Buy silver?

After reading about Peak Oil, I started contemplating buying more precious metals for survival purposes. Never mind that I'm in Japan and thousands of miles away from my hedge (which is under lock and key and guarded under arms).

CMI has an article on gold and silver for survival purposes.
Another article (which I linked to from Border Gold) claims that silver is in short supply relative to gold, and is a prime investment. The biggest thing that this has for it is that Warren Buffet has in the past 10 years bought 25% of the world's silver stock. Here's an article about Buffet's opinions about the U.S. Dollar, mentioning silver, and here's another piece bullish on silver.

MSN has a column describing how foreign investors are starting to own more and more of the U.S. debt. The scary thing is that Japan is one of the biggest buyers, and so if the oil apocalypse happens, their economy will be just as trashed as ours! (Although their transportation systems are better, the fact that they import so many essentials means that Japan will likely fare much, much worse than the U.S. Unless, perhaps, they can convince China and Korea to ship them goods—note the hint of sarcasm.)

Hmm, CMI sells American Silver Eagles for $1.75 over spot in quantities of 500 or more....