Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb
Let us recap the plunge in gold price during mid April 2013: April 10 - Goldman’s “short” call coincided with it slashing its short- and long-term forecasts for the yellow metal. April 12 - Gold embarked on its worst two-day plunge since futures first started trading in New York. April 16 - Gold intra day traded at USD1350/ounce BUT April 23 - Goldman Sachs has covered its gold short. (Stop Shorting!) Goldman was telling clients to take profits and move on, even as it expected prices to keep falling throughout the year.
May be it was due to CHINA DA MA?? The recent drop in gold has created a huge surge in Asian gold demand. The feverish buying has left many of Hong Kong’s banks, jewellers and even its gold exchange without enough yellow metal to meet demand. It is happening elsewhere in Asia. Round 1: China DA MA vs Wall Street (中國大媽 vs 華爾街) China DA MA Score. 1:0 What is your bet after Round 3? Gold UP or DOWN trend.
Thanks to my fan :> who summarised it nicely on my previous post... Albert Einstein was deeply concerned about the dangers of the new nuclear age development started since 1946 and one famous quote was inspired by his remarks and quoted "I fear the day that technology will surpass humanity. The world will have a generation of idiots." What have we learned after the foresight, not much... Three Mile Island accident(1979), Chernobyl disaster(1986), Fukushima disaster(2011) blaa bla bla...
Smartphone addicts is a good example. What can we do?What's more. Joseph Stiglitz Nobel laureate said in an address at Dhurakij Pundit University in Bangkok lately that many of the innovations that led to productivity increases in manufacturing ended up playing a role in the economic downturn that began in 2008. The result has been years of instability and inequality caused by a slowdown in global employment. It is simply termed as Technological Unemployment. I watched the video and start pondering....
New Age of Technology means Rising Living Standard - A Myth? Why did it happen? Who is behind all these? Where are we heading? When is our self realization (globally)? What can we do? and How ? "The change in the global rules should also have led us to higher standards, and yet it seems just having the opposite effect." -- Joseph Stiglitz 16th March 2013. Frankly, I don't have any answers of the above questions. I am seeking... Until then I wholeheartedly live with the quote "緣起性空，觀空放下". (A bit profound to translate into English, my apology for lack of English proficiency. Copy the words and find out more yourself in web, you may learn a lot )
Today when our family spending time together outing and we noticed that we were somehow infected with the Generation Y 'sickness' which is SMARTPHONE ADDICT. Good Relationship with others is part and puzzle of building one's wealth. I wonder where our society is heading with this worrying trend. I bet this HEAD DOWN SYNDROME is across generations. Sorry to label it as Generation Y sickness, but if it could shame the elderly into setting up a good role model for their kids...it is a good try!
I met my old friend yesterday. We relished our pass, were complaining the present and anticipating the future. We discussed about what to invest amid this volatile market. I mentioned Numismatic Coin but offer little convincing argument. I found the youtube video which reinforces my preaching on Numismatic Coin. Would like to share with my friend and the rest.
Finally, the below quote summarises it all. "Our entire currency system is imaginary...we're all dreaming the same dream. If anybody chooses to wake up..., it's over." Mike Maloney
I heard this story from a seminar, it inspired me and would like to share, with some modification.
The story goes when a certain tribe hunts monkeys, they cut a coconut in two, place an orange in the middle and then put them back together again, with a hole cut in the middle that is big enough for a monkey’s hand to go through. When the monkey smells the orange, he puts his hand in the hole, grabs the orange and then cannot free his hand with the orange in his fist. The monkey would refuse to let go of its “precious” even when the hunters came to catch it. The monkey is clueless of the trap in a first place, when trapped it insists to hold onto the orange eventually lose its freedom forever.
In current world of investment, we usually hold onto something so called "asset" which eventually become a debt for a long period of time. We are framed into investing in future but rather get ourselves stuck in modern enslavement succumbed to the wealthy corporate interests. The more you wanna yourself catch up with the current market trend, the more you turn into a monkey yourself. After all, the word "money" and "monkey" different by a letter "K" which is so called KNOWLEDGE. You want money but do not want to become monkey, then throw all the so called modern investment "knowledge" away!as they are ultimately devoid of facts and deceiving.
Besides the inspired story, listed the key words I can still remember...
make money ≠ grow money
silver - industrial demand - inventory - essential for barter
With 80 participants, neuroscientists from Birkbeck University and Myndplay EEG brainwave reading headsets, the study want to find out how every day pleasures compare. Then make the first ever scale for measuring pleasure. In association with chocolate brand Beyond Dark and technology company Myndplay, the first ever 'measure for pleasure' has been formulated.
In an economy where every penny counts, an unexpected windfall generated the highest and most sustained level of pleasure amongst all participants. And winning £10 was all it took to dramatically increase people’s feelings of pleasure.In addition men were revealed as most affected by winning money, scoring as high as 90.1 when they were surprised with £10, while women were less impressed, scoring 79.3. This EEG experiment proves that money can really buy happiness!
Who are the genius coming up with this scale? Let's put our hand together to welcome ...
As I said, health is the most important things of your wealth. Guard it well especially Chinese New Year is around the corner when the spike in Flu is likely catalysed during the gathering . Lately, my friend ask me to try this at home since I was sneezing all these days. You never know home is a breeding ground for bacteria and virus!
Put a bowl of Onion slices at Living room, Bedroom and places you spend time in. You can fork the slice and put them in vase as décor like in the pictures.
Occasionally, I can smell the natural onion fragrance around the rooms... hey... not bad! Try it. At the time of writing, red onion sold at RM 3.00 per kg. After all, the best defence against the flu is having a strong immune system.
The Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), also called the Asian tapir, is the largest of the four species of tapir and the only one native to Asia. Out of all tapirs, Malayan Tapirs are the closest to extinction. It is because the forests are disappearing. Living in small numbers in small forests, it's hard to find food. They're also have trouble in finding mates. Their numbers are becoming smaller. In China, recorded in Ming-history document 明代馬歡的《瀛涯勝覽·舊港國篇》classified Malayan tapir as Heavenly Creature due to its appearance partly similar to deer and partly resemble pig; however, it is vegetarian. In Japan, Tapir turns into the Dream Eater creatures originally base on BAKU a supernatural being that devour dreams and nightmares. Even Nintendo created the Drowzee, a bipedal and Hypnosis Pokémon in its video game. In Malaysia Cipan is the most honourable species after all(at least for me). Why? Quoted lunaticg.blogspot "The Malaysia RM500 Cipan (Malayan Tapir) Conservation Proof 1976 gold coin (KN6) graded PCGS PR69 DCAM with a realized price of SD6400 at Monetarium Auction in Singapore on 26-10-2012. The coin he won is the most expensive Malaysia commemorative coin won in auction. The total price for the coin including 15% auction premium will be approximately RM18,403. The highest price paid so far in auction for any Malaysia commemorative coin or Malaysia gold coin. Some people were saying that the price is still lower then Malaysia market price since it is very hard nowadays to find RM500 Tapir gold coin and the PGCS PR69 grade for that coin. ...In 1975-1976 the Royal Mint UK together with the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and IUCNNR (World Wildlife Fund, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) issued a 12 pieces collection of silver proof coins, two each from six different countries (Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sudan, Venezuela & Zaire). In 1974-1976, 24 countries mint 1 gold and 2 silver coins (In total 24 gold coins & 48 silver coins) for Wildlife conservation series with each coin featuring an endangered species from that country. The countries that were invited to issued conservation coins: Afghanistan, Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Fiji, Falkland Islands, Gambia, Indonesia, Jordan, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Venezuela, Zaire and Zambia." Unquoted.
At White House daily briefing (Jan 09), NBC News' Chuck Todd pressed Press Secretary Jay Carney to rule out that option, and while Carney said there is "no substitute" for congressional action on the debt limit, he arguably did not rule it out!
The Global Risks Report 2013 analyses 50 global risks in terms of impact, likelihood and interconnections, based on a survey of over 1000 experts from industry, government and academia.
This year’s findings show that the world is more at risk as persistent economic weakness saps our ability to tackle environmental challenges. The report highlights the below as the most likely global risk overall.
Wealth gaps (severe income disparity)
Unsustainable government debt (chronic fiscal imbalances)
Extreme weather, from Hurricane Sandy to flooding in China, respondents rated rising greenhouse gas emissions
The findings of the survey fed into an analysis of three major risk cases: Testing Economic and Environmental Resilience, Digital Wildfires in a Hyperconnected World and The Dangers of Hubris on Human Health. In a special report on national resilience, the groundwork is laid for a new country resilience rating, which would allow leaders to benchmark their progress. The report also highlights “X Factors” – emerging concerns which warrant more research, including the rogue deployment of geoengineering and brain-altering technologies.
Malaysia’s first exchange-traded bonds and Sukuk (ETBS) launched today is expected to offer an annual return of about 3.7 per cent. The offer will be from Jan 8 until Jan 18.
(to be continue...)
And the catch is...the profit rate will be determined at the close of the book building of the institutional offering Jan 18!! What interest me again is the tax incentive! see below.
I visited an antique shop somewhere in PJ yesterday. I came across an British sovereign gold coin and it really excited me. I asked the owner if it was genuine gold and she replied that it was real 22K gold which used to be given by parent in olden days to child who studied abroad. This is because the sovereign gold coin was widely traded semi-numismatic gold coins in the world. They are also the official coinage of English Royalty and since been first minted to honour Henry VII in 1489 they have been issued for all English Kings and Queens since.
Production of Sovereigns stopped in 1991 due to the rise in the price of gold. The gold in sovereigns was worth more than the face value of the coins. Also, interesting to know that 1933 was the first year in over a hundred that no sovereigns were produced throughout the whole empire.
There are many recorded fake or counterfeit gold sovereigns in circulation. Worst in scenario is to come across fake sovereign coins where the gold is replaced or alloyed with a substitute metal to look like gold. Such fakes can be relatively easily detected by measurement and weighing using jewellers scales.
Unfortunately, owner didn't have any scales to verify the weight(i.e. 7.9881g). Well, given a benefit of doubt on cashing out RM1450 is worth the money, I decided to take pictures using my smartphone and try to see if there is other way to identify a real gold from a fool gold.
No such luck....
But what if I have an AR equipped Smartphone with me! Remember Terminator?!
2013 is a year to expect for Augmented Reality in the market. Then I would have this when I point my smartphone on it....HOW NICE.
After the tax hikes passed, the next spending cut is postponed for another 2 months, by which time US Congress must cast a vote on country's debt ceiling. A side track of US fiscal cliff, somebody proposed to have a Platinum Commemorative Coin to solve the debt crisis! Anyway, the influential New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has already dubbed the idea a "gimmick." However, it prompts me to look into Platinum investment!!! cos it is quite undervalue now. Look at the the chart below...
Product Concept / The Story Behind It The idea of detachable bullion CombiBars™ came in the summer of 2010. Due to global banking and european currency crises, more and more investors started to demand a higher number of small bars rather than few larger ones to increase their flexibility in the event of an economic crisis or to simplify future trading. Once they were patented, ESG, the German company Heimerle + Meule and the Swiss Mint Valcambi joined to produce and market the divisible bars worldwide. It was reported on Dec 21 (Reuters) - "Private investors in Switzerland, Austria and Germany are lining up to buy gold bars the size of a credit card that can easily be broken into one gram pieces and used as payment in an emergency." "The rich are buying standard bars or have deposits of phsyical gold. People that have less money are buying up to 100 grams," said Michael Mesaric, CEO of Valcambi full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/21/swiss-gold-idUSL5E8NL4N820121221 This money of last resort is for scary world. The popularity among buyers can serve as indicators too (i.e. Abundance, Fear, Bank Run or Hyperinflation etc). Now Switzerland, Austria and Germany are reported to be the Nation welcoming the introduction. If this phenomenon is spreading to Asia, we can expect the hyperinflation is around the corner.
These coins are legal tender in Malaysia. PROOF Silver Set Year: 1976 Material: 925 Silver
Size:RM25 (42mm Dia.), RM15 (38.61mm Dia.) Edge: Milled
Weight:RM25 (35g), RM15 (28.28g) Mintage: 7,500 sets For Sale Price: 550 USD Contact: virtualwork20@gmail.com for more info, pls go tohttp://www.malaysiancoin.com/2012/12/syiling-pemuliharaan-hidupan-liar-1976.html
Once upon a time in a village a man appeared who announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys went out in the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish and villagers started to stop their effort, he announced that now he would buy at $20.This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching moneys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The price was increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so scarce that it was difficult to spot a monkey let alone catch one. The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business his assistant would now buy on behalf of the man. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man comes back you can sell it to him for $50." The villagers squeezed up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!
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