Cameroni

Doesn't look like the Dollar Index is having a melt down because of Trump, looks like same old same old really:

Not true. There is no 3$ value meal. Like I said MacDonalds missed its first quarter forecasts in 2024 and as its high prices affected the bottom line it has reacted and has reintroduced the 5$ value meal with the option to add an item for 1$ but there is no 3$ menu. It should also be noted that the items you can add on for 1$ are extremely limited and generally the ones you would not buy. https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-stories/article/mcdonalds-launching-mcvalue-platform-inus-restaurants-in2025.html I never said it's an apocalypse, but you can see Americans complaining that they cannot afford to buy fast food anymore. If even in the richest country on earth people are affected in this way then poverty has clearly increased because when I was young to not be able to afford a MacDonalds meal was unheard of. Even the poorest could do it.

I think they have already reacted because it was starting to affect their bottom line. Most restaurants failed to hit targets in the first quarter of 2024. So MacDonalds reintroduced the 5 Dollar menu value meal.

MacDonalds has actually increased prices way beyond inflation. Their prices have increased by 100% over the last decade. So considerably more than inflation. in 2014 fries were about 1.48 USD according to location. Now 3.79 for medium fries at MacDonalds.

Prices for food away from home rose 27.2% since 2019 in the US according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Many Americans cannot afford to buy fast food anymore. The day of the 1 Dollar menu is long gone. Prices have skyrocketed. 3 Fish burgers now cost 17 USD in the US. The misery is global and is real.

Soros bet against the British Pound was WAY before Brexit. The Dollar is exceptionally safe. It cannot be compared to the Pound which has lost all the importance it once had. Not so the US Dollar which is THE reference currency in Forex, THE reserve currency, THE currency in which some of the most important energy deals are made. The recent loss of value of the Dollar followed on the heels of a massive increase in value. The Dollar is very very sound and safe.

This is not Thai specific. Globally restaurants have seen a downturn. Major US chains even had to close. This is a symptom of the global poverty pandemic caused by all those people who supported lockdowns, inflation, higher energy prices etc. If people have less, they eat out less.

We forget this. Thanks for the reminder.

So when he held up a chainsaw with fervour did you think he was a lumberjack?

Come on Chiang Mai food prices are very cheap. 50 Baht for pad Thai, 5 baht per piece of fried chicken, of course you can eat very cheap here. But you can also pay 10,000 baht for a meal for two at Redbox or Chef Table, 2000 at Baan Landai or 1000 Baht at Wan Lamun, and there is pretty much everything in between 50 to 1000 Baht. British, German, French, Finnish, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Burmese. This city is a rich tapestry, a gourmand palette of differing flavours and price points.

Good luck ordering for 150 Baht on Pizza Co or Pizza Hut.

That depends on how good the fish and chips is really. For a steak n frites at Wine Connection you will pay 450 Baht btw, and that is the cheapest bistro style steak. Yes, chippy food was considered "low class" but here it is a rare gem obviously.

Errr, yes they were actually. Not just when he rose to power, in fact at the very beginning of his political development, the socialist republic was called out in 2018, but also throughout the 1920s and when Hitler rose to power. Hans Luther and Hermann Müller were SPD chancellors 1920, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1929, and 1930. I am not rewriting history in the slightest, just giving it to you straight. Many cities, including Berlin, were in the hands of communists at the time. The point is that socialism was a real social movement at the time, against which fascism and Nazism were reactions. Now Trump is the the real social movement, the bona fide agent for change and the far left are reacting against HIS dismantlement of existing structures. Much like the socialists dismantled the existing structures in Weimar Germany and the Nazis reacted against their actions. So it really is quite amusing. The far left are the new Nazis. The far right Trump movement is the real movement for social change, political and economic change.

Well, you have to have the intelligence to read between the lines and understand what I was saying. Obviously I did not suggest that Trump was a socialist in reality, but rather that, just like socialism in the 1930s, Trump is now the force for change, and just like fascism and Nazism in the 1930s reacted to the socialist challenge, so now the far leftists are reacting to Trump's challenge. Obviously for you to suggest that fascism and nazism were not response movements reacting to socialism merely betrays your ignorance of history, you have to read your Ernst Nolte. "Using the methods of phenomenology, Nolte subjected German Nazism, Italian Fascism, and the French Action Française movements to a comparative analysis. Nolte's conclusion was that fascism was the great anti-movement: it was anti-liberal, anti-communist, anti-capitalist, and anti-bourgeois." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Nolte Of course, it is a bit more complicated than that, since fascism and nazism were not just the anti-socialist movements, but they developed their own ideologies in response to socialism. However, the response of the far left to Trump's challenge is to daub swastikas on cars. So in a way this harking back to Nazism does not betray desperation, but rather intellectual incapacity to come up with a new ideology. Instead the far left scrapes the historical barrel like knuckle dragging apes who want to think, but alas, cannot.

I agree, Sloane's is pretty good. Just a shame their online shop is not working so you can see the price list.

I agree with this, it is a "you" problem. If you expect a thank you card or a gift, then maybe she loves you but you should ask do you love her in the same way, because if your love expects something in return, it's not really true love. A mother who take a child out to play watches over the child but does not expect the child to thank her for it. Having said that you do have to keep an eye in relationship that what you give is not out of proportion to what you receive, otherwise you are just taken advantage of. When Britmantoo said a Thai woman appreciates if you give her money, and this has an effect on how she views and treats you, he was right. You not giving her money has an effect on her view and treatment of you.

I blame Adolf Hitler personally. He clearly made his mark not just on his current times but also on the future 80 years after his death. They're still talking about him. The man came from nowhere but even in 2025 people can't stop talking about him, loving him or hating him. It's kind of funny because in esssence fascism and Nazism were response movementst to the socialist destruction of the established, conservative order, which started in 1848. However, now, the leftists themselves have become the response movement and opposition to Trump is all to them. In a way Trump is the new socialism and the far leftists are the new Nazis. Lol.

Actually that does happen, and many of the rich Chinese choose to live abroad. So there is some brain drain no doubt. But a lot of Chinese also do go back home to apply what they learnt in China because it gives them an edge and they can make money there. As for the communist party strangling innovation, it certainly had no impoact on the capitalist development of China, not sure it will impact the technological development. Probably not.

Without a doubt these exist, men who have been so cheated, traumatised and disappointed with their partner that they want to go their own way. Women too of course. But they are a minority I think, even if a man or woman had a bad divorce or a couple of bad ones, most of the time they still try again. Precisely because the pull of duality, the draw of the other, is so strong. Having a partner does not just make your life easier, in the sense that they do housework or cook or perform sexual relief. It is a different way of life, to have the purpose of helping someone else, them helping you, supporting you emotionally, joking with you, providing the human touch. Very few men or women want to be without that. In oder for man and woman to have a relationship there HAS TO BE inequality. Or else there would be no reason to have a relationship. One has to want something from the other you don't have, or you would not enter into the relationship. This inequality continues in that one party ALWAYS is the adored party and the other the adorer. So one has to be tolerant of not feeling love, if you are the adored. By its very nature love is a compromise.

I love burnt cheesecake and tried it in many varieties but never Durian. Wonder what that tastes like.

While it's true that you can point at Deep Seek and say it was copied from US open source code, it is true, it was, there is a curious thing about copying. When Germany rose up as an industrial power it was accused of copying British products, which it did. The British created the duty to place "made in Germany" on products, with the intention to identify the cheap and inferior German products. Of course we all know what happened, the copyists, the Germans, ended up making "made in Germany" a mark of quality and started innovating themselves. Copying is just the first rung on the ladder that leads to advanced innovation. Just looking at EVs, China is innovating with new batteries.

I don't believe many men want to live alone. Yes, maid and sex service is easily had in Thailand. But neither man nor woman is really happy alone, bar very few exceptions.

I have seen kids as young as 5 and 7 from China speaking fluent German, with mothers behind them who plan out their day and academic program. Chinese kids on top of true academic ability get taught that work ethic which is known in China as 996 now. The West, meaning Europe AND the US, is doomed. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the future will belong to the Chinese.

It's not cheap, but the large fish and chips at Chippy at the Gate is 395. If you get a pizza you also pay the same more or less.