British pound, which is getting to near 1 in every 16 being fake. The current consensus is pure nickel inner or outer ring and a non-magnetic cupronickel or otherwise metal, Which makes it very easy to determine metal quality and content. But even that looks to be too expensive - as Canada is now moving to plated iron for the toonie (inner and outer ring) Add: Too expensive to use nickel and cupronickel for a $2 Cdn 2011 piece... Yeesh... And no - silver circulation currency is completely out of the question if nickel is too expensive (unless of course we drastically reduce the US dollar to say $8,000 per ounce gold, and realign all metals based on that value)

Nickel in US 25% nickels is small but tangible. There is also 8% nickel in dimes, quarters, and half dollars. There are also Euro coins, and up until recently, pure nickel Canadian coins... All nations of the world actually prefer nickel for coinage, its a *hugely* important currency metal (I'd even say more important to the public than gold) Nickel for industrial consumption might be 10x more than silver, and it *is* in shortage - has been for a decade if you go by Canada nickel plating most coinage in 1999 to reduce the nickel from 99.9% to about 2%. The center of the Euro E$2 coin, is 4.1 grams of pure nickel (which may not be around for long, as again, it is expensive to use 4.1 grams of nickel for a $2cdn or a E$2 euro coin) The only reason the US gets away with 25% content of nickel in their 5 cent nickel - is because they print money, give it to JPmorgan - and then they steal the copper and nickel they need (blunt assessment) Technically, the US should probably be using the metal composition and weight of the 5 cent piece for a $2 US coin, or maybe even a $20 coin. It is the perfect circulating currency, even moreso than the currency of "ammunition" because nickel is and important ingredient in armor plating (And when things get bad, you want a helmet made of nickel more than an extra copper bullet most of the time) Nickel is expensive to mine, probably one of the main reasons the LME defaulted on Nickel contracts in 2006 was because the price of oil was starting to get out of hand. At $20/barrel, there is enough supply of nickel each year. At $100+ barrel of oil, nickel production is greatly strained as the price must be much higher to cover the expense. Gold is surprisingly cheap, and not really tied to the price of oil to produce (millions of hand panning south africans do mine a surprising amount of gold.) If oil continues to stay above $100/bbl, the LME has a more likely chance of defaulting Nickel for a second time, than silver does defaulting for the first time on the CME, in my opinion. On a side note: Two nickel miners in Sudbury Ontario died this morning in a accident. RIP.

Its a decent time to sell silver IMO. Yes, the possiblity of a stock market crash is high, and both silver and gold will crash along with it. Silver may break $50 and $100 an ounce, but the majority of runup from $4 eight years ago might be over. Often quoted is the Dow to gold ratio of 2:1, but what people tend to not mention is that the DOW could drop to 2,000 and gold to $1,000 an ounce. Silver typically fares worse than gold in a market crash. Pre-1982 Nickels! Protects against both inflation and deflation, and greatly increases in value if "it all falls apart" (wartime).

Nickel is not *that* common. It estimated to be about 50x more prevalent than silver. But its also been used at a rate of about 5% with iron to make stainless steel. Iron being about 2200x more common than nickel. Other than coinage, nickel is actually quite scarce right now. In fact the LME defaulted on nickel contracts back in 2006 (which everyone is expecting for silver on the CME, but has not happened - yet.) You can blame waste - because while silver is thrown away in small amounts, nickel was thrown away in unrecycled steel at a much higher rate. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,841662,00.html Nickel now surpassing its non-inflation adjusted 1969 value of $7.70/pound (at a time when workers were getting paid $3.10/hour just to put it into perspective) One should never forget what happened to war nickels in the US. The US actually had such demand for nickel, that they replaced the nickels with silver content because nickel was "more important" than silver at the time. In many ways, even nickel is too rare to use as a circulating currency because its value fluctuates wildly, arguably fluctating even more than silver if demand is high. Yes - I hoard nickels.

Yup, there is too little gold out there. About 1/4 ounce for every person on the planet. About 1/4 to 3 ounces of silver per person (and thats all of it mined since the beginning of time) depending on how much you belive industrial silver has been consumed over the centuries. Assuming the central banks use half of the gold for themselves, you are looking at less than an eigth of an ounce of gold per person. It actually works out better to have the banks use gold and the public to use silver. Nickel is a definite possibility. There should be 25 pounds (half a shoebox full) of nickel for every person out there. Now if you actually want to use that for industrial use in stainless steel (like say a car frame, or AA batteries) or currency - it would still hold value. Every year not including industrial use, there would be enough to divvy up 8 ounces of nickel. Nickel is a perfect circulating currency metal IMO. All of our dollars should (and in the case of loonies and toonies to 2010, they were nickel) be on a nickel standard. http://www.mint.ca/store/news/modification-de-la-composition-des-pieces-de-un-et-de-deux-dollars-prevue-dans-le-budget-federal-8200004?cat=News+releases&nId=700002&parentnId=600004&nodeGroup=About+the+Mint Unfortunately - it also appears that there are so many fiat dollars out there - that a nickel standard is nearly unfeasable as a $2 coin as well - But you could reform it into a $20 coin. It is plain scary that there is so much fiat out there that we have decided its uneconomical to use nickel and copper for a $2 coin...

20 ounces of gold would be able to buy a car fairly easily. A stack of $100s in a small briefcase would probably weigh the same. Banks use gold as currency between banks, but they do not encourage it for the general populace (double standard) $20 is the standard circulated note for purchases over $100. Deadly riots broke out in Venezeula the last time they tried to increase gasoline over 12 cents per gallon. Maybe I should have said rich people are "afraid" when they are getting their gas for cheap and everyone else is in abject poverty, including the gas attendant, who could just twack the carowner over the head, take the car and have more wealth than he could ever achieve in a lifetime of work (think Somali Pirate) If Canada could arbitrarily print up $600 Billion every year, we could buy as many fighter jets as we want to. But that would also mean a loaf of bread would be $10. The US current policy of money printing is pushing the entire world into inflationary poverty. http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/ Now, you would think that with all this money printing - that the US would be coming out ahead. That would be wrong - as the average person does not have "wheelbarrows" full of money that are worthless (Zimbabwe) What the US is doing - is creating electronic dollars that *never* go into public circulation - instead they go to bailing out banks that in turn do things like buy up 200,000 tons of copper that they did not work for.

I don't see why people say gold and silver are inconvenient and heavy forms of commerce. When you go to the grocery store to buy a chicken, you take a few ounces of coins (at most) out of your pocket and you carry a two pound chicken home. An ounce of gold is much smaller and lighter than carrying 70+ $20 bills around. It just seems more honest to me than an electronic number that someone arbitrarily assigned a value to. Sure electronic money is useful for some transactions online, but for anything tangible the real thing (gold and silver) is still king. I mean, when a rich man in Venezuela pays 12 cents per gallon for gasoline with an electronic debit card - does he feel a bit guilty? I think he does. I think banks prefer electronic because they control the money supply. If they hook you to electronic, they can hook you to fees, interest rates, etc.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110510/bs_nm/us_postalservice_earnings Its been pushed up a month from October based on the $8.5 billion loss last year. The US post is of course the largest employer in the US. If they were to be bailed out, they would estimate to lose $238 billion in the next ten years. http://abcnews.go.com/US/us-postal-service-verge-broke-billions-dollars-red/story?id=12133108 Has its time come? Obsolete? Should the workers be retrained or left to their own devices to find alternate work?

Gas price is related to oil, but not *that* closely related. Gasoline is well over $9 a gallon in the UK. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8346035/Motorists-facing-6-a-gallon-at-the-pump-due-to-Libya-crisis.html Then you have the heavily socialist (ok, communist) countries like Venezuela that pay 12 cents per gallon. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/low-gas-prices-plague-venezuela-2011-03-16 Which market system works better? The US is currently between the two, but have no doubt - if you want the government to step in to lower gas prices (and get into higher levels of debt), its a much more communist system. Pay to play, raise gas prices around the board I say. "Iran posted troops at gasoline stations when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slashed the gasoline subsidy, quadrupling prices." Deadly rioting broke out the last time that Venezuela tried to increase the price of gas from 12 cents per gallon. Its a screwed up market we have.

Physical is a decent place to be if you are still worried about the economic outlook of the US (actually probably more importantly Greece, which looks like they are going to defect from the Euro after taking the bailout money, hah!) Side note: You can almost look at the bagging of Bin Laden as a massive drag on the economy. I mean really, they built thousands of multi-billion dollar planes preparing for some sort of gigantic conflagration. But all it took was a few helicopters, a small team of SEALs, and a good old fashioned gun. I assume Obama means to shift from military production to "solar panel" manufacturing now that Bin Laden is gone? I can't help but think that with Bin Laden gone, you've just lifted the veil so that everyone can go back to thumb twiddling the Xbox.

Rumor has it - that the CFTC will be raising margins on oil next week. Forced sell, just like Silver. But it might (I say it probably will) backfire as oil producers will just refuse to sell at spot to the US if it drops too low. Noone says that you "have" to sell or buy at spot price, its just a guide. One that is often poorly manipulated both up and down. Compared to silver: Hell, Some pieces of silver are selling for $140/ounce on Ebay... And the spot price of silver has "supposedly" taken a nosedive to $35. The dollar is unravelling and detaching itself from its implied value, watch out. I'd be buying food right about now.

The hammer is falling yet again. Fourth margin increase http://www.kitco.com/reports/KitcoNews20110504AS_silvermargins.html Forcing all the ones who borrowed money to buy silver to sell! Bring Silver down to $5 again, but it still sucks for the physical people because noone will sell at that price because they know its worth much more than that. The detachment of "spot" price, "real" silver and "paper" silver has begun. Its kind of sad, because this does represent what the old Silver certificate does, the US dollar is no longer valid as a currency for "reality" (IE: Not redeemable for what it was originally supposed to be valued at) I'm thinking about buying canned food before the US dollar becomes detached from "food" reality.

Osama being dead is probably a factor. Another factor is that the CME is raising the margins *again* http://www.kitco.com/reports/KitcoNews20110502AS_CME.html Three times in less than two weeks... There is something not right in the state of Denmark. The CME are doing everything in their power to collapse the paper Silver players right now. The government hammer is hitting silver hard, but only the margin silver paper players are getting smacked. There will be a dip, because those who cannot afford the new margin, must sell (just like at opening today) I don't know if they plan to raise the margins all the way to 100% and just have people not borrow any money to own silver? That would greatly benefit the Chinese IMO, as its mainly the US players that buy with leverage and funny money? Anyone else with conspiracy theories?

I would like to see silver hit the $150 mark (for obvious reasons) But also because it would put some kick back into capitalism. Put a little bit of greed back into peoples minds. It would make youth get off their Xbox playing asses and go out there and find a silver mine, a gold mine, and an oil deposit. Nothing creates an economic boom like a gold or oil rush, but the prices have to be high or everyone will just be content twiddling their 44 million food stamp receiving, Xbox sore thumbs.