Copper: Part I The new currency.

By Jack Barnes at zerohedge.com

I don’t know if you have noticed what I have, but lately it appears that people are using Copper as a poor mans currency. I started to notice during the crash of 2008, that copper was being sold in a .999 pure bullion. The photo attached is for a single troy oz of “Fine Copper”. The list price for this copper, as is, was 12 dollars. Think about that for a moment.

Copper sells for about $4 per pound in the futures market. The contract size is for 25,000 pounds, and it costs $250 dollars per penny when quoting copper, the December forward month is currently quoted at 400.60 pennies, for a total cash cost of $100,150 per contract.

I dont know about you, but I would love to have a business where my future cost of inventory was 27 cents per oz, and after some remarketing costs, I am able to charge $10 to $12 per oz.

Check out this google link to Copper Bullion for sale. It’s not just the 1 oz bars, people are now selling copper bullion in kilo bars, coins, rounds and pretty much anything else they can make it look like a legitimate currency.

The ironic aspect to this, is that if the rumored one world currency is deployed, and it has in it, physical commodities like copper, you can expect an increase in crime to break out. If people started to look up at power-lines and instead of seeing a few pennies per pound in realized value at a junk shop, instead becomes thousands of future World Dollars, we will have problems.

Utilities, which are already heading underground will have to be moved there even quicker, and the deployment of new communications like WiMax will be necessary. The era of cell phones, and 4G internet, will end the need for copper to be installed in homes going forward. The Net will always be there, and why leave your phone at home wired to the desk?

In simple terms, we are close to turning a point in the technology curve, where the value of the copper in the old POTS (plain old telephone system) is more valuable torn out of the walls, than left in them. Consider that for a moment. Now, think about how easily accessible to anyone this stuff is. Savaging will greatly outweight the cost of trying to find job’s for our chronically unemployed.

The streets are currently lined with money hanging from wood poles. When you think about buried fiber optics, WiMax and Cell phones, the question becomes why do we have all of this copper in the walls, buried under the yard, etc.

Ironically, copper is already one of the most owned metals, due to its usage in home building. It could be argued that it is already distributed to the masses, and as such could be considered a currency already.

A buyer of an abandoned house in today’s economy *already* has to make sure that it still has its copper in the walls. It takes very little effort in the big picture, to strip out hundreds or thousands of pounds of copper from an abandoned home or factory.

If Copper becomes part of the next global currency, the world will have a new crime wave. The only difference, is that it will be based on a physical commodity changing hands, or at least represented in the exchange. While there is not enough Gold in the world, or Silver in the world to act as the physical basis of a currency, there is enough Copper.

Is that enough of a reason to develop it into an international currency? What say you?

Disclosure: Jack Barnes has no exposure to Copper, or any companies listed in this article. This disclosure and others are available at JackHBarnes.com