Thanks for the update and extremely kind words. I always saw you as a much more polished and professional investor than myself. In fact I saw all at Table in that light and was thankful to have been around such fine folks. They always demonstrated civility and wisdom within their own cutting get your attention way. Truly it was an awesome group from whom I learned much. Maniati was missing from your update. I hope he is well and still kicking around the wilds of Maine.
As for prognostications
As well as PM's have done since 2002-03 (silver has been a 10 bagger) I expect the long awaited major profits to begin shortly (1-3 years?). This PM bull market has always been about when the general public participates, and as of yet they have not.
Those who argue gold has already gone mainstream demonstrating bubble like action are simply ill informed. Gold has gone up reflecting currency depreciation. This is not at all indicative of irrational exuberance, rather it defines reciprocal correlation.
To that point, those who claim a gold bubble should be focused on the lack of fiat velocity despite enormous quantities within global central bank vaults. The current measure of paper for gold, as corrupted as it is through COMEX leveraged short positions is not the equilibrium value of gold, far from it.
Jim Rickards, the same Jim Rickards who regularly sits in on Squawkbox http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000045044# , and who helped negotiate the 1981 release of Iranian hostages, as well as the LTCM bailout understands the difference. He calls it '8th grade math'. Rickards suggests that the day is coming when all paper money will be divided by all gold reserves. This is historically correct as gold and silver surface every so often throughout history to do an accounting of man's fiat folly. This math equates to roughly $7500-$10,000 per ounce gold.
But back to when the general public participates... Rickards believes the current European debt crisis will be kicked upstairs for resolution through IMF SDRs (special drawing rights). Representing the last bastion of cumulous fiat strength the IMF, considered the hierarchy of the global banking community, then subject themselves to an all or nothing gambit. They are the last chance for fiat survival.
To suggest to the world that more fiat debt is the answer from such a final author is an enormous credibility risk. Rickard's point being that at some point in this high stakes game fiat will become transparent, and the real rush to gold will begin. While I believe he's correct in hypothesis I'm not sure of the realization sequence. I think it's entirely possible that we'll need to go through at least one SDR bailout failure before the masses see the emperor's new clothes.
At that point expect $100+ jumps in POG on a daily basis. Expect gold to move first as it always does thanks to affluent investors. Then expect silver to follow as it always does thanks to common man investing. Silver will eventually far overshoot the move in gold in ratio terms due to the sheer numbers of common investors... again as it always does.
And especially this time around as today we have a fully interconnected world. In 1980 $50 silver came at the hands of a small portion of US and Western European investors. Today all of the US, all of Russia, all of China and all of India are at least tuned into the markets... while many of them have access! This will be a moment unlike any past fiat collapse due to the sheer numbers involved. It's still the opportunity of a lifetime to be sure.
In the end I will sell my PMs for real estate when roughly 400 ounces of silver equates to 1 median value home. I'm guessing that will translate to $400 -$500 per ounce silver. That will be close enough to the top for me.
Not to be ignored are gold and silver equity plays. They are now starting to move after years of stagnation. Expect them to cycle ahead of physical value soon. In 2003 I had picked silver stocks (against pmcw's tech choices). At that time those PM equities had begun outperforming physical. About 2005 they leveled off and physical began to outperform equities... so I swapped equities for physical. The cycle is about to reverse once again. If we get global participation while PM equities are cycling forward expect the HUI to be the Homestake Mining of the 1930s.
This really isn't complicated stuff. It flows from the past like the open book that it is. As I've always said... "The only thing man has learned from history, is that man does not learn from history". It's our nature to assume we are smarter and more capable of avoiding the cyclical truths that our ancestors suffered. "This time it's different" is still today's underlying attitude. I believe this is common throughout history stemming from mans high opinion of himself. As we try over and over again to put on the mantel of God we inevitably learn the lesson that some truths just can't be cheated. Physical, moral and financial truth be damned, we will pursue our own convenient truth (in this case overleveraged debt, naked CDS, etc etc) until the actual truth is forced to the fore. Here we go again and this time 'we' = 7.1 billion interconnected people, utilizing $60 trillion in fiat/debt.
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