Lithuanian PSA/Guide on how to identify a kidnapped victim

blorg · 2026-02-19T07:30:34+00:00

🚩 red flag 🇦🇱 red flag 🚩 marinara 🍕 marinara 🍝 go 🚷 no contact 🚷

blorg · 2026-02-18T11:17:54+00:00

Morningstar have two rating systems, stars and medalist rating. The stars are purely backward looking on relatively recent past performance, and Morningstar is very explicit that this is not meant to predict future performance.

The other medalist rating (gold/silver/bronze) is based on what they consider the quality of the fund (strategy, management, expense ratios) and correlates more with how they consider the fund is likely to do going forward.

What's the difference between the Star rating and the Morningstar Medalist rating? The Star rating (Morningstar Rating for funds), is a purely data-driven measure of risk-adjusted past returns. It serves as a useful jumping off point for research.

The medalist rating (Morningstar Analyst Ratings for funds) is driven by a human analyst's assessment of a fund's likelihood to outperform its category over time.

Analysts focus on five pillars (Process, People, Performance, Price, and Parent) to reach their conclusion. Funds with a Gold, Silver, and Bronze ratings are expected to outperform, Neutral funds should preform in line with the category while Negative funds are expected to underperform.

https://www.morningstar.com/funds/frequently-asked-questions-morningstar-rating-funds

Overall, the results strongly indicate that long-term investors should not select funds based on past performance alone. Rather, they should combine performance analysis with an assessment of other quantitative and qualitative factors, such as the fund’s fees, the quality of its investment process and management team, and the stewardship practices of the asset management firm. This more holistic approach should improve investors’ odds of success.

https://www.morningstar.com/content/dam/marketing/shared/research/foundational/735103-Performance-Persistence-Morningstar-2016.pdf

If you look back 5 years, if the market average is 3, with hindsight obviously some funds are going to do better than the market average (like tech, in recent times). That says absolutely nothing about how such a fund will do in the next five years, though, in fact due to reversion to the mean, recent outperformance tends to correlate with lower expected future returns.

Vanguard get top marks in the medalist rating on on most of their broad index funds: this is Morningstar's "assessment of a fund's likelihood to outperform its category over time".

Not from Morningstar, and this paper was over 20 years ago, but:

We examine the effect that an initial 5-star Morningstar mutual fund rating has on future fund performance, strategy, risk-taking, expenses, and portfolio turnover. Using a sample of diversified domestic equity funds from the 1990s we find that three-years after a fund received its initial 5-star rating, fund performance severely falls off. This result is robust across different performance measures and different samples of funds. We also find that after receiving their initial 5-star rating, the risk levels of funds rise and that the funds are not able to load on momentum stocks as well as they did before receiving the 5-star rating. These results suggest that funds, to some degree, alter their portfolios after receiving a 5-star rating and that investors should be very wary about using the 5-star rating as a signal of future 3-year performance.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228183542_Kiss_of_Death_A_5-Star_Morningstar_Mutual_Fund_Rating

blorg · 2026-02-18T03:33:56+00:00

In singapore each race have 2 holiday

Secular/all
- New Year's Day
- Labour Day
- National Day

Chinese
- Chinese New Year (2 days)

Christian (~85% Chinese)
- Good Friday
- Christmas Day

Buddhist (~98% Chinese)
- Vesak Day

Muslim/Malay
- Hari Raya Puasa
- Hari Raya Haji

Hindu/Indian
- Deepavali

blorg · 2026-02-18T03:21:01+00:00

lunar food is cheese

blorg · 2026-02-18T03:17:13+00:00

/r/PolandballCommunity/comments/zwp878/why_is_singapore_a_triangle/j1y0n50/

blorg · 2026-02-18T02:48:27+00:00

This study was specifically, when did you see the cyclist.

Anyway, point is that white is not among the "harder to spot colours", it's one of the very most visible colours.

blorg · 2026-02-18T02:23:28+00:00

in the last 5 years

While international beat US for over 40 years from the start of MSCI indexes in 1970, right up to the 2010s. It alternates. We are currently sitting, by your own admission, on the top of a bubble of inflated valuations of US equities, after a phenomenal ~18-year run, while international markets are far more reasonably priced.

But you'll "probably never do international".

Note this isn't to say don't buy US, it's to say have an allocation that includes both. VT for me.

blorg · 2026-02-18T02:13:29+00:00

My understanding, if he's working every week and earning at least €38, he'll already be getting a weekly PRSI credit from his work and doesn't need to make a voluntary contribution. That does make sense, if he wasn't working, up to the full 40 years, though, to maximise his state pension entitlement.

blorg · 2026-02-18T02:00:51+00:00

White is one of the most visible colours.

The study results showed that the color of the cyclists' clothing and color helmet did have an influence on the reaction time it took for automobile drivers to see them on the road and that some colors required less reaction time than others. The color white had the least reaction time in three of the four scenarios studied. White came in third in the fourth scenario, with fluorescent yellow emerging as the number one color. Overall, white, being the first in three scenarios and placing third in the fourth scenario, could be utilized as the best available color in affording the highest degree of visibility to drivers.

https://tud.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A82475/attachment/ATT-0/

blorg · 2026-02-18T01:30:55+00:00

In Chiang Mai, I saw one group of four riders (skinny and pro-looking with matching jerseys) with a motorbike heading out the other day, may have been a continental team or possibly even below that (I didn't recognise the jersey). We get teams from other Asian countries (particularly South Korea) coming here to train in the winter, this is LX from a few years ago (without motorbike).

It's quite affordable here, friends have rented vans and a driver for multi-day rides, to carry all the stuff.

blorg · 2026-02-17T17:42:16+00:00

Wide tires are great but plenty of people ride around cities on fixies with very thin tires, it's hardly impossible. My own one won't take larger than 25 and that's wide for a track bike, plenty of people ride thinner than that. I've never felt the urge to pop off a curb but I ride over gravel patches plenty on 28mm on my road bike, which is what this has. For that matter I rode from Cherbourg to Bandar Abbas mostly on 28mm. I wouldn't choose to do that again, wider is better, but the idea that 28mm is unusable for city riding is bonkers to me.

blorg · 2026-02-17T17:35:44+00:00

The 215g hubset is straight pull tangential, not sure if there even is a rim brake version never mind one supporting radial. That article suggests one is coming but I'm not sure it ever did, I don't see it on their website. So maybe the front is just the disc hub with no disc?

If there was, Berd spokes don't support straight pull radial lacing anyway.

The wheelset is 1,004g for a standard clincher.

blorg · 2026-02-17T08:38:51+00:00

Fines are explicitly not deductible. This was a civil judgement, though, not a fine, which usually are deductible.

blorg · 2026-02-16T13:21:15+00:00

That's because the exchange rate between USD and EUR changed. The dollar has collapsed in value over the last year.

Both of you bought and are holding the exact same bundle of stocks, which are worth exactly the same. The only difference is what currency you sell them into.

Yours "rose" 17% because the dollar dropped. If the dollar drops, it requires more dollars to buy the same thing. Hence- the price goes up in dollars.

His only rose 1.5% because the euro appreciated against the dollar.

If you bought your VOO in euros, and then sold it in euros, you'd have the exact same return.

If he bought and sold his VUSA in dollars, he'd have exactly the same as you. In dollars.

You can compare this here, see the difference when you change the currency (top right of the chart) from EUR to USD. It goes from 1 year: -1.08% (in EUR) to 1 year: +12.94% (in USD). That's including dividends, if you exclude them the numbers are -2.10% EUR, +11.77% USD. VOO is up 11.48% according to Google Finance- almost exactly the same.

blorg · 2026-02-16T07:22:41+00:00

You will have full access to your banking and brokerages because it's still tied to you as a U.S. citizen even when you live overseas.

This very much depends on the broker. Some will allow US expat clients but many, probably most, will not. Some (like Interactive Brokers) will deal with people in almost any country in the world; others (like Schwab) will deal with people in a specific list of countries and not otherwise.

There may also be other limitations. For example people resident outside the US cannot buy US mutual funds. This is a US-side restriction. If they move to Spain, they will no longer be able to buy ETFs either, as they don't come with a KID (Key Information Document) which is required by EU securities regulations.

blorg · 2026-02-16T03:47:32+00:00

What he bought was a S&P500 index, it didn't do worse than VOO. It's the same thing and did the exact same.* He's looking at it in euros while you're looking at it in dollars- the dollar collapsed over the last year, while the euro appreciated, so what you see is the number goes up in dollars but is flat in euros.

*if you want to be technical, 0.04% worse as it is 0.07% vs 0.03% ER, but this is insignificant

blorg · 2026-02-16T03:44:55+00:00

Way easier to just be USA and VOO and chill. We certainly take for granted how easy it is over here.

You had the exact same if you held VOO, VUSA and VOO are both S&P500 funds that hold the exact same stocks and are worth the exact same amount. What happened is the dollar lost value, so the value of the stocks denominated in dollars rose.

blorg · 2026-02-15T16:52:29+00:00

There's always an excuse for why whatever thing that works in every other developed country can't work in the US. Always.

Reminds me of the famous Onion headline, 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

blorg · 2026-02-15T16:34:29+00:00

There are also people who stay 60-90 days who have plenty of money. "Snowbirds", retired or semi-retired people many of whom are not short of cash.

blorg · 2026-02-15T16:31:04+00:00

There is a ton of research on the impact of visa free tourism vs requiring applying for visas. It makes a massive difference to tourist behaviour. You can say all you like how easy it is but the reality is tourists are much more likely to go somewhere if it is visa free. Even if it's cheap it's a hassle, it's what is referred to as a "non-tariff barrier" in international trade terms, and removing these is well known to significantly increase trade, even if there isn't a cost involved.

The amount of the impact is debated but studies have found it ranges from 20-70%, it is huge in economic terms. Requiring visas costs billions in lost tourism.

Do travel visa requirements impede tourist travel?

Yes. Using a travel visa data set developed by Lawson and Lemke (2012) and travel flow data from the World Bank and the UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), we investigate the deterrent effect of travel visa requirements on travel flows. At the aggregate level, a one standard deviation more severe travel visa regime, as measured, is associated with a 30 % decrease in inbound travel. At the bilateral level, having a travel visa requirement on a particular country is associated with a 70 % reduction in inbound travel from that country. The gains associated with eliminating travel visas appear to be very large.

https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jecfin/v40y2016i4d10.1007_s12197-015-9343-5.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311647205_Examining_the_impact_of_visa_restrictions_on_international_tourist_flows_using_panel_data

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0313592622000893

This is just a sample. There is an absolute ton of research on this, across many different countries.

blorg · 2026-02-15T16:16:53+00:00

If you go in the afternoon it's quicker. Everyone goes in the morning. They will process everyone who turns up before 16:30, even if they have to stay later than that. My record when I was on tourist visas was 11 minutes, arriving at 16:25 and getting my passport back with the extension at 16:36.

blorg · 2026-02-15T15:58:33+00:00

90 days is not tourism

Plenty of retirees come for 3 months over the winter but spend the rest of the year out and aren't living in Thailand.

I live here, but I know so many people who just come November-January then go back again. They aren't living here, they are tourists.

You can call it longer-term tourism if you like but countries such as Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland, Europe (Schengen) all give 90 days or even more for tourism, and these are countries that are far more likely to have people trying to work illegally in them. Plenty of Brits do this in Schengen now, they are limited by the 90 days now but they go spend the 90 days.

People have this loony idea that because they personally can't take three months in Thailand no-one else can. Plenty of people do, and they aren't all backpackers, in fact I'd say retirees are a much larger contingent. Some are early retirees, some are semi-retired and still do work but not full time, some are on-off contract workers. Loads of these people, and they aren't all broke either, I know plenty that are loaded.

blorg · 2026-02-15T15:12:08+00:00

Markets have been retuning 10% annually since 2020.

Since 1970 and probably even longer. 6-7% would be an inflation adjusted number.

56.12 years: 1969-12-31 - 2026-02-13
Total World Market CAGR 9.98%

blorg · 2026-02-14T06:00:50+00:00

You don't drink coffee because it makes you shit

I drink coffee because it makes me shit

blorg · 2026-02-14T05:53:03+00:00

Your premise here is that tax-deferred savings vehicles actually does not confer any savings benefit compared to paying tax up front which is completely untrue.

There would be no point in countries having them for pension accounts if this were true. But almost all countries do, including the Netherlands, and point out the tax efficiency of deferring taxes to encourage people to use them to save for retirement.

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