Sunday, October 28, 2012

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Gold: The History of Gold Infographic

From the Visual Capitalist.

Lottery winner may not keep wealth

Mega Millions Lottery Could Make You More Likely To Go Bankrupt

(Link here)

Strange but true: an extra-big lottery prize means you've got an extra-big chance of going bankrupt.

That's the implication of a paper published in 2010 by researchers at Vanderbilt University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Pittsburgh. The authors looked at lottery winners as separated into two groups: those who won sizable cash prizes (between $50,000 and $150,000) and those who won more modest prizes of $10,000 or less. They found that five years after the fact, the big winners were the ones more likely to have filed for bankruptcy.

We're bringing this up today, of course, because America went crazy for lottery tickets this week, buying up so many entries in the Mega Millions drawing that the jackpot soared to a record-smashing $640 million. That number could get higher still: if a winner isn't picked Friday night, according to The Boston Globe, the pot will climb toan estimated $975 million.

It's tempting stuff -- especially at a moment when half of all Americans earn less than $27,000 a year, and more and more people can't afford the basics. But this paper -- plus a wealth of additional evidence, anecdotal and otherwise -- suggests that winning the lottery may not be the best thing that could happen to you.

The researchers, led by Mark Hoekstra of the University of Pittsburgh, found that five years down the line, there were almost no meaningful differences between the big lottery winners and the small. The two groups had comparable assets and debts. But there was one big distinction -- the big winners were more likely to have gone bankrupt, for the simple reason that, as the authors put it, they had "consumed their winnings."

The study notes that the researchers controlled for the financial health of the lottery winners -- meaning that before they actually won, the big winners were no more or less likely to file for bankruptcy than the small winners were. So the risk of bankruptcy seems to have been directly linked to the size of the prize.

Obviously, $150,000 is a sum on a totally different scale from $640 million -- or even$324 million, after taxes. So whoever takes home the Mega Millions cash may not have exactly the same experience as the people in the study.
Still, recent history is thick with examples of people who struck gold in the lottery and saw their lives take a sharp turn for the worse. Business Insider has a collection of numerous grim cases, including people who lost their money to gambling or drug addiction, and one Pennsylvania man whose brother tried to have him killed in the hopes of inheriting a share of the cash. And Jen Doll at the Atlantic Wire offers an even more comprehensive primer, including people whose lottery wins prefaced social ostracization, destitution, suicide and other tragic outcomes.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Lottery Wealth

Any amount below $5000, you can claim in cash at any Singapore Pools outlet.
Singapore pools will pay you in cheque for any winnings above $5000.

Singapore Pools: Claim Prizes - Claiming your Prize

When is the prize claim expiry date?
All Lottery and Sports Bets winning tickets should be claimed within 180 days from the date of the draw or event closure
(including weekends and public holidays).

Click here for prize claim expiry dates for Toto, 4D and Singapore Sweep draws.

Where to claim your prize?

Prize Amount	Where to Claim
Up to $5,000 per winning ticket	Cash payment at any Singapore Pools outlet during sales hours.
Above $5,000 per winning ticket	Cheque payment at Singapore Pools Main Branch located at 1 Selegie Road, #01-01 PoMo, Singapore 188306 Monday to Friday, 8.00am to 4.30pm (excluding Public Holidays). Please furnish a photo-identification document that is identical to your bank's record to facilitate the issuing of cheque.

All winnings are NOT taxable.

IRAS: Winnings (Toto, 4D...)

Winnings from betting such as 4D, toto, football, Singapore sweep, horse racing, fruit machine (jackpot) winnings and etc. in Singapore, are not taxable as they are windfalls and not of income nature.

How to report

You do not need to declare winnings since they are not taxable.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Gold & Silver as Haven

From Silver Coin Investor's article on how precious metals can be a safe haven....
Article below

How Gold and Silver Provide a Safe Haven in Today's Troubled World

The reasons for holding precious metals as a relatively safe haven for one’s personal wealth are numerous.

One common investing thesis for buying precious metals is that these intrinsically valuable commodities can hold their value in times of rising price levels. This characteristic can help American savers keep pace with credit expansion and paper currency debasement.

Diversify Out of the Dollar

For example, precious metals can provide a safe haven in terms of the diversification they offer relative to holding U.S. Dollars in cash or Dollar-denominated assets.

Physical gold and silver investments can take up a core position in an investment portfolio since they offer an easy way to have some wealth stashed out of Dollar-denominated assets. These hard assets also provide a viable alternative to holding foreign currencies or foreign equities.

Basically, precious metals allow investors to engage in a new way of thinking, where investment priorities are anchored to real value and permit advance planning for troubled times.

When the Dollar Bubble Bursts

In much the same way that market bubbles have been blown in various asset classes over the last 40 years, largely via Fed sanctioned interest rate manipulation, the overvalued U.S. Dollar seems like yet another bubble waiting to burst.

Basically, the value of silver has been artificially deflated in U.S. Dollar terms via price control implemented using contracts traded at global futures exchanges. The symbolic investigation of this so-called conspiracy by the CFTC just passed its fourth year.

Underpriced assets like silver will eventually lead the way back to what will very likely be the largest bubble the world has ever seen. The U.S. Dollar and the U.S. bond market appear destined for a long overdue crash.

Various factors point to this outcome. They include such things as: intrinsically worthless paper wealth, high frequency trading, a world where MF Globals can exist, the threat of taxation, and rampant money printing — otherwise known as Quantitative Easing.

Competing With the Banks for Credit

Major international banks have benefited disproportionately compared to the individual investor from credit expansion in recent years. Banks enjoy better profits from cheap money and can buy future cash flows very inexpensively.

Meanwhile, consumer credit has contracted leaving consumers holding the bag in many cases. People are also unable to consume as much because of a rise in general price levels and the failure of the troubled financial system to purge itself of bad debt.

If at any point the American consumer and banks are equalized with additional credit infusions, the tide will then begin to turn. Consumers can then free up more discretionary income as America goes back to work.

Nevertheless, until the two groups are made equal, credit will neither expand nor contract. Instead, credit supplies will stay constant, although prices will continue to rise relative to consumer incomes.

Precious metals provide a safe haven investment that can often help compensate an investor for such price rises. Furthermore, if at any point the system balances and allows for credit expansion to extend to Main Street, then precious metals investors will typically benefit.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Growing Gold

I found this interesting article recently.

One of the reason why Gold is valuable because it is rare.
If the production costs of producing gold element drops, there goes gold pricing.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) the costs of "growing" such gold is still..... too high.

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Researchers at Michigan State University have discovered bacteria with the remarkable ability to turn toxic chemical compounds into 24-karat gold.

The breakthrough, detailed in a combination art and biotechnology exhibition called "The Great Work of the Metal Lover," is described by researcher Adam Brown as modern day "neo-alchemy."

Here's what you should know:

What is this bacteria, exactly?
The microbe, Cupriavidus metallidurans, possesses the unique ability to survive in extremely toxic environments. A few years ago, researchers discovered the bacteria growing on gold nuggets at two separate sites hundreds of miles apart in Australia. That got scientists thinking: Does this bacteria just happen to live in the vicinity of gold, or do they actually create gold?

Well... do these bacteria actually turn chemicals into gold?
Yes. Kazem Kashefi, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, and Adam Brown, associate professor of electronic art and intermedia, discovered that C. metallidurans could grow and prosper if placed on gold chloride, an otherwise worthless yet toxic chemical. Using a portable laboratory made out of the bacteria, a glass bioreactor, and 24-karate gold-plated hardware, the team continually fed the bacterium "unprecedented amounts of gold chloride," says R&D Mag. Not only were the bacteria extraordinarily resistant to gold chloride's toxicity, but in about a week, they converted the toxic chemical into 99.9 percent pure gold. The details are a bit complicated, says Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo, but basically, "Cupriavidus metallidurans can eat toxins and poop out gold nuggets."

What does this mean for gold production?
Although the Michigan State University experiment was successful, it could be "cost prohibitive to reproduce [this] experiment on a larger scale," says R&D Mag. So don't expect to grow your own gold at home anytime soon.