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In announcing that Ben Bernanke would be reappointed to a second four-year term as Federal Reserve chairman, the White House admitted that the US debt situation continues to worsen. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the US debt outlook is worse than what the White House says.

The White House projected that over the next ten years the budget deficit would be $2 trillion more than previously projected. Critics had loudly condemned the earlier projections as “rosy.” “Out of touch with economic reality,” some said. The critics have been validated.

The CBO now says the ten-year projection for the deficit is $7.14 trillion, some $2 trillion more than projected as recently as March. It seems that every time new deteriorating economic statistics are evaluated, the economy looks even more bleak and the deficit projection looks even bigger. Can any of the numbers be relied on? Probably not.

It was only six months ago that the White House and the CBO numbers were some $2 trillion lower. What will be the ten-year projection in another six months?

The CBO’s $7.14 trillion projection assumes no changes in Obama administration policies. If the administration’s fiscal plans are allowed for, the CBO’s ten-year deficit projection swells to more than $10 trillion. Historically, the CBO has produced more accurate predictions than the White House. White House predictions nearly always are politically tainted regardless of what party holds the presidency.

The White House expects that economy to shrink by 2.8% this year compared with its earlier estimate of 1.2%. It also expects unemployment to exceed 10% and to stay higher than 8% until the end of 2011. The White House and the CBO see this year’s budget deficit at around $1.6 trillion, which probably will be right considering that this fiscal year ends September 30.

An innovative and economical mass production technology for building mobile phones, iPhones, picture-phones, and a host of other hand-held electronics allows components to be fastened both mechanically and electronically to printed circuit boards. The technology permits upwards of 200 contacts for components and connections on a small board, increasing the range of features possible in the device while keeping it extremely small.

This development will, according to The Silver Institute’s World Silver Survey, increase the proportion of silver used in electronic devices in the coming years. Also according to the World Silver Survey, 61.4 million ounces of silver were used for electrical and electronics fabrication in the US in 2008, with world use at 201.7 million ounces.

A more detailed discussion of this development and its impact on the silver market can be found in the 2009 Second Quarter issue of Silver News.

Silver News also reports continued improvement in the use of broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties of ionic silver in wound dressings. Antimicrobial ionic silver kills a broad range of pathogens and is being hailed as a major break through in wound dressings. Although antimicrobial ionic dressings now are used mostly in hospitals, products for over-the-counter sales are coming available.

Additional developments for uses of silver in the medical field are discussed in the 2009 Second Quarter issue of Silver News.

Additionally, Silver News reports on the development of a line of jewelry boxes that promise to keep silver tarnish free for up to 35 years. The boxes are lined with a cloth that absorbs gases that cause silver to tarnish, according to the developer, Wolf Designs, which has been making jewelry cases since 1834.

With gold just off all-time high prices, silver jewelry is gaining in popularity. Supposedly, Pandora Jewelry, which is basically silver jewelry, is now the best-selling jewelry in the world. Pandora’s success comes from the company offering a wide variety of attractive but inexpensive pieces.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner can’t sell his house. Maybe it because he is asking more than the $1.6 million that he paid in 2004 at the top of the housing boom. Housing prices are down, on average, 30% from the 2004 top. Any doubt but that some wealthy person seeking to curry a favor with the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States will pay the asking price?

Anyone remember Hillary Clinton’s “brilliant” commodity trading that made her nearly $100,000 in a few months while husband Bill was governor of Arkansas? It is suspected that Hillary’s profits came from a setup where a wealthy benefactor took the losing sides of all Hillary’s positions and Hillary collected the profitable trades. If someone would do that for a governor’s wife, what would they do for the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States?

Comedy Central did a delightful video on Geithner’s house; well worth the view.

Gene Arensberg, precious metals analyst and author of the popular Got Gold Report, reiterates in his recent report his bullishness for silver. Although Arensberg is bullish on gold over the longer term, he sees the potential for more immediate upside action in silver.

Arensberg notes that iShares Silver Trust (SLV), the largest silver ETF, lost no holdings in the last reporting week but gained 42.07 tons the prior week. Further, the trust continues to hold more silver than the original custodian agreement called for, now reporting 8,766.93 tons of the metal. SLV turned out to be much more successful than anticipated. Still, Arensberg recommends that SLV investors convert their shares to physical silver.

He notes that premiums on the common forms of physical silver are “. . . back to normal or near normal and availability seemingly adequate regionally, now might be an excellent time to convert shares of SLV into the real deal physical metal.” Later in the report, Arensberg says, “Call it intuition, or trader’s instinct, or whatever, we believe those planning to convert gold and silver ETFs into physical metal might want to do so with a sense of urgency now (emphasis his), as we doubt that premiums will remain near normal for an extended period. Regardless if gold and silver move substantially higher or lower we expect to see premiums moving higher toward the end of the year and maybe much sooner.

From my perspective, I see premiums on physical silver and gold products about as low as they are going to get.

Increasing Arensberg’s bullishness on silver is his analysis of the large commercials’ positions in the silver futures markets. The LCs have increased their short positions in gold, but have steadily refused to take bigger short positions in silver. See Arensberg’s Got Gold Report for his analysis.

Finally, Arensberg recommends that long-term precious metals holders consider switching from gold to silver because of not only market conditions but also because of the gold/silver ratio, which is hovering in the 70:1 area. This is a recommendation with which I agree.

Historically, silver has outperformed gold (on a percentage basis) in all precious metals bull markets. Now, the silver market is experiencing a genuine shortage that should cause silver to continue its trend of outperforming gold.

Most Americans have absolutely no idea of the causes of our ongoing financial crisis. Newscasters, most of whom are completely oblivious to any understanding of economics, spread the blame from greedy speculators to incompetent businessmen, missing the mark completely. Many economists simply point to the boom-bust business cycle but have no idea what causes the boom-bust cycle. Now, economists and laymen alike can grasp the reasons for boom-bust cycles, thanks to a New York Times bestseller Meltdown.

Buy a copy of Meltdown and go directly to chapter four: How government causes the boom-bust business cycle, where you learn that the blame for the boom-bust business cycle and today’s financial crisis lies with our central bank, the Federal Reserve System. Chapter four explains how the Fed’s screwing with interest rates distorts the business community’s perception of what’s really happening in the economy. As a result of these misconceptions, resources are allocated to the wrong places because Fed-induced, artificially low interest rates send the wrong signals.

The brilliance of Meltdown is that it is written so that readers need not be economists to grasp rudimentary understandings of the Austrian economic theory, and understandably so. The author, Thomas E. Woods Jr., is not only a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which means he hangs with some smart people, but is the author of nine books, including The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy, which won in 2006 the prestigious Templeton Enterprise award. Woods has edited and written forewords for such esteemed writers as Murray N. Rothbard. The foreword for Meltdown was written by none other than world’s most popular U.S. Congressman, Ron Paul.

Meltdown is essential reading for anyone in the gold market and for anyone who is even considering investing in gold. 162 pages of text, 192 including sources.