Duggeek's Journal: No. It's not a broken muffler

Just today, I found one of those headlines that I was just curious about. It's a bit more than curiosity that fuels my interest now. An earlier story broke on NewsNetFive.com back in December. Other reports have come from irregular times during the past year, but now it's an alarming increase.

Tuesday, MSNBC published a consumer-interest article about a new trend in car theft/vandalism.
Why take the whole car when the catalytic converter alone is worth a mint?

From the MSNBC article:

Catalytic converters have only small traces of the metals -- platinum, palladium and rhodium -- but there's enough in them for a thief to resell stolen units for up to $200 apiece. Rhodium is among the most expensive metals on Earth, commanding as much as $6,000 an ounce on the open market.

I did my own checking on the going rate of rhodium, it's now over $8,000 USD per troy ounce!

The soaring price for precious metals is the clear motivator for this phenomenon, and gives whole new meaning to “cut and run”.

What else do we own that we should be protecting? (or- well... selling for scrap?) For that matter, what's the reason behind the skyrocketing price? Does the mining slowdown in South Africa explain this, or could it also be something else?