And I would like to point out that the gold I own is a very small portion of my assets. Much too small probably. I own lots and lots more silver than I do gold. In fact, if not for my wife, probably would own nearly all silver in relationship to gold. She kinda likes the gold. Go figure. So she keeps me on a more even keel, but I still push the silver vs gold purchases to the limit with her.

I like silver because in times that a person might actually need the gold, it will function as the "poor mans gold". Gold has usually been hoarded by the rich, silver has been circulated by the masses. So I see it as being 75% as valuable as insurance as gold from a monetary standpoint.

On the other side of the coin, in a deflationary atmosphere the industrial usage of silver could really tank, thereby killing the value of silver if the investment side demand does not offset it. But that is ok with me. Because even if the US and even more so the world does go into a deep slump, I don't think it will last forever. And silver is a very strategic metal, very hard to replace. The few replacements it has are even higher priced. So I think even if we hit super bad times, in the long, long run, the world will eventually want silver and will pay more than the cost of mining it to get it. And high grade/low cost mines are getting hard to come by for silver. Lots of silver in the earths crust like there is lots oil. But like there is getting less and less cheap oil, there is getting less and less cheap silver to mine. And silver gets used up and put in the dumpster, not reclaimed like gold.

So silver to me is my gold. If the monetary world goes to hell in a hand basket silver will step up and take its place beside gold as money. And silver is unlikely to be re-monetized (like gold could be as in your case of fear of confiscation) because of its industrial need. Yet if the world does straighten out and starts to prosper and grow, I think we are going to need and use lots of silver. So silver to me is gold with an industrial put attached. It could blow out the lights value wise in either application (monetary or industrial), or bumble along and not change much in value, but is unlikely to get worth much less than the cost of extraction for a very long time period.

Did I mention I like silver? Buy some every month for our retirement accounts (the months she does not make me buy gold). Unless I fall on hard times, I expect to never sell a single ounce of silver we own. I view it the same as our farm land in so much that we buy with no intention of selling. Hopefully some later generation can worry about that.

John