ChatGPT is fairly generic, it looks like an insurance job - the cost of rebuilding god only knows.

ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important informa

.

I asked Chat Gpt what could be the impact of such a disaster - there's a trade there for sure.

 

7 minutes ago, pub2022 said:

 

 

I thought the Wild West was long gone.

Could you please let us know where this is happening so that we stay away?

 

Deep South near to the Malaysian border. A lot carry loaded weapons there apparently.

Thanks, apparently it's at that stage at the moment, but the bail bond was 500k which has been handled by 2 chanotes and tabien rot for the car and the shootee wants a payoff which is apparently being negotiated.

On 3/16/2024 at 11:03 PM, Mike Lister said:

Your questions and my answers made me think about what I might do if I was The Revenue, so for humour value, try this:

 

I'd recognise that low compliance, avoidance and evasion, along with cash in hand, are key features of the workforce, there is no social responsibility ethos that compels people to pay tax. Any steps to improve tax collection have therefore got to be easily enforceable and an "escape proof trap", a bottle neck that everyone has to pass through and that can be reliably monitored and captured. All that points towards using the banks and electronic data capture to snare evaders/avoiders, it also points towards using other government agencies that are associated or linked. Revenue is able to tax exports/imports because they are company based and rely on annual returns that are audited, they also rely on Customs Department. Large companies are easily taxable because they have to prepare audited books and returns. Real estate is easily taxable because it relies on the Land Office. 

 

I'm pretty sure that if I was them, I would want to harness the other government departments to help me collect tax. IF foreigners were the target, which I don't believe they are, Immigration would be a key tool in all of that. Visa applications, extensions and departure/arrival are key bottle necks. Having said all that, I doubt that either department has the required levels of operational efficiency to make that sort of system work effectively, not for several years.

 

 

 

I remember when the Thai government during covid via an app gave 5000 baht or some such to Thai people but only if they had less than 500k in the bank. My wife and another friend who lived in England but were in Thailand at the time tried to get it. They downloaded the app, registered, but when they tried to get it they were barred with the 500k rule. As far as I understand, the 500k was aggregated, and she had less than that in a single account. So the Thai government had a handle on the amount in Thai bank accounts aggregated, was my conclusion. They probably got each bank to run a query against each Thai ID number - pooled the information ins a single file and ran the app against this look up. So they are quite sophisticated in what they know, IMHO.

2 minutes ago, daveAustin said:

Better off in prison. Don't get involved, you or wife.

This is definately my wife's position to her friend. He's a nasty piece of work by all accounts and carries a loaded gun around all the time, but the first time he has ever shot someone in anger. He was drunk, that's all I know.

A friend of the wife's 70-year-old brother has shot and wounded (but not seriously) another guy in an argument. They got him out of police detention by lodging a chanote for land against a bail bond that I understand was 100k. There is talk now about what will happen and how much would be required by all involved to make this problem disappear. Any thoughts ?

3 hours ago, Mavideol said:

everyday we found out what many people can/will do for some.... Indians, Nepalese, Chinese, Africans and BRITS, who have thought 555

Brits fighting for Russia in Ukraine should be arrested and jailed, says ex-Army chief

https://au.yahoo.com/news/brits-fighting-russia-ukraine-arrested-081515986.html

If my memory serves me right, the Wagner Group has 450 Russian ex French Foreign Legion vets working for them and even more Ukrainians left to join the Ukraine forces. They bring battle hardened NATO strength training and are some of the best. These Brits look like some pathetic malcontents that are employed for propaganda purposes rather than any military skills they probably don't have. If they don't die in Russia, then I'm not sure why wasting money on incarcerating them at huge public expense would serve if they ever come back.

Wagner is the ultimate mercenary army - full of psychopathic soldiers who love war and get to share in some of the treasure they plunder for their bosses, and it looks like they have survived the offing of their founder and CiC. Who can forget his expletive filmed rant against Shoigiu and Gerasimov that was a step on the way to him getting his just desserts. Russia is indeed a mafia state but there's only room for one Godfather.

‘We were brothers in the Legion. Now we fight each other in Ukraine’
Men who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the French Foreign Legion have found themselves on opposite sides after the Russian invasion, writes Anthony Loyd in Kyiv

https://archive.is/KJjBm

Talking about Truth Social The Don's latest video - American Fascism - a clown Mussolini - the American dream turned in on itself.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/112165952111436577

9 minutes ago, Nick Carter icp said:

 

   That isn't the truth  , the people in question were not the IDF , the people who are being questioned are independent medics and they aren't the IDF

It was a turn of phrase, not a statement of fact in this instance. This is ZAKA

https://zakaworld.org/about-zaka/

2 minutes ago, transam said:

Sorry, but you and I are probably here because of the USA, strange you should forget that, but then again, a Red under the Bed, would.....😝

You would have preferred the Nazi get to rule Europe, Communism prosper, its your thing, it seems.....

Yawn - reminds me, I need my second cup of coffee. Anyway, as my late dad who fought in WW2 never forgot, the soviets saved our asses as much as the Yanks and lost 20 million as opposed to 400k for the US. Never forget. But it looks like you already have.

7 minutes ago, transam said:

So your USA carpet bombed Vietnam, nuked Japan to try and finish things, that is what war is about. Now come back with the civilian casualty figures to finish the aggression of others.

To the victors go the spoils, rollox, your USA suffered horrendous casualties in 2 theatres, Japan and probably Germany were HELPED to get back on their feet, you just have a thing about Jews......🤨

3 million dead in SE Asia because the US couldn't accept national self-determination for Vietnam. Forgive me if I don't see the US as some sort of John Wayne good vs evil drama, which you obviously do. And that means you have lost the moral high ground to opine about war crimes, as have any other supporters. Sorry about that.

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. This little conflict has had western pundits wrong so many times that I'm surprised some still try it on.

Seems that all the AN posters telling us 2 years ago that the orcs were losing have thought better of it and abandoned ship.

China has rescued Russia whilst Europe has effectively sanctioned itself and put a severe brake on the German industrial base which is vital to support the Eurozone. Of course this means that Russia is effectively a vassal state of China, but I don't think Putin cares about the optics, just the fact that it has saved his ass. Chinese know how will also be useful in supporting and developing Russia's crumbling infrastructure, and they will no doubt take future contracts in lieu of cash if they can trust them, which is a big if. Globalisation and the buoyant world economies that benefited from global cooperation are now effectively dead, and dark times loom ahead with advanced economies drowning in debt and welfare entitlements and a pressing need for huge rearmaments where elected leaders will need to persuade reluctant electorates for guns not butter. Good luck with that.

And Trump is coming - never forget that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/23/sanctions-treasury-russia-economy/?utm_source=reddit.com

But Russia’s most important help comes from China. Two-way trade between the countries last year topped $240 billion, a record high, up from $147 billion before the war, according to Chinese customs data.

Chinese companies are filling the gaps left in Russian supply lines with shipments of lathes, self-propelled mechanical shovels and machines that manufacture semiconductors, according to economist Heli Simola of the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies.

India is now buying 1.9 million barrels per day from Russia, up from almost nothing in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. China is buying more, 2.3 million barrels, but was a significant customer before the war.

“He has enough money to support the economy and to support the military,” said economist Elina Ribakova, vice president for foreign policy at the Kyiv School of Economics. “This can continue for a long time.”

5 hours ago, rabas said:

I've never understood why it is seen as some sort of a priori truth that China and/or Russia would welcome the failure of the US and/or EU economies.

 

Certainly no one would welcome the collapse of China which is well integrated into and benefits the world economy. Putin's Russia is a different story. 

 

Putin's Russia is an economically failed state where a group gangsters sell off national resources to enrich themselves and  build doomsday weapons to threaten the world and protect their operation. You do remember the nuclear blast  not long before the Ukraine invasion? That was a failed test of Putin's unstoppable nuclear powered dooms day cruise missile. Nuclear rocket not bomb,  once turned on it can't be turned off. 

 

The Russian 'economy', once the size of Greece, is now closer to that of Chile.  Listen to what Yale Professor Sonnenfeld, world expert on the real Russia economy, has to say. 

 

 

I've done a bit of due diligence on this Professor. He's very big in the stock market, connections with hedge funds, private equity and the like. Meaning, his is big on big US capital. It's common knowledge that JP Morgan, BlackRock amongst others are part of the feeding frenzy for business come the peace. I suspect he's shilling his book.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ukraine-reconstruction-bank-guided-by-blackrock-jpmorgan-ready-action-this-year-2024-01-16/

The stat that stick out for me was he claims that it costs $40 to extract every barrel of oil, and they are losing money on each one when the figure is closer to $10, and he includes taxes and revenues to the state as costs not benefits. Very sneaky. And these 3 respected financial journals disagree with the thrust of his polemic. He sounds like a maverick outlier like Professor Mearscheimer. It's not to say that it is probably in difficult waters, it undoubtedly is, but then the whole world is.

This work was led by my colleague Catherine Wolfram, who was the deputy assistant secretary for climate and energy at Treasury. Russian oil has a very low marginal cost to produce. To the best of our knowledge, the marginal cost of producing oil in Russia is around $5 to $10 per barrel. When you take into account some of the more marginal wells, then maybe it’s closer to $20. The Russian government then collects various royalties and taxes that they impose on their producers, and we know that for budget-planning purposes they would usually target a break-even price of around $40 per barrel.

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2023/how-the-oil-price-cap-balances-pain-for-russia-with-protecting-us-consumers

He's also closely connected with Zelenskiy who spoke at his conference, which doesn't make him wrong but means he is certainly not impartial.

https://worth.com/worthy100/jeffrey-sonnenfeld/

According to him, he and CELI are now higher on the Kremlin’s sanctioned individuals list than Mitch McConnell. But his work has also garnered attention from other governments. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, members of the British cabinet, as well as reps from the International Monetary Fund have all requested meetings with CELI and access to its data. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was so impressed by CELI’s work that he agreed to speak without a prepared script at Sonnenfeld’s CEO summit in July 2022.

The Economist

Few other central banks have been as tough. Yet Russia still seems to be heading for a “soft landing”, in which inflation slows without crushing the economy. The performance of the economy is now in line with its pre-invasion trend; gdp grew in real terms by more than 3% last year (see chart 2). Unemployment remains at a record low. And there is little evidence of corporate distress; indeed, the rate of business closures recently hit an eight-year low.

https://archive.is/NyKJP

Financial Times

On Tuesday, the IMF appeared to concur with Russia’s president. The IMF revised its own GDP growth forecast for Russia to 2.6 per cent this year, a 1.5 percentage point rise over what it had predicted last October.
The Russian economy’s resilience has stunned many economists who had believed the initial round of sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago could cause a catastrophic contraction.

https://archive.is/DX0dG

Bloomberg

Saleha Mohsin: Bloomberg has reported that Russia actually managed to import over $1 billion worth of American and European microchips last year, for use in war technology. That’s because the chips went through neighbor countries—so they weren’t blocked by sanctions. That would require additional export controls.
But Treasury’s Lyngaas says it’s not so simple. Just because the Russian economy is growing does not mean that all GDP growth is created equal.

https://archive.is/e0CMU

My decision not to move to Thailand and live out my remaining years there which is eminent doable and affordable is doubly validated when read posts like this. Stuck inside your condo/house with AC and air purifiers blasting counting patterns on tiles is a thing, but not my thing. Are you on drugs ? On the other hand 8k porn becomes an option there is that.

Terrible if true, and it comes from the UN, so I hope that the UN smearers realise that the UN as a body is worth supporting and defending for the excellent work they do in so many areas.

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. IMO most voters have absolutely no idea of the shenanigans that their elected leaders are up to. The elected leaders no doubt like it that way.

A couple of years ago Ukrainians flags were everywhere in London now you hardly see one (Palestinian flags though - I drove through Tower Hamlets yesterday, and they were literally on every lamppost) nor do my friends and family ever bring the war up and if I do they eye roll and barely tolerate a rant, but they were animated as to where's Kate. They do care though about the cost of living crisis, increasing insecurity and interest rates and folks are angrier collectively as I have ever seen in my life.

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO no one with sense "signs up" unless they think they will be on the winning side. Seems that Ukrainian men have the opinion they will not be winning.

In this event, it's normal to introduce conscription. Is it significant that Zelensky has of now not done so? Perhaps he fears a revolt from the populace, like happened in the US over Vietnam, or worse.

 

Whatever, if he can't convince Ukrainians to go fight, the end can't be too far off.

Maybe these Ukrainians should see their supporters here and see if they will step up to the plate. I see Zelenskiy has sacked another long term ally with no reason given, but he did diss the Chinese.

https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-yanks-outspoken-security-council-boss-appoints-spy-chief-in-his-stead/

Danilov’s firing came after he expressively criticized Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, as well as a Chinese peace initiative, on air during a Ukrainian national telethon.

“As for Li Hui, I want to remind everyone: No one will decide our fate but us,” Danilov said on March 19. “I don’t understand who can trade our territories, our lands like that. Because some Hui, I’m sorry, or whatever his last name is, or someone else think they should decide it.”

11 minutes ago, RayC said:

 

I've never understood why it is seen as some sort of a priori truth that China and/or Russia would welcome the failure of the US and/or EU economies. How would economic turmoil, widespread civil unrest and a breakdown of the respective political systems in these two regions benefit China or Russia? It's not as though either China or Russia is currently in a position to step into the breach, and act as the world's economic powerhouse and de facto policeman. 

 

In any event, China's holdings of US treasuries are broadly correlated with the state of their balance of payments (BOP): A decline in their BOP leads to the selling of overseas assets including US Treasury bonds. The chances of China liquidising all its' holdings by the end of this year is slim. If that happens then we can conclude that the Chinese economy is in freefall not that it is part of some grand master plan to undermine the US economy.

 

Unless/ Until the BRICS are able to forge a common currency, the NDB poses no threat to the dominance of the dollar. Even then, there is no guarantee that the "BRIC" would become the world's reserve currency. The NDB is a work in progress and is likely to remain one for some time yet.

You are assuming logic and reason would underpin any actions. I think we are far long gone from that, maybe we are even at peak human. China never wanted this war or any kinetic war really but having happened it is trading it accordingly. I know little about the fall of the Roman Empire and why it collapsed, but my guess it was hollowed out by decadence within and the barbarians at the gate where animal spirits prevail. Sound familiar ? I very much like your posts btw good to get some informed kickback rather than abuse.