Why are the prices of precious metals like gold and silver rising very fast ?

If my history knowledge is right, I think.... the prices of these metals will be on the rise, when there is a WAR lurking in the nearby shadows. .... i AM of the opinion that all the talk about world-ending doomsday on 21.december 2012, or the much forgotten MAYAN calender, or SOLAR FLARES, etc.... all are showing a trend towards a world war, ... which I fear will last just a few hours.

I don't know this for sure but I would think that part of the reason is supply and demand and the other thing is the price of processing, like everything else, has gone sky high. I was astounded to see how little silver is and how high gold is. It is amazing as is alot of things now days.

Precious metals are related to currency, so as currency changes, so do they. When the nation does stupid things like prints off too much money, than they have gold( in the gold reserves, because gold backs the value of money, they have to have the same worth in gold, as they do in printed money), they have to raise the price in gold to equal things out. Here's a scenario: "Oh gee Bob, we printed off 100 dollars when we only have 1 gram of old, which is only worth 50 dollars!(I don't know what gold is worth, I'm just picking a random value)!" "Don't worry Bill, we'll just raise the price of gold fro 100 dollars a gram. There, now we have 100 dollars, and 100 dollars worth of gold. All fixed. Herp de derp de herp de derp! :S