the lag time between monetary expansion and the resulting inflation is normally about a year, but the market may not wait for that. i don't do short term forecasting, so i don't know when the resource stocks will finally snap back, but i expect this will be caused by some kind of event in the near future. i think a comex default is the most likely outcome, if not next month, then in the first quarter of 2009.

i think the hard money gurus got it wrong because we have never seen this much coordinated government intervention before, not even in the 1970's when inflation was even higher than it is now. we have never seen a legal black mark in silver and to a lesser extent, gold, as we have now. when these market analysts look at the fundamentals and see peak oil, they don't expect oil to sell for $50/bbl.

as far as ssri is concerned, the pirquitas project is so robust that it will be profitable regardless of the silver price. the tin and zinc credits will cover just about all of the operating costs, and the silver will basically be free.

there is still the possibility that the world could spiral down into a deflationary depression, but the world's central bankers are doing everything they can to prevent that. if they were willing to stand a deep recession, they could easily have already accomplished that by standing aside and letting the free market operate. given all of the machinations necessary to keep a lid on gold and silver, and the resulting huge premiums of physical metal over the comex paper prices, it looks to me like the price suppression scheme is coming unglued.

the bottom line is that silver standard is currently being priced like an exploration company, but it will produce 10 million ounces of silver next year at little or no cost. the only catch is that an investor sometimes needs a hard rear end, because you may need to sit on this stock a while longer until the market figures it out.