I am a expatriate based in Bangkok, Thailand, and have found it very easy to buy and sell gold and silver in this country.

Since Thailand is a developing country, the local populace has a strong attachment to gold, as it sees it as the true form of money, and hedge against inflation. Silver is also held in high esteem, in fact the word for money in Thai is “neugn”, and “neugn” also means silver.

Since reading up on silver, mainly from your site and Ted Butler’s, I have come to view silver as possibly a better investment than gold. To that end, I tried to buy silver from an area in Bangkok that deals specifically in silver jewellery fabrication. In doing so, I came across a shop called the Bangkok Assay Office (www.bkkassay.com ..site is currently under construction). They sell gold and silver at international standards of fineness (Thai gold is 96.55% gold).

Silver can be purchased in three forms: Industrial size bars, 6-800 gr. Bkk.Assay office bars, and small round pellet form (for jewellery fabrication)

There is a 7% govt. tax on silver, which may be redeemed once you take the silver out of the country. This is because silver purchased here is usually used in the jewellery trade and not for investment purposes.

The shop purchases their silver in industrial size bars via the Hong Kong market which gets its silver from China and Korea. They then melt it down into the round pellet size. If you wish to purchase silver in 6-800gr. ingot size, which I do, you will pay a fabrication charge of 3 dollars US per ingot.

The larger your silver order the closer you will get to spot price. I usually purchase approximately 20 Kilos at a time, which is as near to dammit to the spot price. A 40 kilo purchase will get you spot.

In contrast to the silver shortage in the West, we are experiencing no shortage here in Thailand. There would be a 3-5 day fabrication time if I chose to purchase my silver in assayed bars, but an immediate delivery if I purchased the silver pellets.

I have spoken at length to the owners of the Assayers, who have said that in the last several months they have noticed a marked increase in the amount of silver purchased for investment purposes.

So although there is not a perceived silver shortage in SE Asia, due to its secondary status to that of gold, there is an increasing amount of people interested in purchasing silver for investment purposes.

So if you are thinking of taking a trip / holiday to the Orient, you could not do worse than coming here and buy some silver at the same time.

I am not an economist, nor am I a soothsayer … but I am aware of the importance hydrocarbon fuels have on our world’s fundamental economic activities; the price of oil has tremendous impact on all facets of our lives.

Take a look at this short clip: http://www.vloggingtheapocalypse.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=615&title=WATER_FUEL_CAR_UNVEILED_IN_JAPAN

My question is this … if water is able to power that automobile’s engine, how long will it be until a small home electrical generator is developed to furnish unlimited electrical energy to our homes? What will happen to the price of copper if all of a sudden, power lines are no longer necessary? If copper drops, what will hold up the value of the other “industrial” metals (of which gold is one)…might they all tumble together (since they all seem to rise together)?

Unless this technology is suppressed (something which I don’t think the elites can continue to do anymore) oil’s significance to our way of life is about to undergo a serious paradigm shift! And I say *hooray*…the sooner the better!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhQZuHwCTYE

Nice call, Frizzers !!

Within 2-3 days of the interview, HBOS came out with its -2.5% drop for March. And the market woke up!

Thanks Rigger

Thanks if you can help.

I liked the bit where Dom and John discussed how the “average middle class homeowner is now a millionaire”

But now … WEALTH IS BEING DESTROYED… as values return to normal

Real Estate is a “bubble on top of a bubble”- a drop of over 50% may be coming, John Rubino says. But that real estate bubble is on top of massive use of fiat currency. So strangely enough, real estate could hold its value if currency values fall fast enough.

Mid-way through, John Rubino talks about bargains in Junior Miners. He says some will go up “by 10 times” but it is important to be diversified when investing in Junior miners and explorers.

Personally, in his own portfolio he is equally divided between + Gold stocks, and + Long-dated puts on financials

Later on, JR talks about about Green Energy, and his new book! (I want to get a copy, and write a review.) He has a good point that Solar stocks are running, and have been a great place to invest.

John and Dom have a short bit towards the end where they develop a simple formula…

How to Survive the Coming hard times:

+ Get out of debt + Downsize + Invest only in those companies that will be around (Goldcorp instead of Citigroup)