When most precious metals commentators (including myself) recommend gold and silver to investors, we label it as a means of "wealth preservation", or simply as "insurance". Few (serious) commentators talk about bullion as a means of "making money" (above and beyond the rate of inflation).
The reason for this is clear. When one is strongly encouraging people to "play defense" and focus on wealth preservation and "insuring" that wealth, then it is simply inappropriate to advertise precious metals as some sort of get-rich-quick scheme. Nonetheless, investors are naturally curious to know if bullion will ‘only' provide them with wealth preservation, or whether they can actually expect real gains in the price of bullion - in other words, does it offer a rate of return above the real rate of inflation....
In the case of silver, global stockpiles must be much more radically revised - to reflect the fact that most of the world's silver has (literally) been "consumed" by industrial applications.....
