radioman

21 hours ago, chocolat steve said:

Western is a country comprised mostly of people from European background and the non western background people have adopted 'western' culture. I think intellectually most would agree on that. Mexico and Canada border America but only America and Canada are deemed western of the 3. 

Are you then western or non-western?

Thing is if they are kiwis then are they not eastern? I mean its pretty far east right. I guess we agree on the general convention of where east and west are. But I'm starting to tire of all these labels, a common one doing the rounds, especially oft repeated by attractive female reporters of south asian ethnicity(sic) is BAME, which seems to mean black asian minority ethnic. Do people really need more titles? Is there empowerment in classification? What's wrong with human, generally applies to all of us. If they deserve a label other than that perhaps such as the first two items in Coss's post above maybe miserable cunt is appropriate.

Isn't this the place where they ship in a boat load of women every once in while?

Are the writing instruments, sheets etc suitably sanitised? Presumably they have hand sanitiser for use prior to signing otherwise... ?

I was initially surprised when I went to Angeles for the first time in a long time just how much it had changed to the extent of the Chinese invasion. I figure another couple of years at the current expansion rate and the Filipinos will start to push back, the takeover is gathering pace. We stayed at a nice hotel in Clark, good 4 star with attached casino, guests were 90% Chinese.

If you are familiar with airports and have spent much time in China you can instantly recognise the terminal at Clark as pure Chinese cookie cutter airport design, real drop ship approach with pretty much everything direct sourced in China.

The Financial times has an interesting piece, perhaps a bit on the TLDR side for the limited attention span types but a worthy read.

Note: The Financial times is a generally unbiased news source quoted by both allsides.com and mediabiasfactcheck.com as being unbiased and factually correct. adfontesmedia.com states its quality to be above good and its bias to be fractionally to the right of dead centre. As such I consider it to be a tolerably accurate source of data.

Inside Trump's coronavirus meltdown

My apologies if the above link takes you to the FT's paywall.

If you Google on the title of the link above however, at least for me, it should take you to the full article. A beverage of choice should be prepared before digesting.

They easiest way to have no infections is...?

3 hours ago, Mekong said:

Is Radioman Frede reincarnated.

Haha, my hero.

I'm more shoes than handbags, but whatever.

As long as there's curtain to clean off on.

No COF/CIM 😏

Whilst the pictures are always appreciated I think the key element is that they be related to beer.

Seems the beers lockdown has not been relaxed in all provinces. Govt has allowed it but provincial governors can vary that it seems. Could be a few extended inter province trips to secure stock.

It seems to work on the basis that those you owe will not foreclose, for one reason or another. I think the term is leverage, in two senses of meaning.

I read that a Singaporean oil tycoon has recently gone bust. I don't recall the numbers but his company had something like $3-4bn in debt with about $700mn in resolvable assets. This is a chinese gambler of a tycoon, old school, no hedging. So when the oil price dipped the creditors (banks) were on the phone fast, oops. Clearly the guy made a big mistake, it's okay not to hedge but you better have all the bankers balls in your hands.

But I think the reason so many people can "appear" rich is all down to borrowing. I don't know if it would be realistic to achieve millionaire status from simple re-investment without borrowing. Assuming you are actually in a productive business generating something of real tangible value.

I think that until the end of 2019 the big Q&A in modern economics schooling would have been something like:

Q. What happens when a global pandemic strikes, governments around the world essentially shut down their economies and break large parts of the human connectivity chain?

A. Ha ha ha ha ha ha , Firgeddaboutit, never will and never can happen. Totally preposterous suggestion, now any serious questions?

You can imagine for the next few years planners wanting a potential lock-down supplement.

My particular area of interest, the aviation business looks to be a fun watch for the next few years. BA have announced they will need to make redundancies going forward, about 12,000 people will go, that's around 25% of their workforce. Virgin is on the brink of collapse. Quantas is struggling to keep afloat. Boeing has said it will need to cut jobs, much of that is probably the double whammy from the 737MAX and the likely minimal civilian orders going forward. One of the UK LCC's, I think EasyJet but not sure, has said they will cut several thousand jobs, again, a sizeable percentage. I know nothing of the US carriers though I have connections to some employees through friends, flying staff, all think they will likely see big job losses and big scaling back of operations in the next few months. Realistically, bailout money for those who can obtain it, will likely cover only a small fraction of potential losses. Some smaller EU airlines might well disappear. Middle East Airlines are potentially shielded similarly for any other countries where the government holds a large stake. They will likely be more massively unprofitable than they usually are but simple pride will not permit their failure and so they will remain essentially subsidised by their populations.

Contracts on the books now will likely go ahead where funding is in place but anyone looking for a budget to develop aviation projects for the next 2-3 years minimum is likely not going to get it.

Hong Kong airport is building a third runway, project is underway and part done but as some aspects are scheduled for fiscal 21-22 and beyond I would say its questionable they will finish it now. They don't even need two runways for the time being. It is possible that smaller projects might get a boost while the blue sky jobs get sidelined.

Sounds like she might be of the right sort of stuff then. ME jobs will be scarce unless things return to normal and even then the largely increased pool of unemployed is likely to cause wages to fall in at least the short to medium term. I've just been offered another ME 2+ year contract with a rate no more than I had 6 years ago, and less than my last real paying job. Being an ME job its still a shit load but it shows that rates are not particularly increasing.

A big demand in teaching is for those with online tutoring experience so it would be good to look at that and find ways to gain experience. Create some videos, do some preparatory work to put in front of prospective employers. Pretty certain they will be adding that as a plus point going forward.

Not to belittle this guy, who is truly amazing in so many ways, what a life he has lived for sure, and its clear that what he is doing is both selfless and humbling in many ways yet I can't help feel some nagging questions are being missed in the rush to hip hip this wonderful chap.

For a country with a supposedly solid welfare system built on the backs of taxpayers sweat and apparently one, so those in charge would have us believe, is well prepared and well able to fight the fight, all good measures being taken by the genpop of course. Why then this need for charity? What does this add to the big picture apart from some intrinsic feel good factor? Not that there is anything wrong with feelgood in and of itself.

It strikes me that all of these things, apparently good deeds done by the dozen, do little more overall than to deflect attention from where it counts, holding politicians and civil servants feet to the fire 24/7/365 to just get it done.

As of today probably nowhere.

There are placement agencies in Manila for this kind of work and there are many thousands of (currently out of work) "English teacher" Filipinas in Thailand. Most are shockingly bad beyond all possible belief. Most end up employed only by dodgy schools that do not provide work permits or proper visas, and of course as a consequence no proper contract or protection. Many supplement their income in the time honoured way women have often done, see websites, DIA, seeking.com etc. Income after "necessary deductions" likely to be less than half what she is looking for.

Better options will be in the Middle East, Dubai, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, but this is another game again. Their requirements will mean proper accredited qualifications and likely a few years as a teaching assistant in country. Money will be better though, US$1500 per month and up, much more expensive place to live though. Still plenty of opportunities for out of hours income enhancement, see websites seeking.com, ok-cupid etc.

Vast majority of advertisements offering work in Thailand are out and out scams which a little research, not something the Filipinos I've ever known seem much inclined to bother with, will soon reveal.

p.s. "College educated" in the Philippines with one or possibly two very specific exceptions is somewhat equivalent to a high school diploma from a more educationally responsible country. I would exclude UOP as one very specific exception.

So what is the end game here?

Right now everywhere is pretty much locked down and the world is effectively at something of a standstill. Questions being asked relate to when will things re-open or change and when will some degree of normal life be allowed to return. Before we get to that though I think there is a related question that I'm not seeing asked and which I think needs to be asked and that is, what are the conditions being looked for to determine making changes is safe?

Thailand has a relatively low official number of both infected and dead. At what point does the government say its no longer a problem, 10 people a day, none? The same with other countries, given something that essentially cannot be contained what are the models for determining a time frame to de-escalate and what do they suggest as an acceptable level of risk.

I think eradication is unlikely, a vaccine is still 12 months away, and even then will take 12 months to deploy globally I'm sure. I can't see the gen pop going along with the idea of another 24 months of restrictions, at least not seriously.

Whilst those that have little have little to lose, those that have plenty might be more seriously affected and more inclined to kick up a fuss.

We lost two greats today. Tim Brooke Taylor (79), Goodie Goodie yum yum, to this awful virus. Unrelated to the virus but after a long illness a true legend and a gent, Sir Stirling Moss (90), arguably the greatest motor tracing driver never to win a world championship. Dark days indeed.

It's no wonder the Scots invented so much stuff. Good whisky has the most amazing power to free the mind to the extent even the most preposterous constructs seem utterly plausible, you've only to look at the stuff invented by Scotsmen over the centuries and its not hard to imagine whisky had to be involved at some point.

And that's only the really famous and useful stuff, what about all the other shite, like deep fried Mars bars, sheep cloning, fer fecks sake, you'd think the fecking Kiwi's might have come up with that one but chances are they don't all sit around at uni wi a boatil goin "oh I know lets photocopy a feckin sheep!" But you just know in Scotland that's how it started.

Well around here it's made quite a big difference. All the hangouts in this area, mostly as a part of being on a huge university campus, have been going strong pretty much all night as usual. My 18 year old, just graduated high school and waiting to start her freshman year is getting into the swing of things. This usually starts with getting up between 4-5pm and heading out with her pals soon after 9pm. Typically getting in around the time I get up, about 6am. Oh how I remember those days.

This has of course all stopped with immediate effect. Until this curfew essentially it was business as usual, not tonight!

My kids order this bubble tea, in a variety of appetizing sounding flavours, hazelnut gecko, mushroom and longan, strawberry and tomato all seem to be favourites. WTF is it all about?

I know I know, I'm just old 😏

The bigger question should be who the fuck is dumb enough to ever believe anything that the Chinese say in the first place? The very first response of any sufficiently intelligent sentient being should be "What China says x (10 +/- 2, 3 or 4)" then plan a suitable response and preparation model for that resulting number being somewhere close.

The problem remains that these women are invisible, totally non-existent to the remainder of the Thai population.

1 hour ago, Coss said:

Wipe arse with wife's hand,  if you can get her to crouch beside the toilet and wait.

Should be no issue if she's a proper sub.