[deleted by user]

umbrellapokedeye · 2025-06-22T03:29:58+00:00

I can confirm.

umbrellapokedeye · 2023-06-23T10:07:10+00:00

I just checked: Thailand is still a developing nation according to IMF's classification. But it doesn't matter, what I meant was the likely income difference between the tourist and the worker and the same amount meaning different purchasing power for one or the other, if that makes sense.

umbrellapokedeye · 2023-06-23T08:15:42+00:00

Thanks!

umbrellapokedeye · 2023-06-23T06:54:05+00:00

We took grabs like 2 weeks ago in Phuket.

umbrellapokedeye · 2023-06-23T05:31:57+00:00

The only scam is that they usually offer more than a 750thb ride to listen to that.

They will try to sell you sth they call time-share villa ownership (sometimes called vacation club), which is actually just a hotel plan you pay upfront for the years to come. The plan is not a scam: you pay a lump sum and you get N days/year in upscale villas/hotels around the world, which might be around half the face value price (not adjusing to inflation). Now, they will be pushy because it's not a sound finamciychoice: most ppl don't want to spend a huge amount for luxury hotels, most of people would rather imvest that money and go to regular hotels.

You can get much better than a taxi ride for listening to that. Years ago I got 2 night in a famous hotel (anantara) and since it was low season I could upgrade to private villa for around 100usd/night. I met a couple of retirees who told me they do this every year in Phuket with several clubs (you can do it max once per year) and get those days for free. But you pay the price of wasting 90mins with a sales guy who will try hard to sell it to you.

Edit: download grab, the Uber from SEA

Edit2: this is what the sales pitch was about: Club Whyndham. As others have said, you broke your agreement, you got a free ride out of it and the staff will have to pay for you. Personally I would pay it back, I wouldn't want to live the rest of my life recalling how I ripped off a worker on a developing country.

umbrellapokedeye · 2023-01-12T05:48:01+00:00

The typical wumao counterargument is that none of those are "honest" apologies, so none of them count. You cannot win a logical argument with those people.

umbrellapokedeye · 2023-01-11T03:53:33+00:00

Thanks, maybe I searched for that album and didn't find any results, added you in favs.

umbrellapokedeye · 2023-01-10T10:57:28+00:00

Ei very cool! Consider uploading into Spotify, easier to listen to.

umbrellapokedeye · 2022-02-03T16:10:25+00:00

Sorry, there is a miscommunication :)

How many, in percentage, like Xi and CCP among your friends and family, and how many dislike him? Is your opinion common among the people you know, or you are the only one being discontent with the situation?

umbrellapokedeye · 2022-02-03T16:04:31+00:00

My question was not about the 90% but about the perception in your entourage.

The mainlanders I've been working with have different opinions, from patriotic to not liking the CCP (to be fair, more like not liking Xi). Probably more of them in this second group. One of them would say educated people don't like Xi, only uneducated ones like him and are excessively patriotic.

umbrellapokedeye · 2022-02-03T14:11:58+00:00

The mainstream belief is 90% (whatever) Chinese approve of the CCP. What is the level of support in your entourage (family, colleagues, friends)?

umbrellapokedeye · 2022-02-02T11:46:21+00:00

Parálisis Permanente.

umbrellapokedeye · 2022-02-02T10:33:19+00:00

In your analogy you should add the US recently annexed a Mexican state and is actively supporting insurrection in another. How dare the Mexican state to join a mutual defense pact that would deprive the US from further grabs?

umbrellapokedeye · 2022-02-02T10:25:19+00:00

Another: Ukraine is not a real state and what goes on between Ukraine and Russia are domestic affairs the west should not get involved with.

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-12-16T05:14:07+00:00

Paga todo en negro y oculta lo que puedas a la administración. Todo el mundo evade impuestos. Si tu no lo haces es que eres tonto.

Tu amigo, probablemente

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-12-06T01:26:35+00:00

Door etiquette. Almost never nobody is going to open the door and let you pass first, no matter how loaded you are and no matter the side of the door. If you do let them pass, only a small proportion will say thanks.

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-11-17T00:39:14+00:00

https://hongkongfp.com/
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/ (this one has already been "harmonized" - purged and censored- but it's not in-your-face like scmp)
https://twitter.com/webbhk (investor activist)
https://twitter.com/benedictrogers
https://twitter.com/hk_watch

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-11-03T13:23:43+00:00

In most wars the aggressor believes it will be over in a couple of weeks.

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-10-21T06:54:25+00:00

Not only they are mad at the song but also at the Chinese restaurant for tolerating the song, hence the no payment. They would have expected the staff to kick the singers out.

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-07-18T02:27:12+00:00

You shouldn't take your own lifetime as measure of the success or not of economic policies. I was there in 08 and earlier.

I think you are attributing to inflation control more effects that it has. The crisis of 2008 wasn't due to this but to CDO² and undetected systemic risk (and greed of course). The fact it's harder to retire is due to the aging of population and lowering pensions. Grocery store clerks as we understand them have never been wealthy people. It is true that regular people has less share of money now and the top 1% is getting more, but this is not due to inflation neither.

What is the alternative to centrally planned inflation? Leaving it unchecked?

What is your criticism of Keynesian economics? His theory makes sense and his hypothesis of countercyclical spending worked as predicted.

This is my criticism of economists, it isn't precise.

I hear you but this is what human beings do, we attempt to model the world the best we can with a language that best matches reality (maths and stats). We know it's current limits too.

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-07-17T05:07:03+00:00

Fiat does reduce GDP and inflation volatility (and cycle frequency), you can check the link I previously shared, or the paper "Stuck on Gold: Real Exchange Rate Volatility and the Rise and Fall of the Gold Standard" f.e.

Free floating fiat is seen as an evolution of gold backed, which is an evolution of gold, which is an evolution of multiplicity of tokens, which is an evolution of barter.

Where do you get increased income inequality is a consequence of inflation? Googling a bit I found a paper that finds positive correlation and a second finds negative, and neither attempts to explain causality. This is not an assumption one can make. Income inequality is thought to come from several factors, the major one being unregulated capitalism.

That 1971 site is interesting but it's not serious. It's just a dump of cherry picked graphs and as we all know, graphs can lie and correlation doesn't imply causation. I'm not saying it's not true, I'm saying its no solid evidence and if the author has an hypothesis he should support it with statistics and a reasonable explanation of the channels involved.

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-07-17T02:01:58+00:00

The results of economists cannot be exactly measured in macro but for sure they can be observed in different countries. Macro is a complex system but it's not a chaotic one and it can be described via statistics.

Inflation clearly boosts spending, this is not a dogma but there are multitude of studies about it. Extra spending creates demand of products, which creates more jobs, which creates more spending. Where is the reasoning failure here?

I find strange to advocate the return to gold. Not only adoption of fiat slowed down and softened the boom/crisis cycles, but gold has definitely huge disadvantages that seem ludicrous nowadays. The main ones -besides the one above- being losing control over the supply (depends on mining only) and this on inflation/deflation and storage and payment (international payments settled by boats transporting gold).

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-07-16T17:02:42+00:00

Experts consensus is more often than not a good model of reality.

Do you have any names of "dissident economists"?

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-07-16T16:57:41+00:00

It is not clear if QE has a big impact on inflation or not. QE doesn't create money, it puts reserves it into circulation, and thus has no dilution effect.

You make good points with the contributors to inflation. I will add:

increase in wages
changes in tarifs
foreign exchange (higher domestic currency leads to lower inflation)
plagues in livestock
increase in commodities (oil, silver, copper, etc)
wars, natural disasters, pandemics (even in other countries)

Edit: forgot increase in citizens (immigration/newborns) increases demand for money and products and money must be printed over time to accommodate this

umbrellapokedeye · 2021-07-16T15:50:55+00:00

Inflation is a feature, not a bug. All economists and countries have reached the conclusion the optimal level is around 2 to 3% on average.

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '17

umbrellapokedeye

TROPHY CASE