Do you believe in Inflation and deflation?

As what Kiyosaki said in one of his audio, you only have 2 things in life which matters most. Time & Money . Invest in Time or Money and BUILD PIPELINES !!

So today as I was investing my time on some financial education I come across this paper clip from New York Times (yeah yeah not engineering specifications any more ..) which describes what is happening in Spain with regards to the current economic meltdown situation .

http://tinyurl.com/dhes5m

It may help us to understand what is happening to our fiat money which is circling al over the world.

As a retrenchee ( I kind of like this term somehow ...) the word 'deflation' is pretty new in my vocabulary. We know that if inflation rate is high , basically it means we need more cash to buy the same consumer goods or products. But the value of cash is still there to be hung on to, means our ONE RINGGIT is still valueable enough for us to enjoy teh tarik at the warung . Not so bad huh but if we were to undergo a deflation period , probably the glass that holds the teh tarik worth more that our ONE RINGGIT. And being an employee for more than 10 years (Ohh .. I loved my job so much ) there is a big difference having RM1000 in 1999 as compared having RM1000 in 2009 . Those were the days and retrenchment is far far out of the vocabulary especially for those working in big conglomerates and giant multinational firms .

There is a big old saying that says 'if my neighbour is retrenched it is a recession , but if I lose my job it is a depression' . Are we in recession ? Yes ...and are we moving to depression ? Hmm..not yet maybe . I do not know . But how do we prepare ourself for it ? Tough question ..the same question was always in my mind those days when the idea of having MSI (multiple streams of income) struck my engineer's mind. Well ...although the action towards MSI is still on-going and I am yet to reap the rewards , at least mind-wise the preparation was there .

Equip ourself with knowledge, widen the horizon of knowledge , know the trends in K-Economy and pray hard .

Have a nice working day ahead.

Paper currencies vs Gold

Another day of prospecting....

Recently I happen to mingle along some guys dealing with shares in Malacca. Got the chance to join the free seminars and courses which leads me to some good info like the followings.

(If you notice there are a lot of advertisment in newspaper on gold investment nowadays, just have to think to shoot for one )

So folks, gold is on the radar and there are at least 6 ways of investing.

Some snapshots of the conference:

• A recent Bloomberg chart has shown a gradual exodus by central banks from the US Dollar- something that has not happened for over 50 years. It was shown that a chart of centralbank holdings of physical gold. China is dramaticlly increasing their physical gold holdings and cutting back on US T bonds. These are real numbers and real charts: Charts are the truth and the truth is that world investors are losing confidence in Obama and his socialist agenda.
• Director of Deutsch Bank Asset Management in Singapore presented the case for gold equities. His fund,Am Precious metals deals only in high quality blue chip gold mining companies. His is the only precious metals fund available in Malaysia. He made the case that gold mining shares are undervalued by 30 % to the gold price a have been recovering due to the world equity rally. If you hold a gold mining share unit trust you participate in the rise of the gold price as well as the sales and earnings of gold mining companies. as well as dividends. Leverage to gold is at least 2 to 1.
• Third Speaker from CIMB shared the technical outlook for gold. He spotted the inverse head and shoulders pattern projecting a rally to USD 1200 per ounce should the USD 1000 level break. He also shared his powerful backtested system for timing which works for physical gold, Am Precious Metal Fund and Futures Gold. It is a moving average crossover system- on the weekly chart using the 10 and 50 SMA. Buy and sell the golden cross.Call him for info on this as well as CPO/ CI Futures.
• Fourth Speaker from Phillip Mutual-shown investment for AM precious Metal unit trust minimum is only RM 1000. Less than the cost of a good camera or suit of cloths and guess what you have a growing asset as well as a hedge against inflation ( Just think, 10 years ago when I get married, gold price was RM30/g and now is RM114/g . 10 years ago, new engineers salary was around 2k but now hmmm 2.5k ? See how inflation bite us ??? The rm12 k you keep now in currency may cater for your Hajj expenses today but I do not think it is enough to fund you for the same trip in the next coming years . But if the same 12k you keep in the form of gold , the value will be less likely to depreciate). This is proof that gold is a store of value and should continue to be. Paper currencies are doomed to lose value. He also shared info on the gold scams going around Malaysia. If it is offshore, over the internet, and looks too good to be trueavoid at all costs. You will be fleeced like the lamb. Only deal with licensed brokers or banks. or established gold dealers. Also avoid individual gold mining companies especially the smaller ones. Many are run by crooks, scam artists. Only deal with a well established gold unit trust such as Am Precious metals or Etika Emas estet .

Welcome to my blog RES !

Today , me and some of the ex-colleague met again for lunch . Those days in the factory I remembered Tom Peters said in his writings, lunch is all about contact, make great social contact and its suppose to make money , not just eat and go thing .
Well ...after being not in the factory and not to worry about yield and technical stuffs , everything of that matter start making sense!
Now when I go out and meet friends , there is a target in my mind....yes..adding value to people. This is free service that is available in everyone of us , yet we always fail to maxiise it.
Adding value means anybody you are in contact with will feel they are grateful to know you as a person or a friend .

Another lesson I learn since the retrenchment is to adapt your self to entrepeneurship. It is true that the feeling of continuing career in manufacturing or to change course to another venture is always in every retrenchee. Especially when you are in this age (like me) approaching 40 and already in the management ladder. Well if you have great connections, you are out of this dilemma I guess....

It motives to share my feelings after reading stuffs like this ....from Jim Rohn in his ezine

"Now that may sound like a full menu of activities, but let me assure you that the process of going from average to fortune isn't really all that difficult. Thinking about it is the difficult part. Anticipating all the effort and the changes and the disciplines is far worse in the mind than in reality. I can promise you that the challenges you'll meet on the road to success are far less difficult to deal with than the struggles and the disappointments that come from being average. Confronting and overcoming challenges is an exhilarating experience. It does something to feed the soul and the mind. It makes you more than you were before. It strengthens the mental muscles and enables you to become better prepared for the next challenge.

The one in red makes sense and that is what I have been doing anyway ...being an average.

I refuse to be an average now. Period.