19 minutes ago, ukrules said:

On some exchanges you can provide liquidity for traders who pay interest to use either your coins or your fiat to leverage their trades in both directions by many multiples.

 

I believe it's not cheap to do this type of trade but it is very widespread and this is where the short term borrowing at higher interest rates begins - that's just a part of it though.

 

Nope…still not getting it.  Here is a cut and paste of the post I was referring to.

“No, this 1 year period is only for the Maiar exchange as it is a new one. You can stake for 200% and wait a year or 14%, which you can sell any time. 

The 12% for Polkadot on Kraken has no holding period.  Kraken is a US bank and you can also get 2% on USD, 23% for Kava, 18% for Kusama, and many other that also don't have any tied up time. Only 0.25% for Bitcoin. 

The 47% for Solana/Raydium on Raydium exchange is also redeemable any time.”

Still can’t wrap my head around 200% APR (with a 1 year holding period) or why anybody would offer that.  And the same “exchange” is 14% with the ability to “sell at any time”.

A cash advance on a credit card would cost less.  Much less.

1 hour ago, happydreamer said:

Supposedly, the interest is paid for staking (loaning as you referred to) because your assets (read as crypto) contribute to blockchain and provide processing power for transactions to occur.  The interest thats being paid (crypto) is the by-product of more transactions completing blocks on the blockchain.  I don't know what your background is on understanding how blockchain works so I'm not sure if thats going to make sense or not.  

Nope.  Makes no sense at all.  And if it’s lent out on the exchanges as @ukrulessays, who is it lent to and how could it possibly pay triple digit annual interest?  Wouldn’t it be cheaper for someone (who intends on borrowing said Bitcoin) to just buy it using credit card?

I had a friend who got involved in one of those Bitcoin lending schemes.  2% daily compounding (yes…daily) or something like that.  I ran the numbers for him on a $1000 investment and showed him that in 2 years he’d be a billionaire.

he smiled…..didn’t get it.

told him that in 3 years he’s have more money than Gates.

bigger smile from him…nodding his head.  Still didn’t get it.

told him that in 5 years he’d have more money than all the money in the world combined.

Still didn’t get it.

I googled the guy who was running the scam.  People were talking about him all over the internet.  Even had articles written about him in newspapers.  “Get rich quick schemes”.  Showed him that people for years have been calling him out on his scams.

Still couldn’t accept it.

Problems started.  The scammer claimed that there were “technical” problems.  People started to complain.  Couldn’t withdraw their money.  Scammer offered higher returns for people who would leave their money in for a year….but there was a minimum amount required.  People had to pony up extra…and they did.  As did my friend.

Nothing I could say or show him would or could convince him that it was a scam.  Math didn’t matter.  The tons of information about the guy running the scam all over the internet didn’t matter. (FWIW, I’m just as concerned when I google peoples names with Bitcoin operations here in Bangkok and get nothing about them)

Friend lost his money in that scheme.  Easy come…easy go I suppose.

39 minutes ago, happydreamer said:

Real estate in and of itself doesn't own anything and it doesn't produce anything.

Real estate can have a measurable P/E in the way of rents (some better than others). If lived in and not rented out, it has utility as shelter which can be measured via OER (owners equivalent rent).

That being said.  I wouldn’t invest in R/E either.

When I hear of people “loaning” out their cryptocurrencies and claiming APRs of double and triple digits, they are never able to tell me exactly how (in simple, easy to understand, jargon-free terms) the returns are made.  

52 minutes ago, BangkokAlan said:

I went there two weeks ago and they checked my documents and invited me back 1 week later, i now have my renewed license. Maybe new licenses are different.

Mine is for a renewal also (not a new license).  You definitely got lucky with the timing.  I have no idea why they scheduled me so far out (and I was the 2nd to last name on the sign in sheet for that date).  Just goes to show how sometimes, things just don’t make sense here.  Glad to hear you were able to get sorted in a more timely manner.

26 minutes ago, EricTh said:

What? How long is the whole process from application date?

 

I converted my home country driving licence in just 1 day.

 

Then after 2 years, I renewed my 5 year licence in just a few hours in Chiang Mai. 

 

 

It only took me a day (actually about 4 hours) to get my drivers license the first time.  I went to the DLT (near BTS Bang Chak) in the middle of January to renew the registration sticker on my car and my drivers license.  The car was only an hour or so but when I went to the desk to start the drivers license process, I was told that there was a queue and the earliest date that they scheduled me for was mid May.  Crazy, but it is what it is.

You will need a certificate of residency for both registering the bike and the drivers license.  There is currently a long queue to get a license at the DLT I went to in Bangkok last month.  I’m scheduled 4 months out to renew my license.

46 minutes ago, catturd said:

perhaps but it depends on the age cohort and some recent UK data suggests vaccinated are at higher risk of covid infection now. For example: for 40-49 year olds, the case rate is 4,687 per 100,000 in the boosted, and only 1,726 in the vaccine-free. The arithmetical implications are the boosted are 2.71 times MORE LIKELY to get covid.

Table 13, p. 44

 

Where in those figures are the people who have had 2 doses but not “at least 3 doses”?  Why would they be excluded from these figures? How many people out of the entire population have had “at least 3 doses” vs “2 doses” vs “unvaccinated”.   We need more information.

I also see that the unvaccinated in the 40-49 age group are roughly 4 times as likely to die, but again, what happens to those figures if you include the 2 dose group?

Also, when I hear “4 times as likely to die” it sounds scary.  But when I look at the total numbers (0.8/100,000 vs 3.4/100,000) both groups seem to have a relatively low risk of death at that age range.  4 times a very small fraction is still a very small fraction.  Of course, it’s different for people over 70 so I can understand the concern of posters here that fall in that demographic.

I also find that there is information missing and we could get a better grasp of the absolute risk if we were to see the comorbidities and height/weight of those who die.  Of the 3.4/100,000 40-49 year olds, how many were overweight?

A friend of mine who works in Malls (rotates between different malls) had 2 AZ shots originally and for her booster is required to get Pfizer.  No Moderna is being used as she informs me.  Why Pfizer and not Moderna?  I don’t know and neither does she.

10 hours ago, donx said:

Can you explain the US tax advantages? I'm not aware of any and if there are, I'd like to know if they are available to me as an American as well.

I was wondering the same thing.  I’m not aware of any tax advantages of owning a condo here in Thailand unless @Jingthingis referring to opportunity costs such as income received from investments (dividends) or interest income on money that was left in a US bank account etc, rather than spent on a condo.  Would be nice to understand what exactly he is referring to.

Leaky pipes in the wall?

1 hour ago, DavisH said:

How do you explain the low number of deaths then? If there were really 10's of thousands of cases a day, why is the death rate only 10-15 a day?? So you don't believe the death count either?

Maybe it’s just not that deadly?

17 hours ago, jimmybcool said:

  I could have bought a simple Toyota Highlander here.  If has as much room and does what my BMW X5 does.  To get the same features (almost) of my BKW would have cost $45K.  My BMW (which had some ridiculous features I didn't need or want such as a $5k special paint color) was $85K.  So I could have saved $40K.  All I know is if I had bought the Toyota I know every time I got in the thing I'd have been disappointed in the acceleration, handling, sound system, cabin quality, and materials.  It was worth that $40k TO ME to have the creature comforts difference.

But here in Thailand, that Highlander (if it was sold here) would still be $45k whereas a comparably equipped X5 would run $150k and you wouldn’t retain even close to the same percentage upon sale as there isn’t as much of a middle class that can afford second hand BMWs vs second hand Toyotas.

On 1/29/2022 at 3:55 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

After this is all over, some serious questions need to be answered as to why nearly 2 years into a pandemic, staffing is inadequate for a forseeable surge in cases. They have had way more time than needed to recruit and train enough nurses, though Drs would be more of a problem as they require many years of education. I'm not referring to registered nurses that take 3 years to train, but to LPNs in the US and Enrolled nurses in Britain.

That applies to other western countries too.

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/overview-of-tmc-icu-bed-capacity-and-occupancy/

That’s fine and all but what does David Miscavige think?

6 hours ago, Saanim said:

Also worth to read:

https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/11223/22-01-19-covid19-winter_publication_report.pdf

Very interesting.  Especially tables 15 and 16.

I really wish that I could get extremely granular data on every individual hospitalization and death.  Mostly co-morbidity related, and an included photograph (faces can be blurred to protect their identity) as there have been reports in the past of “perfectly healthy” younger people who died but then it turned out that they were morbidly obese and just hadn’t been diagnosed yet with their pre-existing conditions.

9 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

727 total deaths under the age of 18 in the United States

To put it in perspective, almost 800 children from drowning annually in the US.  
 

https://www.safekids.org/press-release/almost-800-kids-drown-each-year-more-half-are-under-age-5

“His name is Robert Paulson”

-Fight Club

10 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I read the whole story, it had photos, and the guy was a fatty.

In the same great shape as our favourite wrestlers Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy. 

I wonder if he was juicing (anabolic steroids). ????

57 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

Got the Grand Prix running now ... imagine if these were EVs ... more powerful & faster, which they would be, but they'd be humming by ... literally HUMMING by .... ????

 

I’d prefer a gt3 screaming by over a Tesla humming by regardless of the speed.

1 hour ago, Chelseafan said:

90% of Covid ICU cases in the UK are those that are non-vaccinated. I suspect that the figures in Thailand won't be too dissimilar.

 

 

Covid-19: Fact check—how many patients in hospital are unvaccinated?
 

“The Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC), which has been monitoring activity throughout the pandemic, provides information on admissions to intensive care.3 Its latest report, published on 31 December, showed that the proportion of patients admitted to critical care in December 2021 with confirmed covid-19 who were unvaccinated was 61%.”

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o5

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

From that data 20% of the population ( unvaccinated ) is contributing 30% of the hospitalisations in NSW. Just under 50% of the ICU patients come from the same 20%. That's the omicron wave, and it's early days. The Delta variant was much worse.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=vaccination+rate+nsw+percentage

Statisticians and scientists don't usually draw conclusions from a 7-day average, they want much longer time periods and bigger sample sizes. You can, evidently you know better. I'd ask you to post your scientific/medical credentials, but there's no way to fact check them.

 

Santayana once said those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. You are on track.

 

Your claim of 90% of the people hospitalized being unvaccinated was wrong.

Accept it and move on.

3 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

This data relates to the Delta variant outbreak in NSW. It contradicts the data posted by some "factcheck" site which is based 15,000 km from Sydney.

 

https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/in-focus/covid-19-vaccination-case-surveillance-051121.pdf

 

The way I read it, one is 16 times more likely to die of COVID if unvaccinated, and just under 6 times more likely to require hospitalisation.

 

Over to you.

 

 

 

Bring current data to the table.  Not data from June-October of last year.

here’s the current data.

You lose.

https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/698388/20220104-COVID-19-Monitor.pdf