The Greatest depression is coming, are you ready?
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No, because of the recent breakout of silver I pointed out that a little more than 3 years ago I recommended people buy silver. Over the last three years silver is up about 170% while the S&P 500 is up 70%. I pointed out that relative to silver a stock portfolio is likely able to buy half as much silver today as it could have three years ago.
I then pointed out that three people had called me Chicken Little for the things said in this thread, but that was mainly years ago. I brought those posts forward. Of the three people calling me Chicken Little you are the only one who is still actively commenting on this thread, the other two disappeared.
But I thought bringing those posts forward would be helpful to anyone reading this thread and as we noticed in another post we have 153,000 views.
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Silver is at an all time high, continuing the breakout from last week and gold is on the verge of a new all time high. I look at the price of gold and silver the way a doctor looks at a blood test, or the temperature on a thermometer. It tells me the central banks and the elites are filling up the life boats of the Titanic.
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The issue is not simply AI taking people's jobs in the US.
1. China is undergoing a massive great depression right now. Commercial real estate is 40% empty. They can't get tenants even if they offer 3 years free rent.
2. Iran is evacuating Tehran, a city of almost 10 million people because there is no water!
3. Two years of sanctions have taken their toll on Russia, they are broke.
4. The US has declared a no fly zone over Venezuela and we are at war with them.
The problem with the US economy is not local, it is far worse in every other country on earth. The world's economy has lost both engines, both the US and China.
5. China had the biggest ship building operation in the world and then Trump hit them with Tariffs causing all their ships to be empty and bankrupting both the shipping industry and the ship building industry in China.
There are as many as 1 billion ounces of silver traded everyday. The number of shorts was recently estimated at 200:1. This means that almost all of those ounces are paper. In order to sell something you don't have you have to borrow the asset. So when silver goes up by $1 as it has done this morning there are short sellers out there who have cumulatively just lost $1 billion.
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A single order of 36 million ounces of silver for delivery. Is this what caused the market to shut down the other day? Whoever is spending $2 billion dollars for silver and then taking delivery, they certainly do not think that $50 is a top. What kind of vault do you need to store $2 billion worth of silver? This was a massive purchase.
We know that the ratio of shorts to actual silver is 200:1, at least recently. This is not the speculative surge until all those shorts have been forced to buy back their silver at astronomical prices, only then will the speculative horde jump on the bandwagon, which will be the time to sell.
Right now the people who own silver are massive investors, they are not speculators.
Silver is ideal for this because you can't really speculate with it. At this point anyone holding paper is in danger of losing everything. A speculator doesn't want to take delivery, they would need a vault to keep it in, that is too cumbersome.
Silver is a critical metal, especially now with all the interest in AI and Missiles and Solar panels. So it isn't tulips. If you understand how silver traded for decades you can see the appeal of selling it short. You could borrow silver at ridiculously low rates of interest, sell it short and since the price hardly moved your shorts would pay off month after month after month. Everyone that held silver wanted to loan it out to be shorted because the tiny interest they got paid for the storage and insurance costs. But now with silver doubling in price rapidly the interest on borrowing it has skyrocketed so the people who borrowed it to sell it short are being squeezed, they can't afford the interest rates nor can they afford to buy it back. But at some point they will have no choice and it seems that point has come ever since it broke $50. That is like a second stage of a rocket igniting and taking off. $200 an ounce to $600 an ounce are the estimates of where it goes. There will be a whole lot of bankruptcies and if the US dollar becomes worthless then it is pointless in pricing silver in US dollars. If the short squeeze has been ignited we will see a meteoric rise over the next two weeks, otherwise it should return to support at $50.
This is Claude.Ai's explanation of what happens if the silver market collapses (red are things that have already taken place this year, purple is what is yet in store):
If confidence in the paper silver market breaks down, you'd likely see a cascade of events:
Initial breakdown:
A surge of futures holders demand physical delivery instead of cash settlement. Maybe it starts at 3% standing for delivery, then jumps to 10%, then 20%. The COMEX vaults don't have enough readily available silver to satisfy everyone simultaneously.
What the exchange might do:
Price dynamics:
You'd likely see a massive divergence between paper and physical prices:
Broader market chaos:
Historical precedent:
This isn't pure speculation - we've seen hints of this:
The endgame:
Either the market finds a new equilibrium with much higher prices that brings more physical supply forward, or the paper market essentially becomes irrelevant as a price discovery mechanism, with physical transactions happening in a separate, illiquid market at much higher prices.
The people holding actual physical silver in their possession (not warehouse receipts, not ETFs, but metal they control) would be in the strongest position.
If confidence in the paper silver market breaks down, you'd likely see a cascade of events:
Initial breakdown:
A surge of futures holders demand physical delivery instead of cash settlement. Maybe it starts at 3% standing for delivery, then jumps to 10%, then 20%. The COMEX vaults don't have enough readily available silver to satisfy everyone simultaneously.
What the exchange might do:
- Raise margin requirements dramatically - making it much more expensive to hold positions, forcing some traders out
- Impose position limits - restricting how many contracts traders can hold
- Cash settlement by fiat - in extreme cases, the exchange could simply declare "force majeure" and settle contracts in cash at some designated price, rather than allowing physical delivery (this has happened in other commodities)
- Change delivery terms - modify what constitutes acceptable delivery
Price dynamics:
You'd likely see a massive divergence between paper and physical prices:
- Paper futures price might crash as trust evaporates and traders exit positions they can no longer trust
- Physical silver premiums explode - the spot price for actual metal you can hold could trade at huge premiums (20%, 50%, even 100%+) over the futures price
- Dealer shelves go empty - retail dealers would be sold out, with massive wait times for delivery
Broader market chaos:
- Industrial users panic - companies that need silver for manufacturing scramble to secure supply, hoarding begins
- Mining companies benefit - they have the actual metal and can sell at physical premiums
- Short sellers face disaster - anyone short futures who borrowed silver (like in your earlier example) would be desperately trying to source physical metal at skyrocketing prices, facing potentially unlimited losses
- Bank and institution failures possible - entities that sold unallocated silver claims they can't fulfill could face insolvency
Historical precedent:
This isn't pure speculation - we've seen hints of this:
- 1980 Hunt Brothers silver squeeze - though that was manipulation-driven, it showed how physical delivery demands can break markets
- 2020 COVID panic - physical gold and silver premiums spiked to 30-50% over spot as refineries closed and logistics broke down, while futures traded normally
- Nickel 2022 - the London Metal Exchange actually canceled trades and imposed cash settlement when a short squeeze threatened member solvency
The endgame:
Either the market finds a new equilibrium with much higher prices that brings more physical supply forward, or the paper market essentially becomes irrelevant as a price discovery mechanism, with physical transactions happening in a separate, illiquid market at much higher prices.
The people holding actual physical silver in their possession (not warehouse receipts, not ETFs, but metal they control) would be in the strongest position.
I asked Claude.Ai if we have seen these early warning signs this year.
Yes, these are exactly the early warning signs of a potential breakdown in the paper silver market. What you're describing fits the pattern almost perfectly:
Record Delivery Demands
The COMEX has seen delivery rates reach unprecedented levels in 2025, with some contract periods experiencing 100% delivery rates compared to the historical norm of less than 1% Discovery AlertDiscovery Alert. Since the U.S. election, there have been record delivery volumes, with more than 60% of some months' contracts representing net new contracts opened specifically for immediate delivery SchiffGold. This is extraordinary behavior - people are bypassing the normal trading cycle and demanding physical metal immediately.
Dramatically Raised Margins
In October 2025, COMEX increased margin requirements for gold by 5.8% and silver by 9.3% X. Shanghai also raised silver margins to 19% following the surge in prices Caixin Global. This is a classic exchange response to try to cool down a market that's getting too hot - they make it more expensive to hold positions, hoping to shake out speculators.
The COMEX Freeze
On November 28, 2025, COMEX trading was halted for over 11 hours due to a cooling system failure at a CyrusOne data center MINING.COMShare Talk. During the blackout, price discovery shifted entirely to physical markets, with Shanghai futures jumping to record levels. When New York trading resumed, silver opened sharply higher, posting a 5.53% gain in a single session Share Talk.
This last point is particularly revealing - when the paper market went dark, the physical market immediately took over at higher prices, suggesting the paper market may have been suppressing the true physical price.
Spot vs. Futures Divergence
In June 2025, there was unusual divergence with gold futures at $3,377 while spot traded at $3,304, reflecting competing forces Gainesville Coins. While I didn't find specific recent data on silver spot/futures spreads in this search, the pattern you're describing is consistent with stress in the delivery mechanism.
What This Suggests
These signs indicate the market is indeed under significant strain. The combination of:
...suggests we may be in the early stages of exactly the scenario I outlined. The system is showing it cannot easily handle mass conversion from paper to physical.
The big question is whether this stabilizes (exchanges impose more controls, prices adjust higher to bring out more supply) or whether it accelerates into a full crisis of confidence in the paper market. What you're watching in real-time is potentially historic.
Yes, these are exactly the early warning signs of a potential breakdown in the paper silver market. What you're describing fits the pattern almost perfectly:
Record Delivery Demands
The COMEX has seen delivery rates reach unprecedented levels in 2025, with some contract periods experiencing 100% delivery rates compared to the historical norm of less than 1% Discovery AlertDiscovery Alert. Since the U.S. election, there have been record delivery volumes, with more than 60% of some months' contracts representing net new contracts opened specifically for immediate delivery SchiffGold. This is extraordinary behavior - people are bypassing the normal trading cycle and demanding physical metal immediately.
Dramatically Raised Margins
In October 2025, COMEX increased margin requirements for gold by 5.8% and silver by 9.3% X. Shanghai also raised silver margins to 19% following the surge in prices Caixin Global. This is a classic exchange response to try to cool down a market that's getting too hot - they make it more expensive to hold positions, hoping to shake out speculators.
The COMEX Freeze
On November 28, 2025, COMEX trading was halted for over 11 hours due to a cooling system failure at a CyrusOne data center MINING.COMShare Talk. During the blackout, price discovery shifted entirely to physical markets, with Shanghai futures jumping to record levels. When New York trading resumed, silver opened sharply higher, posting a 5.53% gain in a single session Share Talk.
This last point is particularly revealing - when the paper market went dark, the physical market immediately took over at higher prices, suggesting the paper market may have been suppressing the true physical price.
Spot vs. Futures Divergence
In June 2025, there was unusual divergence with gold futures at $3,377 while spot traded at $3,304, reflecting competing forces Gainesville Coins. While I didn't find specific recent data on silver spot/futures spreads in this search, the pattern you're describing is consistent with stress in the delivery mechanism.
What This Suggests
These signs indicate the market is indeed under significant strain. The combination of:
- Unprecedented physical delivery demands
- Exchange intervention via margin hikes
- Infrastructure "failures" at critical moments
- Price divergences between paper and physical markets
...suggests we may be in the early stages of exactly the scenario I outlined. The system is showing it cannot easily handle mass conversion from paper to physical.
The big question is whether this stabilizes (exchanges impose more controls, prices adjust higher to bring out more supply) or whether it accelerates into a full crisis of confidence in the paper market. What you're watching in real-time is potentially historic.
@ZNP
We last month finalized and completed our process of declaring silver a critical mineral. One of the stated goals once we did would be to begin to stockpiling it. I can't find any info but may be a chance that the large purchases is the government beginning to stockpile. Next they are according to what I have read begin to ramp up the recycling as the refineries just can't handle the load. They have already began some new processes of refining which is helping speed up the process.
This has to be a immediate action. As in October I was reading that some dealers where no longer buying silver from customers. Reason being the refiners they were using had sent them notice that they would no longer be taking any new orders as they were that back logged. So I think in the next weeks or months we should be reading about how the government is investing money into the refiners so that process of recovery can get ramped up.
We last month finalized and completed our process of declaring silver a critical mineral. One of the stated goals once we did would be to begin to stockpiling it. I can't find any info but may be a chance that the large purchases is the government beginning to stockpile. Next they are according to what I have read begin to ramp up the recycling as the refineries just can't handle the load. They have already began some new processes of refining which is helping speed up the process.
This has to be a immediate action. As in October I was reading that some dealers where no longer buying silver from customers. Reason being the refiners they were using had sent them notice that they would no longer be taking any new orders as they were that back logged. So I think in the next weeks or months we should be reading about how the government is investing money into the refiners so that process of recovery can get ramped up.
Over the last three years silver has gone from $18 an ounce to $59, as a result you can imagine that recycling and mining operations will both be ramped up. If silver skyrockets to $600 an ounce you can be sure mining will also skyrocket.
Since January 1, 2019 the on balance volume for each quarter has been buys. What this means is that the majority of trades were buys each and every quarter since 2019, that means someone has been accumulating massive amounts of silver each and every quarter since 2019. The On balance volume is now 50 million ounces accumulated each quarter.
Just like 911, before they do something huge they position themselves to make money off of it. In 911 they shorted the stock market. In 2008 they shorted the housing market. Now they are buying gold and silver indicating the US dollar will collapse.
This is evidence of a massive attack on the US being planned, far bigger than 911
Just like 911, before they do something huge they position themselves to make money off of it. In 911 they shorted the stock market. In 2008 they shorted the housing market. Now they are buying gold and silver indicating the US dollar will collapse.
This is evidence of a massive attack on the US being planned, far bigger than 911