cdemundo

"Why can't they give some aid, or additional aid to the hurricane victims sleeping in tents in NC?" Yes, there are always allocation questions. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to consider that when reallocating, one doesn't necessarily look at a spending category that makes up 1% of the budget.

About foreign aid "Myth #1: America spends too much on foreign aid Opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is in the range of 25 percent of the federal budget. When asked how much it should be, they say about 10 percent. In fact, at $39.2 billion for fiscal year 2019, foreign assistance is less than 1 percent of the federal budget. Myth #2: Others don’t do their fair share The U.S. provides more assistance than any other country. As the world’s wealthiest nation, that’s appropriate. There is a broad international commitment that wealthy countries should provide annually 0.7 percent of GNP to assist poor countries. Five countries (Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, and the U.K.) exceed that benchmark. The average for all wealthy nations is around 0.4 percent. The U.S. ranks near the bottom at below 0.2 percent." https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-every-american-should-know-about-u-s-foreign-aid/

Funny thing about this thread. Who is gonna say.yes? But interesting observations by a lot posters. It was worth a read.

"Xmas has evolved from a Christian holiday into something else." Exactly, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Why do non-religious westerners celebrate Xmas? Are you telling me that all those folks believe that a virgin had a baby? The whole story doesn't ring true, I can't believe that grown people would try and go to Bethlehem in December without a hotel reservation. But I love Christmas. Santa etc. not the religious part. I don't even get a tree for many years but I love giving presents, not out of obligation, cuz I want to. I also like Christmas music, the other day I was outside Starbucks and they played "Gee Whiz It's Christmas" which is a goofy song but I really like it. I like The Pretenders version of "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" and "Merry Christmas Baby" by Otis Redding. I like Christmas movies, "Jingle all the way", the Griswold's Christmas movie, "Diehard" LOL. I think Xmas is a blast. It's about giving as well as getting, it's about generosity. Remember you give gifts as well as receive them and for some human types giving gifts is fun as well. Of course the commercial side promotes it massively, doesn't spoil it for me. If Thais want to join in the fun that's great too, why would it bother me? Haha, as they say, don't get me started, but I like Christmas and as far as being religious, I went to 12 years of Catholic school so I figure I get "time off for time served" and I'm not religious at all and I like Christmas.

Well put: " life is short and stinginess and greediness is just not something that benefits us on any level."

Not saying they shouldn't. Asking why they do. The tipping threads aren't saying that you should tip, they are usually asking about how much to tip if you do tip. So why do non-tippers have so much to say about those who do tip? Is it because they secretly know that the reason they don't tip is that they themselves lack generosity?

That is a plausible answer to the question "Why do some people decline to tip?" My question was why do non-tippers feel compelled to jump in to every discussion of tipping. Seems like some conflict there.

It's funny to me (strange and humorous) how non-tippers jump into every discussion about tipping to give a spittle-spraying protest about how tipping is bad/wrong/foolish etc. Seems like they could just ignore the thread but they never do. What is the explanation? Just extreme tightwads?

"Keep on tipping your security who probably call you all sorts of names in Thai once your back is turned!" Proved my point, you're a jerk. Probably suffer from last-word syndrome as well so I'll go ahead and block you.

Thank you I am gonna try and switch.

My taxi ride to work is short and Grab charges a 20 baht surcharge on each ride so makes a significant added cost on a 60 baht fare.

I will check that out, I need a US number and I have never figured out a better way. I will check out UltraMobile PAYG. Thanks. Are you on a grandfathered rate at UltraMobile? Looking on their website I see the lowest rate as $15/month.

I give the daytime condo security guard 500 baht/month. He calls a taxi for me 5 days a week and accepts all deliveries. So I am wondering what to give him at Xmas. I guess the card and a comparable amount should do it.

I have a phone on Consumer Cellular service. Not roaming, I can call and receive voice and text calls from US phone numbers. I pay 15 - 25 USD per month for this varies with number of calls. I don't use for anything else but call/receive from US numbers. I tested it with my Thai phone and it can receive calls and texts from a Thai number as well, but I don't use it for this except for OTP codes for CCs etc.

So "sexual assault" vs rape. Glad that terrible slander can be corrected.

Been vacationing here since 2000 and now live here year round. Only times I had aggro from anyone was 2 times from "my fellow Americans", and once from a group of Brits (these fellows were maybe yobs or chavs I didn't ask). In both cases alcoholic beverages were involved and I exercised the better part of valor and either ignored or moved on.

Map proves conclusively that Trump got a lot of counties where nobody lives. It isn't a question of coastal elites, the blue counties are the populated counties.

News reports that Musk pressured Trump, who pressured Republicans to renege on budget deal, putting Federal Govt at risk of shutdown. So is Trump gonna be Musk's puppet gong forward?

Wow, great saying.

Dislike of the health insurance industry is hardly confined to any one political orientation.

Tell him what you were thinking, "Can you give me seven 100s?". You are giving him a 50 so you won't get a 50 back so maybe not obvious what you wanted.

A pseudo-intellectual circle jerk. Yawn emoji please.

I'm not big on saying who was best, but Ry Cooder is definitely under-appreciated. Now that we have Spotify/YouTube it's easy to hear any player. Listen to Ry Cooder's slide guitar on the Stones "Sister Morphine" or Randy Newman's "Let's Burn Down the Cornfield". He was so good on those songs.

Does this offset the stupidity of taking a jet ski far out into the bay late at night? Seems like very poor judgement.