Thursday, Apr 16, 2009
Copper Standard
Telegraph: A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?
China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons.
Posted by flintster1994 @ 01:02 PM (675 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
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1. robh said...
Given the nonsense about electric cars lately, lithium would be a better bet. Peak lithium, next!
2. general congreve said...
I've got a jar full of 1ers and 2ers in the back of a cupboard that dwarves my gold collection. Go china, make me rich!!! ;)
3. European-bear said...
But remember, the US 1 cent piece has more copper in it in terms of value then the face value of the coin.....US is already on the "copper standard" it is just against federal law to melt them down, otherwise us 1 cent pieces would be the cheapest copper...
4. 51ck-6-51x said...
general congreve
FYI:
Only pre-1992 and some from 1998 are high in copper.
Post 1992 1p & 2p coins are steel with copper plating.
5. stillthinking said...
very interesting. You can see why a gold standard is a non-starter for China, there is a huge store of the stuff sitting in the US going nowhere. australia is a big copper producer so if they buy enough they will buoy the aussie dollar.
6. general congreve said...
666 @3 - Cheers for the info, fortunately the jar was mainly collected when I was a youngster in the 80's, so still looks like I'm quids in ;)
Stillthinking @4 - If this copper thing does turn out to be true and China are effectively backing the yuan with copper, something metal, physical, real and not prone to runaway inflation, I suspect it'll still be bullish for gold also.
7. inflation is eating my savings said...
As much as I know, copper is one of the most abundant metals on earth.
Like most metals, it requires energy for extraction.
8. inbreda said...
@7 - so invest in coal then? Which presumably will have a knock on effect for oil and gas?
9. 51ck-6-51x said...
inflation is eating my savings - It's cheaper (requires less energy) to extract copper from scrap than to mine it, and there is a lot of such scrap about.