Enzian

That's a commonplace in much of Greek and Roman, Epicurean and Stoic, philosophy. The problem with it is that in the ancient world doctors could only do so much for you beyond a basic level, so philosophers could ignore that aspect when glorifying a life of poverty. But in the modern world, with modern medical science, having a lot of money will definitely get you better health outcomes. So it makes far less sense to be poor, though I understand that's not exactly what you said.

I'm a fiscal conservative, almost to an extreme degree, but grocery monopolies suck. And I never buy anything made by Red Bull.

I saw him speak at the FCCT last night and when it came to the question of foreigners jumping on the recreational use of pot bandwagon, he beat around the bush like you hardly ever saw. But that's politics, gotta say something that will just keep the ball rolling.

So are these "tremors" what caused the recent shoreline flooding on Phuket, or was that a coincidence?

Just last week I was at Phuket, Phi Phi, and Samui for the first time, and I've been in LOS for 12 years. I have a bias; tourist traps suck. The water in the Andaman sea is nice, but except maybe for the swimming, Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is better than all those. Just my opinion.

I just booked with EVA one-way BKK-SFO for about 33K baht; it might in more normal times be 5 or 10K less. I usually use my United points for any one way go, but for weeks upcoming they want 90K points one way same route coach, normally 44K. So I paid cash to EVA to save points. Amazing backstory with EVA. I transit TPE, and apparently that transit was only reopened June 15, last month; it had been shut since August last year which played havoc with Taiwan's two main airlines. Get this, unless the rule changes in the next 2 weeks, I have to have a negative RT-PCR test for a 2 1/2 hour transit in TPE; US Immigration doesn't care for my entry. And we think Thailand has been bad (well, it has).

Yes the problem is that crazy avoidable accidents are so common here every day that if we took each one with the seriousness it deserves we wouldn't be able to enjoy life in a normal way. We each have to become "the laughing philosopher", amused at the follies of humanity.

Nepos is a Latin word that started out during the Roman Republic meaning grandson but which came over time to be used more often for nephew. When Julius Caesar died (unexpected to him) his will revealed he had designated his great nephew Gaius Octavius (his nepos magnus) to be his adopted son and heir. Octavian of course, as Emperor Caesar Augustus, went on to found the Julio Claudian dynasty, thus providing the greatest example of nepotism in history.

I actually agree with you in the abstract and it leads to one of those philosophic issues, that living in the world we must act (not acting is a form of action), and we must act based on imperfect and incomplete information. We must as "as if" things will continue as they are, otherwise we're led to nihilism and an inability to do anything. Buffett knew US money is based on nothing but that didn't stop him from trying to make more, and to use it to invest in real things. So your distinction, while true, ultimately has no practical application in life--except to always use caution.

In this kind of hierarchical social system with fairly distinct classes of high and low, and a commitment to perpetuate such distinctions, it's the normal state of affairs.

You explicitly include property as "money", but an apartment building has value because, short of societal breakdown or regulatory madness, people will keep paying their rent; that's the rule of law, not faith. Not everything works on the model of gold, and the problem with gold, and raw land for example, is it doesn't produce income. People like Buffett mention this all the time.

I'm starting to lose track of the number of times I've nearly been hit in an obvious crosswalk.

We're a little off topic but I will add that getting my former Thai GF a Schengen visa to accompany me to Europe was a major task. And I never was able to get her accepted for a tourist visa to the US, despite her having assets and family here. All those Thai ladies who went to America on tourist visas and ended up in restaurants and massage shops were the reason imo. And in fact when I first met her she was contemplating the restaurant scam, and I nixed it. People going from a relatively poor to a relatively rich country, what will happen?

Price controls should be applied very carefully; the law of unintended consequences will always kick in, even on relatively modest restrictions. I saw what rent control did to the housing stock in the Bay Area in the 80s, and it's still going on.