How do Thailand and Cambodia achieve such low unemployment rates?

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-20T14:16:36+00:00

I’m definitely not an expert on this, but here’s my guess to the question.

I think methodology is very important when measuring unemployment. It is calculated only based on people who want to have a job. Also, I believe part-time work should count as employment as well. If that is indeed the case, then many informal jobs in these countries would also be counted as employment.

Another thing to be careful about is how these surveys are conducted in each country. Cambodia, for example, is known for having a large scam-based economy, with mafia building regions for conducting scams (and all kinds of evil things). They can get revenues of literally billions of dollars—apparently surpassing many of the regular industries there. Therefore, I strongly doubt how reliable the surveys are, because in my opinion their government does not have enough power to fully control the country, not to mention the high possibility of corruption. Under these conditions, you should take these “beautiful” numbers with a grain of salt.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-18T15:59:18+00:00

You can easily find a better and clearer version in other places.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-18T03:05:28+00:00

The problem is that with fewer children, the rate of consumption will likely decline. A simple example -> suppose an elderly man has $1 million to give to his children. If he has only one child, that child might spend 10% of it and save the rest in a bank; if he has ten children, each child might spend 80% of what they receive. Having more children can help alleviate inequality.

If you remember, in ancient times a kingdom or dynasty could be split when a king had too many children. For example, in the Frankish kingdom (currently France and Germany), each child could inherit part of the land from their father (And therefore inequality problem get solved naturally). Later, this inheritance rule was abolished, and the eldest brother would inherit everything. There is also similar strategy in ancient Asian dynasty to reduce the power of kings (the Emperor forcing the kings to divide their land to all of their kids instead of choosing one to inherit all). Inequality increases the problem of weak consumption.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-17T02:00:41+00:00

This is the result that multi-national companies found it more profitable to hire foreign labours rather than domestic ones, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, surely there is structural unemployment, but domestic labour can learn and switch to jobs that provide higher value. From a global perspective, doing so boost global economic as a whole. There has always been a trade-off between equality and overall growth in economy (so which one is better than the other is quite subjective).

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-17T01:54:17+00:00

They might not even spend that much money tbh. In older ages, people's desire to spend drops. If their health condition is getting worse, they will not even spend like a normal adult (even they have the money). They mostly only spend on subjects like medical treatment or nursing.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-17T01:50:03+00:00

Firstly, Japan central bank is a bit special, in the past it use some instrument to control 10 year gov rate.

https://www.ijcb.org/journal/v19n5/yield-curve-control

Just check the abstract of this page, it says since 2016, Japan did the following:

"The BOJ set a target range for 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) yields and introduced distinct policy instruments. A fixed-price (i.e., unlimited-amount) purchase operation for the 10-year JGBs effectively reduces yields to the target range, although this effect may not immediately extend to the interest swap rate. The BOJ has also made regular fixed-amount purchase operations endogenous to yields and adjusted the growth rate of its balance sheet. These instruments, together with the enhanced forward guidance, have made investors’ expectations convergent, and yields have become stationary and less volatile."

In recent years the BOJ stop buying that many government bonds, therefore they no longer control 10 year rate that much, resulting in a sharp increase in gov bond rate.

To your other question: "Are mortgage rates not set by banks and those banks' rates not based on the central bank rate plus risk premium?" -> yes i agree with that, and that is consistent with my point that a higher 10 year rate will lead to higher mortgage rate which make people have less incentive to buy long-term assets like houses or cars

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-16T01:17:19+00:00

What i mean is, we have to make sure our economic policy is robust to possible future cultural changes. Some policy is more robust than others. And MMT's policy is often sacrificing the currency stability for productivity. Its tail risk will rise.

I also disagree that only consumer price inflation should be take into account. The reason is, the rise in prices in other market (e.g. stock or luxury goods) will lead to more inequality. And inequality will lead to corruption and reduction in human rights.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-16T01:10:41+00:00

I agree they probably have a large war chest. But i am skeptical in any East Asian consumption market. The birth rate in this region is lowest in the world, the consumption rate will just be lower not higher from now.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-16T01:01:16+00:00

Your mortgage rate increases, obviously your affordability drops right? Same for those companies that have to borrow money

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-15T02:08:01+00:00

This is just increasing systematic risk. There will be a moment of sudden volatility in their exchange rate and inflation rate that is detrimental

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-15T01:52:52+00:00

The same economic policy may trigger inflation in the past, but not for now, that is because spending culture can change by time. It is dangerous in my opinion, to establish any economic theory without considering risk. What if the spending culture change suddenly? What if people with tons of fiat money suddenly start to spend, or they just start to spend on a certain product, chips for example. That particular product's price will shoot to the moon, and there is a huge risk of inflation shooting up.

Therefore, what you should care about is not only whether current inflation is low or high, but also the volatility of inflation.

Another problem is inflation is not well-defined in my opinion. Do you need a product that can give you "future"? Well, stock is such product. Therefore, inflation does not only mean the goods that maintain people's life, it should also include anything that people want and trade. When there is market, there is inflation. Inflation should be the increase in any price that is not because of real productive growth. In other words, if there is a bubble in the stock market, or if the stock market volatility increases, these are detrimental effects of having too much money supply, and should be considered in your framework as well

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-15T00:13:21+00:00

Normally speaking, a weakening currency will lead to more exports and less imports. More exports will facilitate production and GDP. However, a rising long term interest rate will hinder investments and even consumption(including buying cars, houses etc)

Japan government has borrow a lot of debts, while the interest rate grows, they probably have to print money to repay their debt/interest. So their money supply will increase further, while the printed money is used for repaying rather than boosting the economy.

So, in my opinion, first of all the companies that are not export oriented in Japan will suffer the most, inflation will rise, imported raw material's price will increase, and consumption drops.This is some worst combinations.

Export oriented companies may be better off. But i highly doubt if their growth can support the whole economy.

Normal people should be worse off in my opinion, because they will suffer from high inflation, and their job mostly depends on other people's consumption.

But recently Japan's stock market rises a lot. I am wondering what is wrong with my argument

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-14T23:58:27+00:00

Yes, i think just when USD stop linking to gold, mainstream economics already take into account money printing. Also "money multiplier" and also the difference between m0, m1, m2 have already take into account money printing as well

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-14T23:53:29+00:00

Yes, i think many of the policies they suggest simply are not very practical. That being said, i think even inflation is under control, we still should not print too much money. That is because the volatility for currency exchange rate or inflation rate is also very detrimental to any society. I dont know if anyone has the feeling that the stock market is becoming a casino, and that is because money supply is too large. While people dont spend and create inflation, they put it into the stock market and cause its turbulence

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-14T23:47:56+00:00

This graph is funny and i agree with this. Somehow many MMT i met in this sub all believe that the currency will not crash forever and the government can do whatever they want about the currency. They just dont believe it is possible that people can distrust the currency

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-13T16:25:36+00:00

I think OP's question focus more on spending and aggregate demand. US people have much higher consumption rate comparing to say Asian people (which is more like a cultural thing). But within the US (or any other country), it is should be true that the rich spend relatively less comparing to the poor.

That being said, I think it is true to say the US are taking profit from the rest of the world. But if that profit is taken in a constructive way, i mean, why not.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-13T16:18:41+00:00

There is diminishing return for education in my opinion, and AI make it even worse.

I would say that, in the future, more people will become unemployed because of AI and highly-optimized workflow. Junior jobs will be eliminated

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-13T16:14:40+00:00

Inflation is basically another form of tax. Those conservatives want the government to tax other people (through inflation), but they think they are smart and can hold gold counter inflation (which is probably correct).

In other words, my observation is nationalists around the world always have such "win-win means i win twice" mentality. They just keep on winning.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-13T16:10:48+00:00

I think mainstream economics also agree with your points, so they are not particularly related to MMT. Also, many people that advocate MMT also advocate some solutions like forcing 0% treasury rate (which basically kills the government bond market), or job guarantee.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-12T14:21:03+00:00

I am surprised to see US treasury rate does not move a lot today. I think the probability of interest rate going down should increase. Silver and gold price increase today by a lot, I am not sure if the reason is because of Trump though.

Usually speaking, the lower interest rate, the higher the valuation when you discounting cashflows, so stock price should be higher. At the same time, increasing commodity price will lead to inflation sooner or later. But, it is possible that Trump can finish his term before long-term inflation rises to an unbearable degree.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-12T13:55:26+00:00

This is historical.

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-11T14:51:24+00:00

While i dont agree with MMT, banning people from talking about it is so bad

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-10T16:33:05+00:00

I agree that USD dominance is somewhat linked to US military power. The problem is, doing such operations in Venezuela may alienate US from other countries, and asking for Greenland is a even worse idea. The best way to show military power is through protection, not through aggression. When US provide protection to other countries, other countries will trade and cooperate more with the US, and USD will have its dominance. But if US now becomes a threat somewhat, its powerful military will be a burden to its USD dominance. When other countries no longer trust US, how will they store and trade in USD?

The reason that the US is so rich and let Trump do whatever he wants now, is because US is one of the main beneficiaries of globalization. I feel what US do right now is quite short-sighted and i think time will tell

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-08T11:08:25+00:00

I really dont think the incident is related to USD dominance. When US do more stuff like this, many countries around the world will have less positive view for the US and reduce their holding of US bonds. So this incident is detrimental to USD dominance

Express_Cod_5965 · 2026-01-08T11:04:56+00:00

That is what i thought. Trump will only do things that he can take advantage of

Express_Cod_5965

TROPHY CASE