Interesting - Physical Silver Contracts May Go Unfilled

[Naperville]

We're just not as passionate about it as you are.

A friend of mine calls it enlightened apathy.

Back to your subject however, an interesting thing is New Basel III proposed regulations, have further encouraged banks to hold physical gold by reclassifying it as a "Tier 1" asset, allowing it to be valued at 100% on balance sheets. The US is still thrashing all this out, but it will be interesting to see if an effect would be to change the way gold is taxed which is currently as a "collectable". That might encourage even more people to jump on the gold bandwagon.

However since banks aren't too concerned about the price of gold as they concentrate on buying more (driving the price up ?), one has to think of that timely concern about Bubbles. It'll be interesting to see what happens if the gold bubble bursts. All those Tier 1 assets on the banks' balance sheets would suddenly be diminished which would probably tick off the regulators.

Thank you for responding!

If I am in the ballpark and the drive to build-out AI data centers and AI corporations go bust, the economy will take a huge hit. It could be a global collapse. I don't know which way these precious metals will go, it is anyone's guess. Anyone telling you to buy now I think is a fool. If the prices drop 30% or more across the board for stocks, and precious metals, it could be a decade before they recover.

I just like following the news every day. It's exciting to watch global events unfold.

[Naperville]

Naperville, it seems like a catch 22.
To own silver as paper investments, the govt can take those away. If the person owns physical silver it is more secure but then they have to have good watching to keep it safe.

Sorry, I did not see this post.

Physical metals do have to be protected.

The reason why preppers buy precious metals is that they do not trust any form of government to be able to help them when SHTF and people have to exist WROL, without rule of law. Preppers think that when the SHTF, WROL will exist for a while, and they will hide their precious metals until law is restored. The truth is, you will starve long before the feds get food assistance to you if: the economy crashes; the US mainland petroleum cracking sites are attacked(Did you know that there are only a few places in the USA that make gasoline from oil for the entire nation, and if attacked there would be no gasoline nationwide. The average supermarket runs out of food in 2 days to 3 days.); or the electrical grid goes down (The US government has studied these events and said that 95% of all US citizens would die from a nationwide EMP.) and supply lines are disrupted. Having physical precious metals preppers believe they will barter for things that they do not have.

There are many scenarios they base their hoarding and prepping on. Some of it sounds logical, but they are preparing for outliers, a once in 100 to 1000 year event. I'm OK with whatever they want to do. Some prepper planning helped me. I had 4+ months of food for two people when my mother died in April, 2025. I went to the supermarket twice since she has died and it is 2026. Food prepping saved my tail because although I worked at Amazon for a while, I developed bone spurs and had to resign from the job. I was a seasonal employee and could not take time off to go see any doctors to see what the problem was.

The problem with paper contracts for any precious metal is if the SHTF, you would have nothing physical to barter with and would be like every other unprepared soul. Whatever that means, I am not sure. The West has never reverted to barter that I know of from more advanced or modern systems and none of the grids have gone down long enough to worry about, hahahaha.

The US federal government previously outlawed the private ownership of gold at least once. From what I hear the vast majority of people with gold did not take it to the bank for silver or paper dollars. Gold lost a few percent. Then the US government said, OK keep the gold and the price of gold went right back up.

[Brock O Lee]

Physical silver and gold!

"I like the shiny", to quote Nobody Special on YT.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Naperville, do you think AI plus cheap nuclear fusion would allow us to finally mass produce any atom through industrial transmutation, making gold and silver abundant?

The oceans have millions of years' worth of deuterium/heavy water in them. We could make any atom once we have that.

[Naperville]

News from around the Internet:

https://www.zerohedge.com/precious-meta ... owing-2026

https://www.zerohedge.com/precious-meta ... tinue-2026

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Naperville, do you think AI plus cheap nuclear fusion would allow us to finally mass produce any atom through industrial transmutation, making gold and silver abundant?

The oceans have millions of years' worth of deuterium/heavy water in them. We could make any atom once we have that.

Naperville, maybe focus fusion can allow us to cheaply make silver, gold, carbon, iron etc:
https://focusfusion.org/

[Naperville]

Naperville, do you think AI plus cheap nuclear fusion would allow us to finally mass produce any atom through industrial transmutation, making gold and silver abundant?

The oceans have millions of years' worth of deuterium/heavy water in them. We could make any atom once we have that.

Naperville, maybe focus fusion can allow us to cheaply make silver, gold, carbon, iron etc:
https://focusfusion.org/

Interesting website.

I would like the new energy sources to be possible for everyone to use, but I do not know what it takes to pass on the technology.

The only thing that I know about fusion is that it takes some very esoteric materials and technologies, as well as a ton of power to light the candle. We are not there yet.

[Naperville]

As I said, FOMO is not a sound reason for investing.

Gold and Silver prices dramatically drop. It would not surprise me if three months from now it drops again.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/30/silver- ... etals.html