Archive for August, 2006
Please, don’t contact me if you’re trying to sell it to me; I want to speak to people who have acutally bought gold. Also, I don’t want gold certificates; they can be devalued at any time by the government if they so choose to. I want to know where and how to buy actual gold to keep in my possession but as an investment.
Celia Lone
http://goldcointeam.com This video shows how to buy gold and silver coins at 40 cents on the dollar and sell it for 90 cents on the dollar.
Alexander Lyster
http://www.4bullions.com/investsafely The smartest investors buy gold! Join them, avoid stock – invest in bullion!
Thaddeus Syndergaard
Most video games have some form of currency. In many ways, the in-game economy is similar to a real world economy – goods and services are traded to mutual advantage and are mediated in currency (platinum, gold, credit,etc.). “With all the things you can buy in game,” a gamer said, “it’s hard not to want them, just like real-life stuff.”
The average Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG) player is 27-year-old — a demographic drooled over by marketers. Plus, nearly half of all players have jobs, which often means they have more money than time and are the perfect consumers of virtual assets. On the Internet, many gamers now buy virtual money that only exist as data files stored in a server run by a game company with real-world dollars, and the buying and selling of virtual currencies may be off most people’s radar, but it is truly big business.
An online broker, who goes by the screen name Rolala, was not a fan of online games until his 15-year-old son became interested in Final Fantasy XI. He then noticed that a large number of gils which are the currencies used in FFXI were for sale on eBay.
“I started hearing about players leaving the game who were selling their assets at cheap prices,” he said, “so I figured, buy low, sell high.”
But Rolala found his moneymaking options in FFXI “very limited”. He switched to World of Warcraft. There, he has leveraged his real-life experience into an online business. He converts his game profits into real money on sites like eBay and bankofwow ,etc. Earnings can be considerable. He said he was on track to earn about $120,000 in real money in his first year in this business.
Rolala’s business is just one example of how increasingly popular online role-playing games have created a shadow economy in which the lines between the real world and the virtual world are getting blurred.
“World of Warcraft”, the world’s largest MMORPG, boasts more than 1 million paying users in North America.There are many sites like wow gold free strategics, teaching gamers how to earn wow gold in game for free, however many players are still willing to buy gold and weapons to help their virtual characters get a higher virtual status more rapidly. Some virtual goods in World of Warcraft have been sold for thousands of dollars. It obviously creates a large real world market.
Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University who has written a book on the subject, calculated that if you took the real dollars spent within “EverQuest “as an index, its game world, called Norrath, would be the 77th richest nation on the planet, while annual player earnings surpass those of citizens of Bulgaria, India or China.
Go to GameUSD, an exchange-rate calculator for the virtual worlds, and do a search for the latest rates of virtual currencies against the U.S. dollar, and let your jaw drop open. The rates of some virtual world currencies are even better than that of the Iraqi Dinar! For instance, here is the recent exchange rate of several popular virtual currencies: Everquest Plat ($0.54/1K), EQ2 Gold ($0.17/gold), WOW Gold ( World of Warcraft Gold ) ($0.098/gold), SWG Credit ($4.40/1M), Lineage 2 adena ($2.80/1M), Guild Wars Gold ($0.12/1K), FFXI Gil ($17.89/1M), etc.
Right now, this business is one of the most hotly debated issues on the internet. Many game companies such as Blizzard who run World of Warcraft discourage profit from in-game properties, though none have found a way to stop it.
Sony Online Entertainment, on the other hand, encourages the practice (albeit within the confines of their own “Station Exchange”, their own forum for the sale of in-game properties). It recently announced the first month’s figures from “Station Exchange”. According to SOE, over 45,000 characters from “EverQuest 2″ have been active on the exchange and have spent over $180,000 USD in one month, half of which have been spent on in-game gold and platinum.
Despite of different attitudes towards virtual currency trade, the number of people who are getting into such business is rising, and the size of market has been expanding very rapidly.The market also creates a competitive environment. We could refer to sites like GameShopList, a price comparison site, to see the fierce price competition between different exchange sites.
For some ordinary gamers, however, such a capitalist approach spoils the experience. Nick Yee, a psychology researcher from Stanford University, believes many players dislike virtual currency traders because, by using real wealth to buy virtual power, “they’re breaking the fantasy-reality bubble, getting an advantage in a way that other players can’t”.
According to a recent survey by IGN, an internet media focused on the videogame markets, most gamers say they dislike and avoid this business, believing that it gives players with more discretionary income an unfair advantage.
But such attitudes are called into question by size estimates for the virtual asset trading market, which is seen having a value of $200 million to nearly $900 million in 2005.
One potential explanation for the disconnection between attitudes and money spent may be that gamers are unwilling to admit they use the services, IGN said.
In terms of the law’s concern, another issue is, who owns the virtual money? Many virtual world designers maintain that anything created in the world belong to the company. They refuse to recognise the rights of their players in the virtual property for fear of attracting liability for its maintenance or security.
But will this work in the long term? Players spend considerable time and/or money acquiring such assets. In many cases they are the creation of the player and even the intellectual property ownership is questionable. “As we spend more time in these worlds, it’s not enough for companies to say that ‘we own everything and we can turn it off at any time,’” said a gamer. “The question may soon be should we have recourse against a game company for obliterating virtual assets?”
With the rapid growth of virtual currency exchange market, should people accord virtual property the same protection as property in the real world?
By: Steven Golden
About the Author:
Chad
Swiss gold refiners are having great difficulty in keeping up with demand for gold bullion leading to long delivery times as investors wary of other stores of wealth.
Sealed off by grey concrete walls and barbed wire, the workmen in protective glasses and steel-toed boots at this smelter cannot work fast enough to meet demand from the nervous rich for gold.
This refinery near Lake Lugano in the Alps is running day and night as people worried about recession rush to switch their assets into something that may hold its value.
“I have been in the gold business for 30 years and I have never experienced anything like this,” said Bernhard Schnellmann, director for precious metal services at the refiner Argor-Heraeus, one of the world’s three largest.
“Production has dramatically increased since the middle of the year. We cannot cope with demand,” said Schnellman, wearing a gold watch on his wrist.
Spot gold hit a record $1,030.80 an ounce on March 17. It fell below $700 in late October, partly because investors sold their holdings to cover losses in equity and bond markets hit by the credit crisis, and is now around $830 an ounce.
The trigger for the price to rise again could come from a much weaker dollar, making gold cheaper for holders of other currencies, and a renewed aversion to paper assets as governments and central banks pump large amounts of cash into the economy, stoking inflation.
Smoke billows as the molten gold, like glowing butter, is poured. To cool it, the worker drops it into water. It hisses as it hits. Once hardened in moulds, the gold bars are embossed with the refinery’s seal. Workers wearing white gloves stack them into boxes like domino pieces.
Though Switzerland is not a gold miner, it is home to some of the world’s largest refineries, which process an estimated 40 percent of all newly mined gold.
Argor-Heraeus is part-owned by the Austrian Mint and a subsidiary of Germany’s Commerzbank. Commercial and central banks are its chief customers and it says it processes some 350-400 tonnes of gold and 350 tonnes of silver per year.
Customers buying gold bars, which can weigh more than 10 kg each, have to wait roughly a month, taking into account the year-end holiday season.
For those buying coins or ingots, which can fit into the palm of a hand, the delay is six to eight weeks. A year ago, these small products could be had within a couple of days.
Worries about the banking system globally have boosted worldwide demand for physical gold, the Gold Council said.
“Many (people) are afraid of leaving their money in banks,” said Sandra Conway, managing director at ATS Bullion in London, which sells bullion and gold coins to institutions and the retail market.
“It’s difficult to quantify, but I would say our turnover over the last three months has certainly doubled compared to the previous three months,” she said.
FULL CAPACITY
Other Swiss gold refiners also say business is booming.
“Since the summer we have experienced a sharp rise in demand for certain gold products. The one-kilo bar has become very popular,” said Fiorenzo Arbini, in charge of health and safety at Pamp, another large Swiss refiner.
“People used to buy certificates, now they want physical gold.”
Schnellmann said the Argor-Heraeus smelter is operating at full capacity, three eight-hour shifts a day. Conquering the backlog by hiring is difficult, because each candidate has to undergo a security check.
Gold refiners were established in Switzerland to supply the watch industry and, later, jewellery-makers in Italy.
Switzerland’s largest banks stepped in to replace a void in gold trading while the London gold market was shut after World War Two and again during a brief closure in 1968.
The former Soviet Union, another top gold producer, chose Zurich banks to handle most of its gold sales in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Gold has an image of being the asset of last resort. This could be viewed as old-fashioned but this is how enough people with enough money to matter think,” said Stephen Briggs, a metals strategist at RBS Global Banking & Markets.
GOLD TOUCH
India, China(cnmining) and the Middle East remain the biggest gold importers, particularly for jewellery. But demand for physical gold has exploded also in Europe, the Gold Council said.
In Switzerland, home to the world’s largest private banking industry, demand for gold bars and coins shot up six-fold to 21 tonnes in the third quarter of 2008, more than in any other European country.
Retail investment in gold rose 121 percent in the third quarter of 2008, an important contributor to the overall increase in global demand, the Gold Council said.
In that period purchases of gold bars by retail investors, who often buy through commercial banks, rose nearly 60 percent, notably in Switzerland, Germany, and the United States.
There was a surge of interest among professional investors shortly after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September.
Private bank Julius Baer in October launched a fund to invest exclusively in gold bars stored in highly secured vaults in Switzerland.
“The fascination with gold has been there since the beginning of civilisation,” said Schnellmann. “It cannot be explained: you can’t eat gold, you cannot build anything resistant with it and yet people want to hoard it.”
By: tristass
About the Author:
Liana Lattari
http://tinyurl.com/WOWsecretsExposed This site shows you a way to make wow gold in the world of warcraft game. This will help you!
Marie
WoWGrrl explains three big reasons why her new ebook, Wealth on Warcraft, says ‘Don’t Buy Gold‘. Get Rich and Stay Rich Right From Level One! Learn how to open the tap the pours World of Warcraft Gold. Safe. No Cheats. No Farming.
Duncan Ordahl
Go to http://www.goldiac.com/ to open a free account and buy Gold & Silver. Peter D. Schiff is the president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., a brokerage firm based in Darien, Connecticut. Schiff adheres to the principles of the Austrian School of Economics and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Schiff frequently appears as a guest on CNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg Television and is quoted in major financial publications. Schiff points to the low savings rates of the United States as its worst …
Elias Brammer
















