If your goal is to actually make money, you would be buying before there's a physical shortage in 1000oz bars, not after (be first, be smart, or cheat).  I also hear even the big players are buying 1 oz silver eagles and NOT huge bars.  Makes sense because the purpose of a currency is standardized, interchangeable units of measure, and bullion bars do not fit the bill.  They're only useful for industrial applications, which is why many places in Europe charge VAT on bars and not coins.  Also easier to avoid counterfeits with coins than bullion bars.  I really don't see how you managed to go bankrupt while holding $320,000 in silver.

As for the future, both Hillary and Trump have talked about massive, expensive, public works projects, plus Trump has even talked about defaulting on the debt.  Tons of govt spending that won't be paid for is pretty bullish on anything that's not connected to USD debt markets.  We also reached peak oil in 2004, so extraction of anything from the earth is inherently more expensive after that date.  The markets have just not caught up to the fact yet since markets are manipulated and distorted.  

Trump might even be supported by elements of the "deep state" because they already know the system is going to collapse, so they want someone to default on the debt and do it in an orderly manner instead of a chaotic one that sends the entire world into a new dark ages.

In the end though, you will always have tyranny without metals circulated as currency in native form.  A "gold backed" currency is useless, they have to be circulated.  Bitcoin does not solve any of those issues because Bitcoin is inherently a technoracy, which is what I told Theymos in the following thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1654457.msg16663846#msg16663846