Ankesh
September 27, 2006, 02:51 PM
Thanks Phil for talking about Gold.
I'm not sure if schemes like these are everywhere in the world. But in India - most people buy gold in lottery systems.
Because most mid income families in India can't afford to buy whole gold biscuits, what they do is open a club of 12 people. And every month all of these people pool in their money to buy a gold biscuit. Each one has to pay just 1/12th the money every month - which is quite affordable.
And every month - they pick out a name from a hat. That person gets to take that gold biscuit home. In a year - every one ends up getting their hands on 1 gold biscuit.
And everyone also ends up paying the same 12-month-averaged amount for their gold. So they are relatively safe from short term increase or decrease in prices.
(If you want to invest in 2 gold biscuits a year, you join 2 such clubs.)
I think this is a great model of investment. There are such investment clubs for stocks. But with stocks - there is a problem of deciding which stocks to buy and sell. With gold - there is no decision problem.
I'm not sure if schemes like these are everywhere in the world. But in India - most people buy gold in lottery systems.
Because most mid income families in India can't afford to buy whole gold biscuits, what they do is open a club of 12 people. And every month all of these people pool in their money to buy a gold biscuit. Each one has to pay just 1/12th the money every month - which is quite affordable.
And every month - they pick out a name from a hat. That person gets to take that gold biscuit home. In a year - every one ends up getting their hands on 1 gold biscuit.
And everyone also ends up paying the same 12-month-averaged amount for their gold. So they are relatively safe from short term increase or decrease in prices.
(If you want to invest in 2 gold biscuits a year, you join 2 such clubs.)
I think this is a great model of investment. There are such investment clubs for stocks. But with stocks - there is a problem of deciding which stocks to buy and sell. With gold - there is no decision problem.
