Thoughts on

The Imminent Western Silver Insolvency

In 2024, the global demand for silver outstripped supply by approximately 4,600 tonnes (150 million ounces). It was the fourth consecutive year of a structural deficit that has already drained Western vaults of nearly 21,000 tonnes of metal.

We are consuming 37,300 tonnes of silver annually while digging only 31,200 tonnes out of the ground. In any other era, price would rise to stimulate production. But this is where the "Old War" logic fails.

Seventy-two percent of all silver is not mined for its own sake. It is a by-product, a chemical accident found in the ores of lead (30%), copper (26%), and gold (16%). This means silver supply is price inelastic. You cannot simply "turn on" a silver mine when the price hits $150. You must mine more copper or zinc to get the silver. And the West has decided it no longer wishes to do the dirty work of smelting either.

This brings us to the "dirty dirt." There is a myth that because Mexico and Peru dig ore, the West possesses silver. This is a nonsense . What comes out of the Peru is a toxic sludge known as "concentrate."

To be useful, this sludge must be smelted.

Here is the choke point: China controls 60% of global copper smelting capacity and nearly 50% of refined zinc production.

The West exports its raw earth to the PRC , and in doing so, hands over the keys to the periodic table.

We are currently relying on China to refine roughly 60-70% of the silver that physically enters the global supply chain. This is not trade; it is a hostage situation. In 2024, China exported roughly 4,200 tonnes of refined silver to the West, a volume that almost exactly matches the Western structural deficit.

If Beijing initiates a "Silent Siege" and restricts these exports by even 50%, the West does not face inflation. It faces a 2,100-tonne physical hole in its industrial throughput that no amount of recycling can fill.

As our models show, a 25% curtailment creates an immediate double-digit deficit, forcing industrial rationing within twelve months. Period !

The Hellscape Paradox

The irony deepens when we consider the US chosen instrument of deterrence. The Pentagon has bet the farm on the "Hellscape" strategy

THIS IS a plan to flood the Taiwan Strait with thousands of autonomous drones to deny the PLA access. 

It is a clever plan with a fatal flaw. Every one of those drones is a flying circuit board requiring 5N (99.999%) purity silver paste. The West consumes 13,000 tonnes of silver for industrial use annually, yet we have offshored the capacity to produce the ultra-high purity powder and paste required for advanced electronics.

China produces over 80% of the solar and semiconductor supply chain materials.

We are attempting to build a robotic kill chain using a metal that must be refined and chemically processed by the adversary. We are buying the rope from the hangman to strangle him, and we are paying him in a currency he is actively debasing.

The Autarkic Signal

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We are waiting for a landing fleet that may never sail. But the adversary is not playing our game. The "Silent Siege" is already underway. The hoarding of 700 million tonnes of grain and the export restrictions on antimony (a munitions primer) These are the actions of a fortress preparing for a siege.

I’m pointing out the castle using all the facts and saying to everyone look at what they are doing. You can only mean a few things.

When the "Refining Cliff" hits say ? likely in 2026? as the Western industrial deficit becomes mathematically impossible to cover with dwindling vault stocks the price of silver will bifurcate.

There will be a paper price for the speculators in London, and a "war premium" for the physical metal that simply does not exist.

We have built a civilization on materials insolvent system . The deficit is 4,600 tonnes deep, and the bottom is nowhere in sight.