Malaysia Money Matters

It was bound to happen eventually - the lax way the government wastes money, leakages everywhere and so on. In the long run, this downgrade is probably a good thing. It is a wake up call that we have to DO SOMETHING concrete to move our economy to the next step! Off the top of my head, with but a stroke of a pen, the government should: Impose GST - not just to broaden the tax base but to create more oversight into businesses; lets face it, there's way too much cooking of the books. How can business tax be almost equal to personal income tax? (Govt tax revenue sources by petroleum: business: personal is roughly 33:35:32) Shut down / tightly control the money changers and remittance houses - they are the key channel for fund leaving the country under the radar. Banks have to monitor and report to Bank Negara on fund flows but these organisations don't have to. Why? And it's already proven that funds from corruption by politicians have left the country this way. So ...

Gold price dropped significantly - people in Asia flocking back to goldsmith shops to buy up chains, rings and wafers for keeps. Never have I seen so many people crowding the gold shops at the malls, even on week nights! I'm quite taken with this white gold bracelet that I saw in Tomei last weekend, about 16g of 18K going for about RM6,000 - hmmm... paying a lot for the workmanship; better off just getting the wafer for investment, right? :) Think I might compromise and get the wafer AND a smaller piece to wear...huuu.. but that bracelet was soooo nice, looks almost exactly like the steel bracelet that Donghae wore in the early years of Super Junior - yes, I'm a K-pop fan, bite me :-p p.s. Silver has dropped too, worth stocking up on bullion because silver is always in short supply.

Just my thoughts on the issue - a couple of friends asked me about it, seeing that I'm in banking and all but at the time, I didn't know much about it - only what I read in the papers when the whole thing blew up. So being the usual KPC (kay poh chi, although I'm not a 'chi', tqvm); thought I'd do a bit of digging and while most people these days are very sceptical about what the government does (including yours truly), I must say that the raid by BNM and the police has its merits. Assessing the situation by fundamental principles of the set-up, operations and sales pitch by Genneva; there is a real disconnect. To break it down simply: It is not set up as a bank, it cannot accept deposits. It is set up like a retailer: "you buy gold from me" but it starts getting muddier because; They promise you physical gold but then persuade you, for practical reasons of the safety of your gold, to accept a promise on paper that you can get your gold at any...

It's already mid-October. A lot of predictions have been made that once summer is over, there is going to be an economic collapse. A lot of signs seem to be pointing towards it, to wit:  - countries unable to service their sovereign debt, coming close to running out of money  - cost of borrowing increasing, e.g. Spain's rating dropping to BBB+  - the people in countries like Greece protesting against the austerity measures (which is not effective to my mind, the austerities that is, not the protesting) Lets look at it in simple terms: I believe this crisis is brought about by human failings, not because of fancy economic terms. Firstly - lack of integrity :  - Did Greece fudge their numbers to get into the Eurozone? They did, didn't they? So from the get-go, they got in based on lying. So there is no basis for them to be in there.  - Going way back, reneging on the gold standard is what goes us all here in the first place. Secondly - intellectual l...

A few months ago, I decided to put some money aside into bullion. I've been reading up on gold and silver investments and watched the prices for a while. But given how busy I can get at work, I decided that gold trading is not for me - just don't have the time to watch the volatility and honestly, I don't have the stomach for it. Not in my DNA as it were :) Anyway, after scouting around the different options available, I went for Tomei's portal Goldsilver2u.com (err.. not very original huh? LOL but it's straight to the point!) to buy some wafers  - yeah, wish I could say BARS of gold but you know.. Got some silver too, the prices have fallen a bit but I'm not too concerned because this is a long term play. Mainly I went with Tomei because they've been around for a while, have a strong retail presence and thus, pretty stable. Not rocket science, really. So, they are now tucked away in the safety deposit box at the bank for a rainy day.