What would you do if you have a million bucks?

Monday October 31, 2011

Monday Starters - By Soo Ewe Jin

WHAT would you do if you have a million bucks? A poor government clerk from Bihar, a remote and poverty-stricken region of northern India, has become the first person to win 50 million rupees (RM3mil) on the popular Indian version of the gameshow Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Sushil Kumar's win is a classic case of life imitating art as the script is similar to that of the 2008 Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

According to the Associated Press, Sushil said he would spend some of his prize money to prepare for India's tough civil service examination, which could lead to a secure and prestigious lifetime job.

He would also buy a new home for his wife, pay off his parents' debts, give his brothers cash to set up small businesses and build a library in Motihari so the children of his village would have access to books and knowledge.

Real life slumdog millionaire: Sushil (left) says thank you with clasped hands as he receives his US$1mil prize from Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan during the fifth season of the Indian version of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? television quiz in Mumbai on Oct 25. Kumar, a computer operator who earns just US$130 a month, has become the first person to win the top prize. — AFP

Everyone loves a story like this. Although people can become instant millionaires by striking the lottery or pulling the lever on a one-armed bandit at a casino, using one's talent at a tension-filled gameshow is more admirable.

And I applaud Sushil for his noble attitude in thinking of others to share in his newfound fortune. Bihar is one of the poorest states of India and its remoter areas, such as Motihari, have been largely untouched by India's phenomenal recent economic growth.

Do you know that there are now at least 39,000 millionaires in Malaysia? According to a recent report by the Credit Suisse Group, 19,000 new millionaires were created over the past 18 months alone.

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific Wealth Report 2011 by Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and Capgemini, also released recently, revealed that Malaysia's rich prefer splurging on a fancy new set of wheels, luxurious yachts or private jets.

Up to 46% invested their ringgit in luxury collectibles like cars, boats and jets, the highest percentage of any country within the Asia-Pacific region.

Their counterparts down south seem less interesting and still prefer jewellery and luxury watches.

I know that the CEOs who read the business section of this newspaper may consider a million ringgit small change but to most of us, it is a very faraway goal, not something one can possibly achieve as a regular salaried worker.

But we can all dream and I was wondering to myself, what would I do if I suddenly had a million ringgit in hand? I suppose our wishes would coincide very much with our age, status, and ultimately our character.

To those who believe material pursuits equate to real happiness, a shopping spree would be fantastic.

Those who do not focus too much on material things may want to travel around the world and complete their Bucket List, which may also include going on a religious pilgrimage.

I believe that God never gives us more than we can handle, just as He never lets us go through trials and tribulations beyond our capacity to endure.

And that was when I stopped dreaming. Because I know, seriously, I will never be able to handle so much money at any one time. So I shall be content and count my blessings. I hope you will too.

Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin notes that the world's population officially hits seven billion today. No one really knows who is Citizen Seven Billion, of course, but by the time he grows up, millionaires and billionaires will probably be a dime a dozen.

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/10/31/business/9796922&sec=business

What would you do if you have a million bucks?  

My comment:  Do absolutely nothing for the first one year.

Twice as many millionaires in Malaysia over last 18 months

Tuesday October 25, 2011

PETALING JAYA: The number of millionaires has almost doubled in Malaysia over the last 18 months, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

Citing a report released this week by international financial firm Credit Suisse Group, WSJ wrote that since early 2010, Malaysia added 19,000 new millionaires, bringing its total to 39,000.

Comparatively, the number in Indonesia increased by 52,000 to 112,000, while the number of Singaporeans worth over US$1mil (RM3.15mil) is 183,000, triple what it was a year ago.

The growth spurt of the nouveau riche has been attributed to the weakening US dollar and stingy pockets.

Compared with the Credit Suisse numbers from early last year, these three countries alone have produced close to 190,000 new millionaires since the beginning of 2010.

However, this figure still fell short of the 212,000 new millionaires in China.

“Much of the rise is just a reflection of the weakening dollar, which makes the Singapore dollar- and rupiah-denominated riches look more impressive when translated into US dollars,” WSJ reported.

“Otherwise, it can be attributed to growing savings, stock and property prices.”

Credit Suisse defines wealth as a person's financial and real estate assets minus their debt.

(Networth = Financial Asset + Real Estate Asset - Debt)

The report also said that the average Singaporean was wealthier in comparison to the rest of the world, with the average household wealth at US$285,000 (RM897,000).

This makes them the fifth wealthiest people in the world after Switzerland, Australia, Norway and France.

Average household wealth in Indonesia, on the other hand, hovered at only around US$12,000 (RM37,771).

“Strong currencies, rising property prices, climbing commodity prices and healthy stock markets have helped the region but the real secret to Southeast Asia's success may be how stingy money makers are here,”WSJ noted.

“Average household debt, which offsets much of savings and investments in Western countries, is very low in the region.

“It is only 13% of total assets in Singapore and 2.5% of total assets in Indonesia.”

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/10/25/nation/9768085&sec=nation

For every 10 Singaporeans you meet more than one will be a millionaire of USD.

Singapore and Malaysia

The Boston Consulting Group, one of the leading global management consulting firm has just last week released its Annual Wealth Report and found Singapore to be amongst the top 20 countries with the most millionaires households.

Singapore, (once a part of Malaysia) is a tiny nation of 5.1 million population is ranked at no. 18 with the most numbers of millionaires and rank the highest in terms of density with 11.4 percent of the total households being a millionaire in USD (US Dollar). That is about 3.3 million Malaysian Ringgit. And this is of liquid asset which does not include the value of property owned.

(Most Millionaires Countries)

That means for every 10 Singaporeans you meet more than one will be a millionaire of USD.

Malaysia? of course is not in the list but i will try to check the most corrupt millionaire household list, maybe we are there.

As i remembered in the late 70s to early 80s before Mahathir became PM, Malaysia has one of the highest per capita income in Asia and was way ahead of countries like South Korea and Taiwan.

The Singapore dollar exchange rate was at parity with the Malaysian dollar back than at 1 for 1 and after Mahathir became PM we saw the other Asian countries race way ahead and today the Singapore exchange rate is at about RM2.33 for one Singapore Dollar.The Hong Kong dollar back than was about 3 for one Ringgit.

Singapore is today a fully developed country and an advanced nation  of which Malaysia is only still aspiring to become. Singapore enjoys a per capita income of more than USD 37 thousand whereas Malaysia is at less than USD 7 thousand which is way way off the mark being a leader in the region some 30 years ago.

Singapore is the fourth leading financial centre of the world and the fourth richest nation in terms of GDP Purchasing Power Parity per capita.

Singapore is a fine example of a sound and efficient economic management and governance with one of the highest ratings by Transparency International for being clean and the least corrupt.

On the other hand Malaysia will show you how corruption can impoverished its people and after years of progressive corruption has now become terminal and rotted to the core. Malaysia is now a sad story although blessed with rich and abundant natural resources, has 57.8% of its total household of 5.7 million earning a meager income of below 3000 Ringgit a month with an average household size of 4,5 person per household. And more than two third of the Malaysian household earns less than RM4 thousand a month at 70.7%.

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

We could have been like Singapore and we would have been a prosperous nation only if than we had selected our leaders wisely and carefully but instead we had to pick the most wicked and corrupt that has plundered our resources and divided our spirits.

My comment:

The recently announced 10th MP confirmed the demise of the NEM and the continuation of pre-existing policies.  This does not bode well for the future.  As a prudent and frugal investor, your asset allocation should be 90% foreign and 10% local.

The New Millionaires - When a million is not enough

When a million is not enough

GEORGINA ROBINSON
May 28, 2010


In a time when a television network can afford to run a game show called Who Wants To Be a Millionaire but the average Sydney house costs $600,000, it's time to re-assess the value of $1 million dollars.

Can it still guarantee you financial freedom when whole residential blocks in Sydney are lined with homes carrying million-dollar plus price tags?

Do you need something closer to $10 million or $20 million to attain the symbolic separation from the masses a million once bought?

“You were generally considered to be rich if you had $1 million in the 1950s and now nobody would say you were seriously rich unless you had $10 million,” author and sociologist Michael Pusey says.

“But if you're talking about a sum of money that leaves you without economic insecurity then probably no sum will do it because expectations have risen and the multimillionaires themselves are at risk of going bankrupt and they want more and more … in order to feel safe.”

The professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University, Clive Hamilton, agrees that the noughties' equivalent of a 1950s millionaire is someone with between $10 million and $20 million to burn.

And Eddie Maguire's television show is his proof.

“We now have a television program called Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, that would have been impossible 30 years ago because no television company would have been willing to stump up prize money of a million dollars, it would have sent them broke if anybody had won,” Professor Hamilton said.

“So now $1 million dollars is perhaps not chicken feed … but it just doesn't have the punch that it used to have.”

The magic million may not have the same cache it once did but that will be little comfort to the many Australians who found themselves kicked out of the club during the GFC.

A study compiled by financial research company CoreData found nearly a quarter of the 1700 Australians with investment assets of more than $1 million were pushed out of the $1 million-plus bracket by the global financial crisis.

Another survey in the Boston Consulting Group's latest global wealth report, reported a 40 per cent drop in the numbers of millionaire households in Australia.

The survey excluded individuals' businesses, homes and luxury goods, a key differentiator in the wealth race.

“It's about money that you could use, money is hard to use if it's tied up in your house,” wealth researcher Simon Kelly says.

“If you talk about people having $2 million to spend that's quite a different sort of person to one that's just worth $2 million.”

Professor Kelly, working at the University of Canberra's National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, says international benchmarks have declared US$2 million to be “the new $1 million dollars”.

“And that's excluding houses … because particularly in places like Sydney, there'd be whole suburbs where the value of each house is worth $1 million dollars and they take that out.”

A Sydney-based funds management specialist, who wanted to remain anonymous, says $10 million – split just about evenly between property and income-generating assets – would have him sleeping soundly at night.

“Enough to form a stash to generate comfortable annuity for a period of 30 years,” he says.

But Professor Pusey says it is impossible in today's economic, political and social climate to confidently predict what “enough” might look like.

“In the baby boomer times

• we assumed that we would be able to buy a house on one income; 
• we assumed that we would have quality health care for nothing; 
• we assumed we'd have enough education as we wanted or needed for nothing; 
• we assumed that the pension with our own savings would support us in our retirement and 
• we assumed that we would have the resources to set up our children with those things,” he says.

“Today you would need vastly more than $1 million to achieve those ends for yourself.”

Professor Pusey says incomes are much more volatile these days, people enter the full-time labour market later and are often forced out earlier but live for much longer.

“The good news is you're going to live until you're 82-and-a-half, the bad news is you get pushed out of the labour market in your 50s if you can make it that long,” he says.

"There is no economic security and [people] need vastly more money to get it because their incomes are insecure and because debt levels are much higher than they were."

 http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/luxury/when-a-million-is-not-enough-20100528-wkkp.html

Singapore’s rich list takes a beating

Singapore’s rich list takes a beating
SINGAPORE, June 26 — Singapore’s rich were not spared the effects of the global financial meltdown last year, with the number of millionaires here shrinking 22 per cent to 61,000 people.

A year earlier, Singapore boasted one of the world’s top 10 fastest-growing millionaires’ clubs, with a 15.3 per cent expansion to 78,000.

A millionaire is defined as a person having net assets of at least US$1 million (RM3.52 million), excluding his main residence and everyday possessions.

Observers say the sharp drop is probably because the well-heeled here were invested heavily in equities and real estate, both of which have suffered in the crisis.

The figures emerged in the 13th annual World Wealth Report released yesterday by banking group Merrill Lynch and research firm Capgemini.

On average, Singapore’s ‘high net worth individuals’ were worth about US$3 million each, said Kong Eng Huat, managing director and head of South Asia advisory at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management.

“A lot of these (individuals) are in the US$1 million to US$5 million range. So that’s why you find a greater drop in terms of the high net worth population because...when the market comes down and they have invested heavily in equities then they would not be a high net worth individual any more,’ he added.

Globally, the number of people in the millionaires’ club fell by about 15 per cent to 8.6 million, which is below the figure in 2005. North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific registered the largest declines.

The total wealth of these individuals fell to US$32.8 trillion, also below the levels in 2005. However, this is forecast to recover in all regions by 2013, with Asia-Pacific leading the growth.

More than half of the world’s millionaires last year came from three countries — the United States, Japan and Germany. The proportion is a slight increase from the year before.

China climbed one rung to become the country with the fourth largest millionaires’ population of 364,000.

The World Wealth Report also indicated that the millionaires have reacted to the crisis by moving more of their assets into cash and fixed-income securities — and away from equities.

A larger proportion of wealth was allocated to art collections and jewellery, gems and watches. This category hit 47 per cent last year, up from 38 per cent in 2006.

Bhalaji Raghavan, Capgemini’s banking solutions leader for Asia-Pacific, said: “One of the reasons is that people believe that (these items) over a long period of time increase in value, so it’s a lot safer than putting their money in financial markets.”

Giving to charity was forecast to be on the decrease on average across the globe this year, especially in North America, but increasing in the Asia-Pacific region.

Private banks contacted by The Straits Times said their clients are now staying away from high-risk investment products.

“Currently, it is back to basics of investment, and we have seen that cash positions in portfolios are high,” said Rajesh Malkani, Standard Chartered Private Bank’s head of Southeast Asia.

Raj Sriram, RBS Coutts’ head of private banking in Singapore, agreed: “From a private bank perspective, the main challenge is that clients have become more risk averse due to volatility in the markets...Clients today largely prefer simpler, liquid investments.” — The Straits Times

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/business/30586-singapores-rich-list-takes-a-beating