My First Bullions!!

Yeah!!

 

There's the 5 ozt .999 fine silver from Sunshine Mint on the left, and a 5g .999 fine gold from Credit Suisse.  Those scratches you see on the silver actually belongs to its plastic cover. And my camera is v.lousy, so I can't take sharp pictures. Feels good to finally own them! Especially when I hold the heavy silver in my hand :)

You can get a pocket weighing scale to weigh your bullions (one way to test for authenticity). It shows about 5 grams in the above picture (0.4g from the plastic cover and the air inside it -_- ). Fake ones will normally be overweight or underweight. Another more advanced method is to get a jeweler's loupe and examine your bullions under magnification. It took me a 2 hours to find the loupe in Chinatown. It doesn't help that most chinese sellers there do not understand English, and it doesn't help that my Mandarin is at the kindergarten level.

Anyway, wish all collectors out there good health and wealth!

Jin

What about exchange rates?

My main concern regarding this investment was the loss of profits through exchange rates. When gold rises in USD, it means that USD has devalued. USD will weaken against SGD. This means that less SGD is needed to buy more USD, and hence the profit of gold made in USD when converted to SGD will be diminished.

The world economic and financial fundamentals are shaky, and though Singapore is economically strong, it will not be spared in a global economic meltdown. The fundamental reason is that SGD is also fiat currency not backed by gold. I've compared Singapore's M1,M2, and M3 (measures of currencies in circulation) against the Singapore GDP (measure of real goods produced) and found that the former is still more than the latter. What does this mean? Inflation in the future. At my last calculation,  Singapore's M3 was $85 billion more than its GDP. Moreover, Singapore has been buying up lots of USD this year! Singapore will lose money on those USD it has bought. These 2 factors are quite enough to convince me that gold can gain in value in terms of SGD, or at least retain the value of SGD. To further back this statement up, let's take a look at some numbers.

I have very painstakingly collected data, put them into an excel spreadsheet and generated the graphs below. How I wish I still have access to the Bloomberg machine in NUS. It'll make my job easier.

This is the SGD/USD historical exchange rate, since 1970:




This is the average gold prices in USD and SGD. I converted USD into SGD using the exchange rates in the previous graph:




As we can see here, gold prices in SGD moves in tandem with gold prices in USD. So any concerns with losses due to exchange rates may be alleviated.


Jin

Silver Exit Strategy

So far I've talked about buying silver. But what about selling? When is the right time to sell? Well, frankly I have no idea on the exact timing that one should sell his/her silver. I am not a day-to-day trader who tries to time the market price movements. I am more of a long-term value investor. I believe the fundamentals of the global economic/financial systems are shaky. When mayday finally comes, the undervalued silver will have its price shot up to the moon. While I can't time the market, I can at least plan to exit at a price I am comfortable with. I think I will exit the market when silver hits USD 150-200. That's my initial plan. The plan is flexible to changes, but those changes must be based on fundamentals and not emotions (eg. greed/fear). Well, that's easier said than done.

Anyway, I have seen and heard predictions that silver prices will rise to the range of  $100-1000. Being  a conservative myself, I think it will rise to $150-200. Here are some reasons why:

1) I compare the gold:silver price ratios. Historically, the ratio was about 12:1 to 15:1. Right now it's about 66:1. That's a huge undervaluation of silver. At a $950 gold, silver should be more than $60. And remember that right now gold is still way undervalued. In the last gold/silver boom in 1980, the ratio was about 17:1. I have many good reasons to believe that this time round, the ratio can drop back to 12:1, or even 10:1.

2) Silver is harder to analyze than gold. Several inferences can be made of silver when we analyze gold. I made a rough calculation that gold prices will be 5-6k, by comparing the troughs and peaks of previous gold booms. In the previous 3 gold booms, gold has risen by 16-20x in terms of dollars. For the current cycle, the trough is about $300. Now the price of gold is $950, an increase of only 3x. It is still cheap at $950. For history to repeat itself yet again, gold has to hit at least $5,000 (I won't be surprised if it rises above $10k, the reasons I won't discuss here). And based on this estimated gold price, I apply my assumption of the gold:silver price ratio to get a high estimated price for silver (Do a calculation and see for yourself  =D ). Another reason to think gold is undervalued is because historically, the Dow Jones Industrial Average will be fairly priced if it costs about 4 oz of gold. Now I think it's about 10 oz of gold. So we see how overvalued stocks are, and how undervalued gold is. And how even more undervalued silver is.

3) In the 1980 economic downturn, silver shot up to a record high of $50. $50 adjusted for inflation will be about $130 right now! And considering that now we have far more excess currencies and rapidly growing silver supply deficits than in 1980, oh boy I wonder how high silver can go.

4) The quantity of silver available for investment is now lesser than the quantity of gold available for investment. I can't remember the figures, but it's somewhere in my research archive. Silver is very important in the technology sector. Without silver, we won't have all these electronics that we enjoy using today. However, new silver production is way too low to meet industrial demands. Up till now, the supply deficit is being covered by governments selling their huge stockpiles of silver. I believe they also sell their stockpile for the purpose of suppressing silver prices. Now with their stockpiles dwindled, they are selling less and less. And the real supply-demand deficit is becoming more and more apparent. For the past few decades, the mining business has been unprofitable because of the artificially low prices of gold and silver. But things are about to change.

5) I believe silver prices(needless to say, gold prices too) are being manipulated. There is a really huge position on the short(sell) side, and this position is being taken up by just a few individuals. The number of shorts has drastically increased in the current financial crisis. They can only do so for so long. When the day of reckoning finally comes, due to market forces or because they're being exposed by investigators, it'll be an avalanche of losses for these individuals, and silver prices will shoot up overnight to USD 100 at least. Again, I don't have the figures at my fingertips. If you want to find out more yourself, search for Ted Butler's articles. On a sidenote, you can look at GATA, an organization which is trying to expose the gold manipulations. They have really good information.

6) Silver has always been the second money. China has started minting silver. And it has been quietly amassing huge quantities of gold too, along with Russia. When gold starts to get priced out of the middle class' reach, the horde will rush to silver, a way cheaper alternative store of wealth. This has happened throughout history. Gold always rises first, followed by silver.

There you have it. I may have more reasons but I can't think of them right now. Gotta re-study my O Levels materials because I'm giving tuition now.

Anyway, gold and silver prices will only drop IF world currency supplies drop drastically, IF the world gets rid of the currencies excesses printed for the past few decades. If this happens, real deflation will set in. And deflation is what every government dreads and will try everything at its disposal to avoid. Prices and income may drop, but the nominal amount of debt won't drop. It'll be unimaginable chaos. What the world has been doing is to print and print currencies in the past few decades to get out of recessions. To think that a country can grow itself out of the problem is wrong. I have not seen a nation or an empire succeed in this strategy. The real solution is not to print more money, but to let the recessions run its course, to correct the imbalances. Anyway, all these excess currencies will flow into gold and silver soon. Prepare yourself!

Jin

TV analysts

Some analysts on  CNBC and Fox News are annoying. They don't see the fundamentals of economics. Here's a video to proof it. In the video below, only Peter Schiff got it right, in predicting our current financial crisis. His fundamentals are very logical and sound, and I've learned a lot from him. There are a lot of such interesting squabbles on youtube.

Here's a description written by the video uploader:
Ben Stein, Neal Cavuto, Arther Laffer, Charles Payne and others down right laugh at Peter Schiff in the years and months leading up to the 2008 economic crisis. Anchors and so-called experts on the economy openly laugh at Schiff. And these people are still allowed to be on TV.

Ben Stein is still being portrayed on Television as knowledgeable about the economy when he was embarrassingly wrong. 
 


Apologize to Peter Schiff



Even Steve Forbes and Warren Buffet are bullish on the US economy and supportive of the bailouts and stimulus plans, even though they know fully well that such policies were the root cause of the current crisis. Wall Street people just want their stocks to go higher, that's all they care. Ultimately, people in the  Main Street suffer.

The worse is yet to come. There are gonna be bigger crashes in the future, and I won't be surprised if the govt comes up with bigger stimulus and bailouts. Bigger deficits, bigger debts. Do you see how USA keeps on increasing its debt ceiling? What's the point of even having the ceiling in the first place if it's not to be observed? And yesterday, Obama revised upwards the US' 10-yr deficit estimate to 9 trillion dollars.

Soon the world will stop feeding the US with loans. The usd currency may crash, and if so, the world will be plunged into a spectacular depression.

Random Update

I guess I won't be posting much stuff in the next 2days. Just started a tuition assignment on Sunday. I have to focus on refreshing my memory on O levels stuff for now. Bought 4 books which cost me $50 just for memory refreshment. But it's very well worth it.

As for precious metals investment, 2-3 of my friends are going to entrust their money with me. I feel happy, excited and a bit nervous at the same time. Nervous because I am going to manage other people's money. Happy because they are going to invest together with me, and excited because of the huge potential profit to be made. Cheers to our investment!

I went to a career fair at Suntec on Sunday. Thanks Cheng Xin for inviting! It was like any other career fair, nothing much to apply for actually. But I'm glad I got to apply for a free stock trading account. I wanted to do some intensive research on stock picking this week, especially in mining stocks (and maybe agriculture), but I guess I have to put that on hold for a while.

Helping my tutee prepare for his O levels takes precedence.

The greatest wealth transfer ever?

I've talked so much in my previous posts. It's time to take a breather. Half-time entertainment:

I will invest myself in precious metals and commodities. And I'll take a hard look at agriculture. Seems that agriculture is very under-invested by nations right now.

I don't like to make short-term price predictions, but just for fun, prices may hit these levels in 3-5 years' time:

Gold above USD 2,500 (currently below 950)
Silver above USD 40 (currently 14+)
Oil above USD 200 (currently 70+)

What this means is that precious metals/(some)commodities investors can probably see their investments double or triple in value. This may not happen in the next few years, I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball and I'm not a professional trader who tries to time the market. I'm more of a buy and hold kind of value investor.

But some time in the future, these prices will be realized. I am confident of higher prices actually, but that may happen be in 10 years' time. Even if taking into account possible losses from exchange rates and after doing some calculations, I feel that there's still profit to be made. Worse comes to worst, the precious metals will retain the purchasing power of your cash =)

Long-term (5-10 year) predictions:

Gold above USD 5-6k
Silver above USD 200

In fact, apart from physical metals, I think mining stocks will have a stellar performance when all the other stocks are dropping. I will look for small mining companies which have discovered new mining fields. In the future, the bigger companies will buy up these small companies, at a great price. Stocks are more tricky though, so be careful when picking companies.

I am very bullish on gold and silver. The physical precious metals market is so super small compared to the sizes of bonds, derivatives, stocks markets right now. When all these bubbles burst, all the excess currencies are gonna flood into precious metals (and other commodities). I've heard a good analogy somewhere. It's like trying to force all the water from a Hoover Dam down a garden hose. The transfer of wealth from these asset types to the precious metals asset type will be immense.

Inflation of currency supply by the central banks is detrimental to the economy. Most recenly, we heard news that Iceland had become bankrupt. That was quite astonishing to me. I remember a few years back, I was watching a youtube video on Iceland. Back then, I saw a beautiful and pleasantly surprisingly rich country. It went bankrupt! There're riots, food shortages, basically its whole economy collapses. Yet, we do not see much news on Iceland in the media. What about the UK, its closest neighbour? UK is in very serious trouble now. Don't have much info on the country either. On a more positive note, in Asia, smart China has been quietly amassing gold for years, although its gold reserve currently forms < 2% of its total reserves. Anyway, China (and Russia) knows that the USD is going to be devalued by a lot. The USD is still the world's largest reserve currency. It forms about 70% of world reserve currencies. When economic meltdown of the US happens in the foreseeable future, it'll be chaos worldwide.

Finally, of course, all these stuff that I've written in this post are backed up by tons of hard research. There're too much things to write down here, so I won't do that.

Disclaimer: Do your own research first! Don't come and sue me if you lose money =.=



Jin

Inflation!!

I have to diverge a bit from what I promised you in the previous post. I think I need to address the issue of inflation first.

I once asked a friend, "Why are prices of goods around us increasing?"
He replied, "Inflation."
I stared at him, expecting him to say more, but his eyes were quizzical. "Not Happy!?! What do you want, huh!"

If you ask anyone on the streets this question, most likely they'll say what my friend said to me. But it is doubtful that they know exactly the process of inflation, nor will they really realize the impact of inflation.

To give you an example using the US dollar here: Had there been not such rampant inflation of the USD in the past 100 years, a barrel of crude oil would have cost only $3.50 instead of $70 right now. A $55,000 car now would have cost only $1,500.

That is the disastrous effect of inflation. It basically means that your purchasing power with your money drops. USD has dropped in value (and purchasing power) by more than 96% in the past 100 years. In the more serious case of hyperinflation, you will see your ENTIRE life savings wiped out overnight.

How is this possible? The reason is because of rampant central banks' creation of currencies. Creation of currencies out of thin air. If you remember the goldsmith story (real story) in the previous post, you can probably figure out why. The goldsmith printed 3 receipts, which should be exchangeable for 3000 oz of gold. However, those receipts are only worth 2000 oz gold. The paper receipt in your hand loses purchasing power.

Recently, a Canadian minister did a survey on the people on the streets. High-flying professionals, graduates with great degrees, poor people, rich people, he interviewed them all. What he found out was that not a single one of them knows accurately how money is created. I have mentioned central banks' ability to create currencies out of thin air, but there is more to this (I'll explain next time).

When central banks print currencies, these excess currencies have to go somewhere. These currencies have to chase after the same amount of real goods in the economy. Thus the effect is a general rise in prices, what we perceive as inflation.

The original definition of inflation was: An increase in supply of currencies (more than an increase in supply of real goods)
Now, its definition has been tweaked to: A general rise in prices.

If the word has kept its original definition, maybe more of the population can see the truth. That reckless printing of currencies will lead to inflation down the road. No doubt, printing of currencies spur economic growth, but that is only in the short term, and this economic growth creates an illusion of prosperity. In the long term, there will be economic crashes. This is short term gain, long term pain. I do not know how the current popular definition of inflation got a foothold in our dictionary.

I hope by now that you see the real story behind inflation. The central banks have the power to create excess currencies. Specifically, I want to talk about the US Federal Reserves, and how its actions are going to contribute to a great economic collapse in the near future, an economic depression potentially more disastrous than the Great Depression in 1930s when international trade plunged by more than 1/2 to 2/3. In fact, our recent financial crisis could have been this disastrous, had it not been for government intervention in pumping huge bucket loads of credit into the economy, with plans for more stimulus if they deem it necessary. This seems like the right thing to do, because we are hearing reports that the economy is improving, that the worse is behind us................or is it?

I'll end the post here. Time for some Japanese drama :D


Jin

Smart Goldsmiths......and Government

Man Utd lost last night. Owell. Burnley fought well, credits to them.

So where were we... Oh yeah, the goldsmiths. The goldsmiths kept gold for the population. They lent their own gold to the merchants, charging interest. Remember gold is something which stores value. It is used to facilitate exchanges of goods. It has REAL, intrinsic value. Anyway, here's my best effort to re-enact a possible scene at a goldsmith in the past (note: any resemblance of the characters to real people is just a coincidence):


Goldsmith JM has 1000oz gold of his own. Rosy deposited her 1000oz of gold for a small fee, and in return, she received a paper receipt from JM. The paper receipt can be redeemed for the gold anytime.


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Along came little Appu, to get a loan for his new business venture. JM lent out his own 1000oz of gold to Appu, charging interest. Now JM technically did not have anymore gold to lend out.

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Next, Ms.Cheng came along, to borrow 1000oz for her new business venture. But alas, JM has no more gold of his own to loan out! (note: please ignore Rosy's gold first. Now we're just talking about the goldsmith loaning out his very own gold. Think about it. He can't just loan another person's belonging to someone else)


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JM thought of a brilliant idea. He tricked Ms. Cheng into thinking that he actually did have 1000oz of gold! Ms. Cheng did not know that JM had lent out his own gold to Appu.

What is happening here? JM issued 2 paper receipts of 1000oz gold each. These 2 paper receipts were only backed by his own 1000oz of REAL, physical gold. He had effectively DILUTED Appu's and Rosy's 1000oz receipts by half (ignoring Rosy's gold)! Appu's 1000oz receipt is now worth only 500oz gold. And he had no idea about this. And what's more, JM gets to earn interest from this phantom gold receipt that he had issued to Ms. Cheng. He is gonna earn free money out of money that he created out of thin air. Sounds absurd? Wait, JM got even smarter.

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Now, even Rosy, the depositor of 1000oz gold, would get her 1000oz receipt diluted. Effectively, the 3 paper receipts out there are worth 2000 oz gold.
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So there you go. Currency supply can be easily and artificially inflated. The governments and kings, and our modern central banks are synonymous to the goldsmith. Governments want control of the money, because it is key to controlling an empire. Unfortunately, for every dollar that the govt/central banks print, all the existing dollars out there got devalued. This is a hidden tax on the unsuspecting population, in the form of inflation. This is essentially govts and banks stealing wealth away from the population. And it can get VERY costly for the population, as I'm gonna explain in my subsequent posts.

Throughout history, rulers of empires had tried to control money. They tried to cheat gold. They printed tons of money out of thin air for themselves, because they needed to fund costly wars and expand their empires. But 100% of the time, all the empires that attempted this eventually saw their currencies fail. This had happened throughout history, starting from the first recorded inflation in the world in Athens in 400+ B.C. The Free Market will always revert back to gold, something that is physical, real and has intrinsic value. When this happens, paper currency always go back to its real value: the value of paper. I'm not lying. Look here: http://dollardaze.org/blog/?post_id=107

In my next post, I will talk more about the events that happened in the past 100years. About how the world tried and tested various economic systems. Our current economic system is about 40 years old. There is gonna be a big transfer of wealth in the foreseeable future when the population starts to see bigger and bigger cracks in this system. When the flaws are finally apparent to the population. In fact, it has already started.

Till then, stay tuned!



Jin

The History of Moneyyyy

Once upon a time, there were 2 tribes, tribe ABC and tribe XYZ. ABC specialized in fishing, they had no cows but they loved to eat beef. XYZ specialized in breeding cows, in getting cows to make love with each other. They did not have a clue about fishing but they loved to eat fish. So what did these 2 tribes do? They bartered with each other. 20 fish for 1 cow. Now the ABC tribe ate the cow, without realizing it had STD. Many died. ABC had 80% of its original population left. From then on, ABC only needs 4/5 of a cow from XYZ. How much is 4/5 of a cow? The head + 4 legs ? Or the belly + the tail? Or what?

Well, we can see that this system of bartering is inefficient. It is hard to measure the value of a product relative to another. Furthermore, what if ABC had wanted the cows, but XYZ did not want the fishes. The world needs a 'universal' currency that can measure the value of every goods. They tried seashells, coconuts, dog hairs, you name it, they've tried it.

Over many thousands of years, the FREE market finally hit upon the best money: GOLD (the second best money being silver). Gold was eventually chosen as the best money because it is rare, durable and cannot be replicated.

Around the 16th century (if I remember correctly), trade was prospering. Many merchants carry gold around as money. Some goldsmiths started to offer gold storage services for these merchants, for some fees. In return, the goldsmiths issued a paper receipt, which allowed the receipt holder to come back and redeem his gold anytime. That was when the concept of paper money was first born. The merchants started trading with each other using these paper receipts, as if they're the real money (remember gold is the real money). If any merchant wants to redeem his receipts for gold, he can go to the goldsmiths to do so.

The goldsmiths had some gold of their own too. They started to lend out their own gold to merchants, charging interest. Now, most of the major religions in the past forbid usury (i.e. interest). But as trade booms, merchants need more and more money to fund their business expansions. Eventually, moral grounds gave way, and interest is accepted as a form of compensation for the goldsmiths for lending out their gold to these merchants. Nowadays, only Islamic banking forbids interest.

Trade continues to prosper. Everything looks fine. Yeah! But soon, the goldsmiths realized a way to manipulate the market and the gold that they had. It was not the goldsmiths who first manipulated gold though. Governments and Kings had been doing it for a thousand years (I don't know exactly how many years but it's a lot).

Anyway, stay tuned to find out more in my next post. I'm gonna watch Burnley vs Man Utd. My favourite team is trailing 0-1. Rats!

Jin

My (second) Life-Changing Book

Ok...Maybe my primary objective is not to protect wealth (I have none) as stated in the first post, but rather..I enjoy learning the game of money because it's fun. The process of making money is fun. Having the money in my hands is secondary.

For the past 3 weeks, I have been researching on a new-found investment opportunity, day and night. Literally day and night! No more dota, no more anime (i started, and finished reading 2 mangas to cut time), no more watching random youtube videos. All my time are spent reading and watching videos related to this opportunity. I've played less piano than usual, and I'm gonna temporarily halt my formal piano lessons to focus entirely on this investment. I no longer sleep at 2-3am. Now I sleep at 5am. My mind is just consumed by this. Sound like a no-lifer, but yeah I am.

What is this opportunity I'm talking about? To put it simply, it has got to do with precious metals. Gold and Silver. I cannot explain the opportunity in this post yet, because I have to tell you the fundamentals, and that may take some time. But before that, I want to talk more nonsense stuff. It has been a long time since I write essays. It was rather fun to write - once you get started, that is. So to do my GP teacher (whom I like a lot) proud, I shall continue writing boring essays. So here goes..

I would never have stumbled across this opportunity had a friend of mine not asked me to do a favour for him. I have a very good friend who is a sailor. He shall be known as Appu in my blog. Anyway, Appu brought back a sapphire ring which he bought in a Myanmar street for USD 50. I remembered we were in a cab one night, and he showed me the ring, saying something like "Dude, help me value and sell this ring. If it's valuable, we can have a nice business here. I'll keep on buying from Burma and you sell here in Singapore." Being someone who is not a non-boastful guy, he made sure that the taxi driver hears of this brilliant idea as he talks to me. I couldn't help but to laugh to myself inside.

So, off I went to clementi a few days later. I checked with several jewelry shops, and as expected, they don't buy from individuals. So I have no choice but to try the pawnshop. A mixed feeling of foreboding and excitement engulfed me as I entered the shop and waited patiently while the lady behind the counter scrutinized the ring. Finally, she turned to me and uttered, "It's fake."

I had wasted one hour in Clementi doing this. And being the otaku that I was at that time, 1 hour is very precious to me. 1 hour is equivalent to 2 anime episodes, or 1 dota game with my higher-otaku friends Hoa and JM. So I headed to my usual haunt - a bookshop, to check out on new books. I saw a book I've never seen before: Rich Dad's Advisors: Guide to Investing in Gold and Silver: Everything you Need to Know Now to Profit from Precious Metals (by Mike Maloney). Gosh. What a long title.



Although I was kinda broke and am not really excited by investing in gold and silver, I grabbed the book without a second thought. I also bought another thick book by Robert Kiyosaki on Real Estate Investment. I'm a Rich Dad series' fan, you see.

That night I started reading Maloney's book. And holy cow! What a revelation!! I was hooked. Over the next day, I read through the book like a beast. I started discussing on Msn with some friends. Of course, they're super skeptical of me. "Jin, you think too much". "Jin you're brainwashed by the book". "Jin, if you buy some silver, I'll come and rob you".

Even so, I lent JM my book. I dislike lending people my new books, especially if unwrapped. Who knows what kind of weird stains my friends will leave on them. But the book is too good to keep to myself. I have to share it. It took him 3-4 days to finally start reading (because of his hectic otaku activities). And he was instantly hooked. I made an urgent trip down to another friend's house to lend her the book. And oh dear me, Ms. Cheng waited one whole week before she starts to read the book. But she was hooked too. :D

There is something in this book which is so true and hard-hitting. I had thought that my finance modules in NUS were crap. I do not think that I learned much in Uni. This book helped me connect the dots. Now I think 50% of my modules are actually useful after all. The other 50% are still crap though.

Enough of my bantering. I will try to summarize the book, and all my research thus far. On my next post, I will start with The History of Money. Stay tuned!

Jin

The game of money

This is my first time writing a personal blog. Partly because I have some free time, and also partly because I wish to share the knowledge that I have about money. In the next few days I'll be posting some stuff about money, and hopefully I can keep this blog going for a while with some good posts. I'm never the kind of person to do this kind of thing -.- but owell

Basically we all need money to survive. Since young, we have all already sort of started on our financial journeys. We go to school as kids, all in preparation for the later stages of our lives when we need to earn money. What does money mean to me? For me, money is a game. Understand the game well and you will do well. Not having a clue about the game, and you'll be taken advantage of by those who do. There's this 10-90 rule in the money game. 10% of the population holds 90% of the money, 90% of the rest have the rest of the money.

But yeah people will say money can't buy happiness. Well, it certainly can't buy all the happiness that you want, but it'll make life a lot easier and convenient. You won't have to worry about your bills, medical expenses, kids' education bla bla bla. Since money is so important to us, I am astounded that schools don't give students financial education. Even up to the University level. We are not being given financial education. I bet even most of the profs don't even have it =) How are we gonna win in the game of money this way?

A lot of people will just happily work hard, save save and save, and don't take what they would call "risks". There's nothing wrong with this. In fact the past 3-4 years had been a time of doldrums for me, after 2 failed business ventures. I'm starting to think that I should play safe, work hard, save up the good old fashioned way. Even so, I do not refrain from reading educational financial books, and the more I read, the more I feel uncomfortable that I'm not doing something to grow my money. I have to start all over again somewhere, and recently, I think I've hit something incredible. Anyway, I'm not gonna claim that I have tons of financial knowledge. I'm still learning. But I can assure you that there's a fallacy about risks in investments that 90% of the population has. The more one educates oneself about money, the more he/she can reduce the risk. In fact, people who save money his/her whole life are going to end up losing the most. I view that as the most risky investment one can have. In the next few posts, I hope I can tell you why I think this way (if u wanna know).

This is not about being ambitious, or about being greedy. That's not the primary motivation. The primary motivation is to protect one's hard-earned money, and to prevent oneself from losing to the rich in the game of money. Believe me, 90% of the population loses a lot of money without knowing it.

And to end my first post: NOTE! I'm NOT in MLM! nor am I an insurance agent! Sorry to those people who're in these lines. no hard feelings :D

Cheers
Jin