Silver Panic imminent? Apple I-Mac 10 week production delay

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Unbeatable

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Anyone seen this, think it's credible?

Ted Butler is reporting that the 10 week delay in Apple iMac production in China is intrinsically tied to a shortage in industrial silver, and that the overall supply of the metal may lead to a panic, and massive rise in prices.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/is-ted-butlers-silver-panic-imminent-apple-contractor-claims-new-imac-production-delayed-over-silver-shortage/

Submitted by Bally A.
I work as a sales contractor for a local independent Apple dealer. I don’ know how many of you closely watch Apple delivery dates, but we received a consignment of the new 21.5″ iMacs and then they dried up. We haven’t received any of the new 27″ iMacs. Our shelves are bare with lots of backorders. I’ve never seen this before.

Apple states that there are “production problems” causing the delay.

Why?

Based on the evidence, in my opinion there is simply not enough silver available to produce them.
The new “Iris” screens use a lot, lot more silver than the older models, including the new iPads. All the silver is going to produce the iPad 4′s which, of course, use less silver per unit. This creates the illusion that all is right except for a few “production glitches”.
Why is a silver shortage the likely culprit for the production delays? The 21.5″ iMac screens are essentially the same as the 27″ screens. Inside, there is little difference other than the width of the systems where you have enough width to have 4 RAM slots and thus upgrade the the RAM. There are no RAM slots on the new 21.5″ iMac, i.e. you get what you bought re. RAM.
There are no shortages of HD’s CPU chips etc. If they can produce the 21.5″ iMacs, they can produce the 27″ iMacs, or else why would Apple announce them and then have almost a FULL ONE FISCAL QUARTER DELAY in manufacturing and delivery???
The only logical answer, is that the brighter screens require substantially more silver than the earlier models. That is also why there was a $100 price increase on most models of the iMac.
Apple manufacturers its iMacs and iPads in China, and China is now importing massive amounts of silver, where once a few years ago it was a net exporter- and this in spite of a huge increase in domestic silver production!

Of course, Apple doesn’t and won’t announce a shortage of Silver for fear that silver prices would skyrocket and even a $100 price increase would be insufficient to cover a large increase in silver price
 
What poetic justice that would be!

The most over-rated product - by manipulation - in the world (Apple), brought down by the most under-rated - by manipulation - commodity (silver) in the world.
 
I had seen it mentioned somewhere another day, but it seemed like too much speculation, so I didn't post it here. If they were having trouble sourcing industrial silver, they wouldn't be the only ones and there would likely be some corroborating (from other sources/companies) news/reports/evidence out there.
 
Yes, it also seems like it is a new product that is having delays.
So I imagine there could be quite a few reasons why a new product would have to be delayed.

If on the other hand it was an existing product that consumed a lot of silver that all of a sudden had unexpected production delays, I would put a bit more weight on that.

I just got a bit excited when I saw it as with the SLV, US Mint shenanigans and then this I thought it looked like something big could be afoot.
 
I would challenge any discussion that Apple is suffering manufacturing disruptions solely as a result of an inability to source silver. While there may be a slice of truth in that post, I suspect they are having trouble simply selling the product they have already produced due to low demand, so they are "creating" "problems" to have a reason not to construct units.

The latest iGadget didn't make the usual waves and people did not camp out for a week in advance to buy these things, and when it did debut, turnout was low and sales were weak.
 
If there was a shortage of silver to build them, we should see it in silver prices long before we saw it in production delays. As it is, I see nothing in the silver prices supporting this theory.
 
Well, the US Mint is out of Eagles until the end of the month. The system is cracking at the very least.
 
Well, the US Mint is out of Eagles until the end of the month. The system is cracking at the very least.

Poor government planning is normal regardless of whether there is a shortage or not. So, them being out of silver COULD be just poor planning, or at the least poor anticipation of demand.

That said, anything is possible, and them being out could be an indicator of things to come.
 
to my eyes, there's so many wishful thinking and biased assumptions in the original article, that the news is not really worth too much reading into. "it must be this, it must be that", where in fact, it is all assumptions, it can be literally hundreds of other things, so it is as far from "must", as possible.
 
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