The changes in real supply and demand favor silver today, much more than they did in 1980. With consumable commodities such as energy, industrial metals and agricultural products, there is tightness. With lean manufacturing in industry today no one carries buffer stocks and the supply chain is empty all the way back to the producer. We are consuming more silver today than we are mining and generating new silver. Computer chips use a very small non-reclaimable amount of silver which consumes more than the old photography black and white pictures did. There are 500 computer chips in a new car today with a combined use of .1 ounce of silver. Try reclaiming .1 divided by 500 times $17 per ounce. There is no way anyone can afford to do that. So lets say there are 100 million cars made in the world each year which is conservative, that is 10 million ounces consume that is not reclaimable.
One important difference between 1980 and today in commodities is the shocking rise in the cost of production. In metals, the cost of opening new mines and the overall declining ores are much different from what prevailed in 1980. The amount of energy it costs to refine and melt the silver is enormous in todays cost factor. Thus (if) as soon as the price of silver drops below $10 an ounce the mines will be losing money and they will shut down and layoff workers until there is a demand sufficient to drive the price higher.