KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 1 — Datuk Seri Idris Jala said today that Malaysia could still become bankrupt within a decade if it spends borrowed money on operational expenditure such as subsidies instead of investing the cash.
^ Yang Berhormat Senator Datuk Seri Idris Jala is the CEO for Pemandu
“If our economy grows less than four per cent… and we don’t cut our operating expenditure, if we borrow at 12.5 per cent, if our annual debt rises to 12.5 per cent and our revenue does not grow, then it will happen,” Idris (picture) said today after announcing the latest investment updates for the government’s economic transformation programme (ETP).
The performance management minister triggered alarm bells with his controversial bankruptcy forecast last year.
Malaysia’s national debt rose by 12.3 per cent to over RM407 billion last year, according to the Auditor-General’s latest report released last week. [Read more →]
I was doing my research and read up on precious metals. While doing that, I found this youtube clip by our local wealth coach, Azizi Ali.
Of all, I particularly like the following quote from him:
“It [gold] was the all time high, ALL THE TIME!”
The video is back dated to Sept 2011 and it is a teaser for his previous seminar on gold and silver. If you are interested in more of his coming seminars, you can visit this link for details: http://www.millionairesplanet.com/GoldSilver.htm [Read more →]
Here is a quick one. I previously blogged about UOB running out of stock for their gold bullion product. UOB is finally out from the Gold Bullion dry spell. They have now replenished their bullion silo with the new 2012 Australian Kangaroo Nugget. Only Australian Kangaroo are available though. I confirmed this as I have paid Jalan Raja Laut’s UOB a visit last Friday. Get it while it lasts!
On another end, a Maybank representative updated me that Kijang Emas will only be in stock from next year onwards.
We managed to catch up with Darryl Ho, the person behind SilverForMalaysia.com and had a quick discussion over PM investing.
Q: Hi Darryl Ho. Can you share with us your early days in investing in Silver? What brings you into investing silver?
I’m a person who always look out for long term investment. I started with property investment and over the years has provide good and stable return. Then a friend has recommend me to Gold investment, back then it was only about USD1000 /oz. With that, I started researching about commodity investment and found that people in China, India, US, Canada and even Middle East have been vastly investing in Gold. And particularly the Americans has already started with Silver as well cause of the affordable price. There goes my journey for gold and silver.
Q: What made you started your own trading?
The demand. There’s lots of Malaysians are aware of silver investment but they do not know where to purchase in Malaysia and it’s quite troublesome to buy online from overseas as well. Lots of things need to take into consideration like the import and sales tax that takes up 15%. It’s not worth to get a few oz from overseas as the shipping and insurance are very expensive. I started to get in a few tubes each time and sell to friends and family, that eventually lower down the cost when you get in bulk. When the demand gets higher, I decided to come out with the website and start to sell to public 🙂 [Read more →]
CK Diong, author of Politicalmetals.com shares his view on “Political Metals”.
Q: Hi CK Diong. Can you share with us how you started investing in Precious Metals?
I have been staring at this question for quite a while, not knowing how to respond. Fact is, I’ve not invested, and if I did, certainly not in Precious Metals.
I happen to be planning for early retirement around the time of the global financial crisis of 2008. It was so violent and swift that I quickly realized it was no ordinary crisis. That was when I decided to invest considerable time into understanding what actually was going on.
My research convinced me that what happened in 2007/08 was not another of those boom and bust economic cycles which will soon come to past, and that we will all be happily riding the next wave up again. I realized for the first time that what’s ahead of us in the next few years will be unlike anything we’ve seen in the past. The global debt-based monetary system is like a house of cards whose time has come.
Hence, I wanted to play safe and decided to take my retirement savings OUT of this precarious monetary system. I converted paper & electronic money into gold and silver, not as an investment, but as a store of value. I view them as Monetary Metals or Political Metals rather than Precious Metals.
Q: What do you think of investing in silver today?
I don’t understand why anyone, save for the most die-hard speculators, would want to invest in something as volatile as silver. Why would anyone invest in something whose price can drop $40 to $26 in less than 72 hours? And, if you know who’s behind the curtain making the silver prices so volatile, you’d want to stay away from this investment.
Having said that, I hold a substantial portion of my assets in the form of silver. I don’t invest in it, I just own it, and yes, that makes a lot of difference.I believe it’s a good asset to hold because like gold, it is a monetary metal that is a good store of value and it has no counter-party risk. [Read more →]