New millionaires and multi-millionaires are created in Europe and Asia and their number is double that of new ones made in the U.S. Most of these newly-minted multi-millionaires have no sophistication in the fine art of investing and this site is expected to provide them a different avenue to channel their extra funds. In the Philippines, a lot of wealthy people had studiously avoided investing in the stock market and preferred invest in their own businesses. It is this rather parochial view that stunted the Philippine capital market despite efforts in the past to develop it. In countries where there are sizable and efficient capital markets, their economies grew much faster than would otherwise be possible because capital formation is easier.
Taiwan is an example where there was real total agrarian reform (total in the sense that not a single landowner was exempted from its coverage) and landowners were promptly and properly compensated by the Kuomintang government. These landowners flush with cash, invested either in the stock market or in heavy industries that catapulted Taiwan into a modern nation. A more recent experience is mainland China where market-oriented reforms and a rapidly globalizing economy produced a number of millionaires with very limited sophistication in investing. This is why mainland Chinese authorities opted to limit mainland investors to stock exchanges within mainland China only and prohibited them from investing in Hong Kong due to their lack of investment knowledge and sophistication.
In the Philippines, only a handful of old-rich families and politically-powerful clans control a disproportionate share (80% – 90% ) of the economy and the nation’s wealth. There is no true democratization of wealth compared to other developed countries. What the Philippines lacks is a credible middle income class of the population.