The Cipher

4 hours ago, mjnaus said:

That doesn't seem to be stopping the resident armchair "experts" from airing their opinions. Substance went out the window 2 or 3 posts after the OP; so by all means feel free to weigh in ????

Better not. I wouldn't want other bright people to look at my posts the way I look the posts of some other forum participants. Would be bad for the brand ????.

51 minutes ago, fdsa said:

these hackers could be considered "professional" or "highly respected" only by those who do not understand a thing in informational technologies or informational security.

they have shut down a major piece of American infrastructure only because they were lucky enough that their phishing emails were opened and the attached malware was clicked on by the dumb Colonial Pipelines employee.

I've no info or expertise on this, so am not qualified to render an opinion on their skill.

12 minutes ago, mjnaus said:

Burb ????

Not worth the time, huh? I feel you ????

14 minutes ago, Heng said:

Well, in these cases likely none of us (at least here on TV) really know.   Ross Ulbricht thought it was a good idea to work from the public library.   

Is this in reference to them being amateurs? I guess that depends on your definition. They clearly had the skills to pull off the headline portion of the hack. If they messed up or were sloppy on the back end, I agree that's something that I, at least, wouldn't know.

I briefly looked it up yesterday and consensus seemed to be that they'd rented a cloud server to store their info on, which is what the FBI got access to (rather than directly to their wallet). I'm not a hacker and have no idea if renting a cloud server is considered a rookie move in that community - I was mostly pleased to see that wallets and protocol were not directly compromised.

6 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

To think they got owned so easily by the FBI should be raising alarms, instead of being defensive and making up stories about them being amateurs.

I sort of agree with this. It's not right to automatically dismiss news that contradicts what you'd like to believe. The hackers were able to successfully shut down a major piece of American infrastructure and extract a ransom. That's not nothing and it seems wrong to call them amateurs. So if the FBI picked up their private keys, that's something work looking into more.

In this case it turned out to be not a hack of BTC or a wallet, but that's besides the point. Gotta think critically and with nuance about all information. Only way to be a great investor.

12 minutes ago, BenDeCosta said:

Yeah, 10% drop in 24 hours is nothing. It's a buying opportunity, obviously, because crypto is the future.

I'm not inclined to run through this again. I laid out my thoughts on this over the first eleven or so pages of this thread and found that none of the usual crypto bears were able to engage with the concept on a level that made continued conversation worthwhile. Feel free to re-read those pages if you doubt that this is true.

Ultimately people are responsible for the choices that they make, or don't make. And in the long run life tends to sort out it all out anyway ????‍♂️.

8 hours ago, Poet said:

One month, treat it like a job, 9-5, six days a week.

Thanks for this, Poet! Appreciate you taking the time to write that out.

I've already got a fairly demanding, but well comped job (Associate at a PE firm) that is currently letting me work remotely for part of the year. But that arrangement might(?) end as life returns to normal in <home country>. I'm chasing freedom and would rather not have a boss anymore ????.

Because of said job, I'm not able to commit to 9-5, six days a week, but can commit to about 30 hours a week.

9 hours ago, Poet said:

Learn all you can about how people get paid to write online and, in particular, specialized forms of writing such as SEO or editing résumés or marketing copy etc.

My intention is to start a business selling a niche product online. I've incorporated (in my home country) and have a business plan, financial model, completed branding, and contact with a supplier. Now I'm at the 'test demand' stage before committing to an order.

I'm comfortable managing companies, but have zero experience selling/advertising online. Also don't know small details like which social media channels the brand needs to be on, how often posts need to go up there, etc.

Do you have any recommendations for the fastest way, or best educational materials, to become competent at that stuff? Would save me time stumbling around in the dark.

2 hours ago, Poet said:

I believe I could take anyone of average intelligence and a high school education (so, basic literacy and numeracy) and, if they are willing to focus for 8 hours per day, six days per week, get them to at least $100 per day within a month. Young, old, it doesn't matter. From there, the sky is the limit if someone is willing to focus on developing their skills rather than marinating in bitterness.

I'll take you up on this. Will give you a percentage of operating income up to a negotiable maximum cap for your trouble. ????

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

So, what you're saying is that poorly educated, low income earners are riffraff? Most people who have low earning potential tend to be less fortunate rather than lazy and or stupid, don't you think?

Comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. But on a serious note, $40-80k per year isn't exactly knocking it out of the park.

There's a very good case to be made that if a full time worker isn't clearing $40k/yr they might not be the most appropriate candidate for a country to give a 10 year visa to.

The only group that I am concerned might be missed, are talented people without much capital who have a good business idea and want to move to Thailand to cut costs while they work on building it out. Might be worth exploring a type of shorter-term visa with less strict requirements to capture folks like that.

Edit: Forgot to add, if someone wants to take issue with the policy as currently proposed, the eligibility requirements on the business/employer, and the cutoff income spread between masters and non-masters holders are much more obvious issues than the target income range.

Quote

I doubt that many of these will be bringing in the required $40,000.00 nevermind the $80,000.00 a year.

I kind of like these requirements. Helps weed out the riffraff ????????

3 minutes ago, James105 said:

If I removed my tax liability from the UK then in theory this would mean that I could open a LLC in the USA, pay myself from that company with profits made outside of Thailand, and then reduce the tax liability to virtually nothing.       But that sounds too good to be true so it probably is!  

The devil will certainly end up being in the details. Probably different depending on people's individual situations too.

For example, I don't intend to permanently relocate to Thailand, but would like to have the confidence (via legal status) to invest in building out more of a life here in a second/third-home sort of arrangement. Then could freely travel back and forth between <home countries> without hassle or worry.

I think lifestyles like this are likely to become more much more common in the future if remote work persists, and countries will probably end up putting their heads together and working out some sort of tax arrangement for remote workers. The global regulatory mood on corporate tax is changing too, so I'm guessing specifics like this are a long way from settled. ????‍♂️

12 minutes ago, Hyna said:

They will certainly try

I wouldn't be surprised. What government wouldn't? Lol.

But I'm slightly more optimistic than most that a workable immigration program of some type will eventually be implemented here. Thailand's population is set to peak in ~2030 after which it will decline.

They are going to have to address this somehow, and I expect that a realistic attempt at attracting skilled immigrants will be part of the strategy. Way more likely that it happens here than in other low-birth-rate Asian countries (except Singapore).

21 minutes ago, Hyna said:

Many digital nomads don't pay tax in any country, working under the radar. 

If they would pay tax their work would not be so lucrative anymore. 

They may not be interested.

That's fair. I don't blame them and would avoid taxes as well, if I could ????

In my specific case though, I pay a bunch of income tax in my home country already and would just prefer that Thailand didn't also try to take an additional slice. It's details like that that may end up making or breaking the popularity of the visa imo.

1 hour ago, Logosone said:

Bitcoin falling today again. What is your guys' take on the price development of BTC in the next few days?

Day to day price action is so hard to predict.

Best guess is that BTC will be range bound through the next couple of months but could start seeing another meaningful run up later in the summer if headline inflation and input costs continue to come in significantly higher than central bank guidance.

Of course meaningful developments between now and then could change that outlook too. (Is this financial advice? No it is not.)

18 hours ago, RocketDog said:

Sure, laugh about it.

Will do.

????????????????

3 minutes ago, smedly said:

covid 101, people from countries that have an advanced vaccine program with effective vaccines will only be visiting other countries that have an advanced vaccine program with effective vaccines

Not so sure about this, unless there are explicit restrictions on where a person can or can't travel. Plenty of younger people, especially once vaccinated, just dgaf about Covid anymore.

43 minutes ago, Megasin1 said:

Not sure about that, a friend of mine has just returned to UK to be vaccinated and he told me that the "no quarantine" only applies to tourists and that returning visa holders are subject to quarantine, so unless like him, you have 2 passports you may find yourself doing jail time

Are you talking about the quarantine rules in the UK or in Thailand?

I would be flying back to Canada, so UK rules hopefully won't affect me too much. If you're referencing rules for returning to Thailand, then that could be an inconvenience.

I fully expect the Thai gov to change this policy 4-5 times before October though, and am taking anything they say this far out with a million grains of salt.

I badly want to believe this is true.

Can fly home, get vaccinated, see friends/family, enjoy a couple months of the summer, check in with my firm, and be back in Asia before winter starts ????. Hopefully by then life in Thailand would be back to normal too!

Not holding my breath tho.

24 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

If you think registering on June 7 (prob won't be possible) will lead to being able to obtain  shot in near future then that is being overly optimistic.

 

Have you been following these news threads in recent times. The daily flip flops and blatant lies and promises broken is off the charts.

I've been casually following, but not in any great detail. I completely agree that the Covid response and vaccine rollout here could have been much better handled.

There have been a lot of mind boggling unforced errors.