scattered thoughts

Over lunch my mom was complaining that the pawnshop business that it wasnt as good as before and then we tried to analyze why that is so. Some of the few things that we concluded was that number one there were too many pawnshops in the country now before it was just in the cities and people from towns would still go to the city to pawn but now almost all towns have a pawnshop. There was a time during enrollment where people were lining up and crowding pawnshops to pawn jewelry to send their children to school or students who still didnt get their money from their parents during enrollment. :) but now business has really gone down and i believe that everybody in the pawnshop business is experiencing this. Another factor is the faster transfer of money like atms and remittance service within the philippines and from people abroad who are sending money here. This the reason why we should thank the millions of ofws who are working hard to make life better for their loved ones here in the country. They have made life better for a lot of filipinos. Ofws are truly our modern day heroes. :) with the peso strengthening some of the buying power of dollar earning filipinos might be lost but it is better for the country as a whole. Let us strive to help and improve our country. Another thought that went through my head the last few days was when my dad mentioned that when my grandfather built their house in 1962 it cost around P120,000 and then with my very curious head i started making calculations a conservative estimate of building the same house today would cost around P20,000,000 and that would mean a compounded return of 12.05% for 45years. Not so bad for real estate. :) :) :) here are also some of the things that happened during the last week.... gold has reached more than $790 and i expect the strong upsurge to continue over the next few years and i see gold hitting $880 by april 09 and with the way its going it going happen much earlier. :) with the rise in the gold price you can expect that oil will also go up now hitting $93 per barrel. And our oil companies here have announced that they are going to have a price hike. How can this be possible??? and why is that so because oil companies pay in dollars and our peso has strengthened so this means that more or less our oil companies here will still be paying more or less the same amount and why are they saying that they will have a price hike??? can they please explain why they have to do that??? was in robinson mall this weekend and i noticed the people around and there was one thing glaring thing that i noticed. I estimated only around 1 of 20 people carried shopping bags. I believe that that is not a good number. Why do sm malls go better??? what is the secret to their success?? is it their department store?? location?? what??? can anybody here help me and give me the answer??? :) good luck and god bless. Let us pray for all our loved ones who are in a better place. :) happy haloween to all!!! :)