LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) – (The seventh paragraph contains language that may offend some readers)
Kerry Kraker, 56, has worked in kitchens all his life. Since March he’s spent around $100 a week – half his spare cash – on silver coins. He’s part of a growing social media movement who say they are buying bars and coins for protection from a coming age of inflation.
Thanks to a community of like-minded silver ‘stackers’ gathering on social-media platform Reddit Inc., Seattle-based Kraker says he also feels empowered.
“They are so encouraging and so convinced in the changes they can cause,” Kraker, who lost his home in the financial crisis, told Reuters.
Inspired by Reddit forum WallStreetBets, some of the 122,000-strong community hope to corner the market and bring down what they say is an unjust banking system.
Market professionals say that is unlikely to succeed – there is plenty of silver, and central bankers in the United States and Europe expect inflation to stay in low single-digits.
But bankers aren’t getting through to this group.
“There’s a bit of anger, like ‘fuck the system.’ If there’s a back door to wealth, I might take that door because the front door is closed,” said Kraker. “The bankers and others have basically shut that door for everyone who is not themselves.”
The core of the movement is a Reddit community called Wall Street Silver, formed in January at the time WallStreetBets was marshalling an uprising of ordinary people against the financial elites, through coordinated buying of company shares.
Reuters spoke to more than 20 members, who call themselves “silverbacks” and “apes,” have a home page featuring an image of an army of primates on the march from the “Planet of the Apes” movie, and say things like “Ape like shiny.” They organise “raids” – days on which everyone buys together.
The group’s founder, Ivan Bayoukhi, is a 24-year old former car salesman living with his parents in Alberta, Canada. “NOW IS THE TIME TO WAKE UP AND TAKE THE POWER BACK IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE,” says one of his characteristic posts.
Silver costs around $26 an ounce. Stackers think the price will rise as inflation erodes the value of currencies, demand for silver rises, and supplies run short. Some say that by buying up bars and coins, they can jack up prices by 100% or even 1,000%, to the point where they can call the shots against the so-called bullion banks, the large financial institutions which lead trade in precious metals.
A March post pictured silver coins laid out to spell a message to the head of JPMorgan Chase & Co, a U.S. investment bank which dominates the bullion trade: “KISS MY ASS JAMIE DIMON.” JPMorgan (JPM.N) declined to comment.
“In a year or two we will have millions of people in the movement,” Bayoukhi told Reuters. “And then it will be over for the bullion banks.”
“CORNER THE MARKET”
Prices of silver and gold, which are traditionally…
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