thanks ebear, now i know what's going on. i hope our group fares better than the original 300. they were slaughtered to the last man by the persians at thermopylae.

i think we are seeing commodity prices being driven down below the cost of production, and that presents an opportunity. but i also think that give the fear and panic of investors seeing their retirement funds shrinking, and deciding to dump their shares, and hedge funds de-leveraging with margin calls, we could see even better bargains next month.

as you note, silver is a special case. base metal mines, which supply 60% of silver production are closing, and a copper or lead mine won't reopen to produce silver no matter how high its price goes. so investor demand for silver is accelerating while silver production can't keep pace.

david galland has a lot to say about the metals and shares here:

http://caseyresearch.com/drpRoom.php...