/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>18793372
As spitefully as this comes off, he's right. Other anons have pointed out the ways in which the world has changed economically, but one of the biggest sea changes in America happened in the 1960s with no body noticing. That was the decade when we started to get really good at identifying intellectually gifted (I.E. the top 10% of the population) and really shunting them into higher education and developing our human capital. This came at a cost though. Everyone talks about how Joe six pack in 1950 had a job straight out of high school that paid for his house and 3 kids, but they don't realize that in 1950 there wasn't a pipeline to get his really bright farm working cousin out of that line of work.

Essentially the middle class was buoyed by high performing, relatively bright people that stayed in their parents economic strata, in the same way a neighborhood is made nice by 'pillars of the community' never moving away. As we pulled more and more talented people into intellectually demanding, higher paid positions, they left the 'middle class' poorer.

>>18625847
I don't think you understand what goes into establishing the spot price. There are about 170 'paper' ounces of silver for every 1 real ounce, and the trading of these 'paper' ounces is overwhelmingly what drives the spot. However, as more and more people begin demanding the delivery of the physical metal they are (in theory) entitled to by having a 'paper' ounce the physical metal price and the paper dominated spot price begin to divorce from each other. Even at the 1000 troy oz bar level, you can see that they are going for $17500-$18000 compared to the 15.05/oz spot right now.

When there's that level of disconnect at the commodity trading level, its more than just a seller's premium. The percieved 'premium' on silver is just the actual price of the metal without 'paper' silver pushing it down.