Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

I could remember how mathematics was once my most hated subject. Right now, it can be said most students hate mathematics. I complained about how hard it was. Again, mathematics is meant to be hard. No pain, no gain, right? However, I think I could point out how what's wrong with how math is taught or how math was taught. I was a graduate under the K+10 curriculum and the Philippines was left behind with K+12. It really makes Filipino students lack the skills that the other ASEAN countries had aside from lagging with the investment scale. I think about the biggest mistake with mathematics education today is how it's taught. Too much time is focused on studying the properties of numbers instead of teaching students that all mathematics is part of life. Another thing is students have the panic attack that if they don't do good with mathematics in high school--they will be forced to take "substandard courses" like Hotel and Restaurant Management. Yet, even the HRM co

As I turned 37 (and still single) this year--I thought about how I had my HealthMax from AXA as part of my investments. Technically, a health insurance is an investment since I took it since I  almost thought I had dengue in 2012. My modest investments (confidential) into funds, bonds, and the like had me thinking about some losers. I was thinking about past experiences with people who have no investments or insurance. In fact, as of 2021, it's also revealed that at least 38.9 million Filipinos have no bank account--that accounts for 48% of the adult population of the country. Bank accounts are very important to finance the economy as the money is used to finance businesses and government spending. Another interesting thing to think about is the irony of turning down investments and insurance while having a gambling addiction. It sounds weird but it happens, right? I could remember how gambling is truly a problem in the Philippines. In the 1990s, I remembered how I saw people play

Accru Melbourne Typhoon Odette certainly blew another serious blow in the Philippines, didn't it? I could remember the Typhoon Ruping when I was only in Kinder 2. Memories in kindergarten may fade over time but a few don't--such as how some people may mention that they failed kinder for sleeping in classes. The passage of the bill that allows 100% ownership of shares in public utilities has been condemned by certain Filipino organizations such as the League of Filipino Students, Kabataan Partylist, and Bayan Muna. The same old cry of "imperialism" is funny since these groups are using American made social media (such as Facebook and Twitter), they may be ordering meals from Grab which is from Singapore , they are using gadgets made from other countries (such as iPhones which were most likely assembled in China), and other stuff which were obviously not Filipino in origin. A heavy lesson from Odette and other previous disasters The reason why Odette restoration couldn&

I remembered the time when I started to do some monetary investments (bonds, mutual funds), got scammed by a bad customer who hasn't paid me back until now, and how the journey of personal finance is no easy task. I feel like it's time to talk about another Ponzi scheme called cryptocurrency. First, we need to define it before I will state why I don't even intend to invest in it.   Cryptocurrency is defined by Investopedia as follows: A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that is secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double-spend. Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized networks based on blockchain technology—a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. A defining feature of cryptocurrencies is that they are generally not issued by any central authority, rendering them theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation . A clear lack of regulation and extreme volatility make it very dangero

I've been running into ads that promise the "play to earn" games even before the pandemic. Some of them featured a game that all I needed was to merge this and that or pop bubbles and boom--I get money! I remembered finding ways to make money online and they encouraged gambling. There's always the rule of thumb in finances--if it's too good to be true then run  from it. It reminds me of how I get irritated by those fake game ads and now these new fake game ads? It's already bad enough I was duped into downloading Gardenscape with the fake ads. Now, these fake ads are probably the worst offenders over mobile demos that irritate us with annoying display of stupidity.  Any gamer who probably owned a Playstation 3 or an XBox 360 (or any seventh generation console) would remember having to buy credits to buy extra content. A buyer may have had to buy Playstation Points (or the like) to purchase additional content. Later, there's the pay to play online which a p

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and it's not always as romantic and magical as you think it is. Just think that Odette hit during the Christmas season canceling the celebration for those hit by it. If there are Christmas Day disasters--there are also Valentine's Day disasters . You can Google them and you may find that there are some disasters that happened on Valentine's Day. Though, what's more often overlooked is the materialism not only associated with Christmas but also on Valentine's Day. Yes, it's easier to expect a bank robbery, a massacre, a typhoon, etc. to hit on Valentine's Day over one thing--to catch NCOV on Valentine's Day from a materialistic girlfriend. NCOV here stands for No Cash On Valentine's instead of Novel Coronavirus. The materialistic girlfriend disaster A materialistic girlfriend will do more harm than good regardless of how she looks. She can very pretty or very ugly. Both an ugly material girl and a pretty material girl

I could remember my BSBA days and MBA days in the University of San Carlos-Main Campus. There were the accounting classes, business calculus classes, and the finance classes. If there's one advice that's very often ignored--don't put your eggs into one basket. It's really, absolutely risky both literally and symbolically.  Imagine the farmer who has a harvest full of good eggs. However, the farmer foolishly decides to try and fit all his eggs into one basket even if he had many. The farmer goes to the market to try and sell all of them at once. However, something bad happens and it causes him to lose all his eggs at once. Had the farmer decided to put the eggs into several baskets--he may have had been able to sell a lot of his eggs even if some of the baskets may meet misfortune. Putting the eggs into different baskets was meant to minimize the losses of the eggs. The farmer could've created different baskets for a different amount of eggs. Sure, it will take time

Some time ago, I could remember watching the film Heneral Luna which had a scene which some historians debate on. Some argue whether or not Heneral Tomas Mascardo left his post to court a woman both he and Heneral Antonio Luna fought for or did he do it to attend a fiesta in Arayat. Nothing is wrong with attending a feast per se . However, Mascardo should've attended to his post in Guagua instead of attending the fiesta in Arayat. The result behind withdrawing his forces wasn't good. Luna had every right to get mad at Mascardo's neglect. This would be a good illustration of how poor priorities may explain why you're in a pickle. In this case, I want to write this post about how one's poor priorities may explain why you're in a bad financial situation. Watching that rather irritating scene from Heneral Luna reminds me of a lot of poor priorities. I think about how I got into a quarrel with people who are either relatives or schoolmates over poor priorities. Masca

I remembered Chatime became my first favorite tea franchise. Sure, there was Moonleaf near the University of San Carlos-Main Campus (USC-Main) which I wonder if it's still open now. Though, Chatime quickly became my personal favorite for a reason. The one I'm most familiar with is the branch in I.T Park which quickly became my after-meal beverage at times.  Chatime is a worldwide franchise' in the Philippine business environment Chatime's history is described as follows by U-Franchise which I'll give an excerpt: Since 2005, Chatime franchise has been serving millions of customers with their favorite cup of tea, making it part of every occasion, celebration or simply cupping a busy day at work. Chatime was founded in Taiwan in 2005 and in 2011 opened its doors in the Philippines. With a commitment to a quality of ingredients and mix-ins and a flare for innovative flavor combinations, we set out to brew nothing but the very best bubble teas. Chatime has now opened mor