This absolutely hurts my soul.<p>Pre-covid, I religiously saved silver (and gold). Just bought some every single paycheck for like 6 years. I had coins, jewelry, bars, silverware, etc.<p>I wished my parents had left me a treasure, but they didn't, so I thought I'd do that for my kids, maybe even leave them a map... But I don't have kids, so after being locked in my house during covid, I kind of went a bit crazy.<p>I sold it all and moved states (after travelling quite a bit). My collection was quite massive, and I 100% knew that this day would come, but I didn't care, I just needed a new view. I live near the beach now, but... if I just held, I'd be in a much better place. I hate myself a bit for selling.
There's an asian AI guy on youtube providing a lot of information about what is going on with the silver right now. Sometimes it seems like he has some insider information, and the whole reasoning seems to come from an expert.<p>It's strange because it's just not one channel but multiple, and the person behind has kept uploading videos during the entire duration of these holidays. So far, he seems to be quite accurate with his predictions. It's been quite informative.<p>If someone is curious, one of many:
<a href="https://youtu.be/vBIUZGlNkks" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/vBIUZGlNkks</a>
Silver is limited in supply. The production is actually in deficit for years now, as silver gets used up and there is very little recycling.<p>Oil on the other hand is infinite.
How is it infinite? Oil forms from ancient organic matter under intense heat and pressure, a process taking millions of years, making it non-renewable on human timescales.
Sarcasm? 150-200M oz of silver are recycled annually[1]. Oil obviously is mostly burned and won't be recoverable, and clearly finite (even if we managed to squeeze out more with fracking etc.)<p>1: <a href="https://www.physicalgold.com/insights/how-much-silver-is-recycled-lost-or-expires-with-use/#:~:text=Each%20year%2C%20roughly%20150%E2%80%93200%20million%20ounces%20of%20silver%20are%20recycled%20worldwide" rel="nofollow">https://www.physicalgold.com/insights/how-much-silver-is-rec...</a>
Anyone with basic physical literacy knows nothing extractive is infinite.<p>What interest is served by posting this obviously wrong rhetoric?
You must have had a lot of fun when the "peak oil" crowd was dominating the conversation.
Annually, we consume more oil than we find additional reserves of. The difference is something like 12 times less than annual consumption, and the gap is widening.<p>If you’ve found a way to escape that arithmetic, I’m all ears.
The human verification script used on this site caused my phone's speakers to wig out.
This is the inevitable result of western countries taxing oil.<p>The higher the taxes the lower the price of crude has to be for people to afford it. This means reduced western demand at high prices.<p>However this doesn't reduce consumption, it just shifts the consumption to the developing world, where there are minimal if any taxes on consumption.
> However this doesn't reduce consumption, it just shifts the consumption to the developing world<p>This is true if production levels aren't responsive to prices, but I see no reason that would be the case. Petroleum production levels are known to be quite responsive to upward price movements.
Meanwhile in most states there is no sales tax at all on silver bullion.
If only this wasn't wholly predictable...
It's actually sad that a barrel of oil is still worth anything, but hey, what to do.
I too wish we were weaving exotic matter metamaterials out of the aether, but until then hydrocarbons are a miracle from the heavens for their uses. A modern cedar tree.
It is useful as chemical feedstock, burning it is a waste.
Truly, it’s a miracle for manufacturing. I wish people would understand what a profound waste burning it actually is.
They will when supplies eventually dwindle. We were saved from peak oil only by the invention/cheapening of fracking followed by the advent of horizontal drilling and unlocking of oil in shales. It's unlikely any such windfall will occur again, and even if it does that merely kicks the can down the road.
All petroleum was created from ancient forests before the evolution of microorganisms that could decompose fiber, so the plant material was simply buried and gradually became petroleum. Above ground, evolution produced organisms which could break down fiber. My point being, that not only is petroleum very useful, it is exceptionally rare on a geological timeline (at least on this planet ). It's like a cosmic trust fund, and like most trust fund recipents, we utterly squandered it. We took all this free energy, burned it to power ai slop, and poisoned ourselves in the process. We should have been using that oil to push humans out of the gravity well to Titan where petroleum is abundant. But no, we wanted big cars, cheap electricity and single use utensils.<p>Edit: I was mistaken, confusing coal and petroleum. While petroleum comes from microscopic ocean life, coal forms from the remains of terrestrial plants.
Hydrocarbons can be synthesized.<p>edit: let me elaborate.<p>My point is that the chemical complexity (manufacturing uses) can be reproduced, and the energy storage density also can be. So really the gift of hydrocarbons under the ground is more that readily available energy is under our feet to help propel us towards higher levels sources of energy. IMO it’s a stepping stone and that’s effectively how humanity is using it.
I think that the forest thing might be true for coal but I believe oil is from algae.
This (amazing) hypothesis has been challenged by new evidence; see for example <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4780611/" rel="nofollow">https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4780611/</a>.
I read this "useful as automotive feedstock" which still makes sense.
I wouldn't even know where to sell (or buy) a barrel of oil. It's one of the most traded assets yet if someone handed me a barrel, I'd have no idea what to do with it.
The price should actually trend up as supply is choked by pollution taxes.<p>Every voter who votes for lower gas prices is agreeing that it's better to live inside the cruel empire than to build a world without empire
time to sell the silverware
I know, right? Stainless steel is objectively better. Send the silver on to some valuable use, like making PV cells.
How about Microsoft Silverlight
Discussion (21 points, 23 hours ago, 23 comments) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46396755">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46396755</a>
no paywall: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/an-ounce-of-silver-is-now-worth-more-than-a-barrel-of-oil-196e149e?st=aHTnKM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/an-ounce-of-...</a>