Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

  It's September and the -ber months are here. It's already known that  the Philippines has the longest Christmas celebration in the world . Christmas can be the most expensive time of the year. In the Philippines, Christmas decorations tend to be out earlier. With Christmas in mind, the keywords and key phrases that come to my mind are "overspending", "last-minute shopping", "buried in debt", "spending beyond your means", "feasting over finances", "just add sugar if it's bitter"--just to name a few of the many financial stupidities during Christmas. Such phrases can be linked to  the Filipino's typical lack of financial literacy . That's why discussing business and economics isn't more fun in the Philippines! It's not just because of financial illiteracy but also due to  economic illiteracy . Even worse, some people still adhere to what the late Lee Kuan Yew would call a third-world mentality . Suc

  Today, I just got a warning from someone about the Press 9 scam. Somebody claimed to be from PLDT saying that the phone and Internet will be cut off. The next thing required was the press 9 procedure. Fortunately, the person called 171 to ask if it was such a thing. If the bills were paid properly  then one can say, "Wait, this is really another scam!"  I Googled "Press 9 scam" and found that one can lose a lot of money by just pressing 9 . Here's an excerpt from that article that was a warning. The article is written in India by an Indian. However, with the incident happening in the Philippines (and I wouldn't be surprised if my Indian friends warn me about it)--I'd like to share it nonetheless: “ These types of fraud usually try to create a sense of urgency or employ scare tactics to coerce the victim into complying with the attacker’s requests ,” Lukas Stefanko, Malware Analyst, ESET explains what makes these scams work. The biggest weapon that thes

WWD I really hate December because of the heavy traffic. Some say that people do last-minute Christmas shopping because they just live paycheck to paycheck. However, the way things go during payday can tell why they can't have the money to do some early Christmas shopping . An irony indeed that Christmas comes early in the Philippines (September) but not the Christmas shopping.  Indeed, so many should realize that living paycheck-to-paycheck should be a warning not to splurge on it (read here ). Instead, they choose to many stupid activities. Maybe, call in the one-day paycheck where they immediately go splurging the paycheck when it arrives. They would focus more on their wants than their needs. I guess that's why some fools are demanding the stupidity of higher salaries and lower price of goods aka Sahod Itaas Presyo Ibaba. I'm afraid that such a move isn't economically feasible (read here ). Even if they do get a high-income job (or even become an OFW for better inco

Earlier on, I wrote a post about why being stingy in one's expenses is also stupid . I witnessed some of my elders brag about how stingy they are, saying it's "some sacrifice". Sure, it's never ideal for children to get everything they want. However, it's not ideal for children not to be deprived of everything they need . Back on track, I think one of the many misguided things I've had was to assume expensive is always better. Sure, one needs to pay a higher price for better quality. I should expect to pay a higher price when I order tea or coffee from a tea store or coffee shop. However, there are some things in the world that are just plain overpriced . I would like to use a classic film scene to illustrate a point. As the holidays hit, maybe some people who were either parents or children in the 1990s may remember Jingle All the Way . It's one stupid film that delivers a smart message in some way. It can be a message against last-minute shopping and

This has to be one of the most annoying scams ever. I may be in favor of SIM registration but you must realize it only reduces the chances of scams. Some people may still undergo the black part, buy multiple SIM cards, and not register them. Some of them may be hacked. However, without a SIM registration, I believe these SIMs can easily be blocked and marked as scams. Though, it might take more technology to trace them back. Right now, this is what's called the One Ring Phone Scam  reported last June 2023. How One Ring Phone Scam works Scammers will typically use an auto-dialer to make mass international calls to numerous people at once . Spoofed phone numbers will be used to seem legitimate in the caller ID display. They will only allow the phone to ring once then hang up, prompting a missed call notification on your end . If you call back, you risk being connected to an automated machine that will either ask you to stay on the line or connect you to a premium-rate number without

Not everyone can be rich but at most, you don't retire broke . I really found this hilarious video on Youtube. It made me laugh harder than viewing a comedy movie. There are so many animations used and it's becoming ridiculous . I wrote about financial gurus who have claims that are too good to be true . In the world of investment, if the claim's too good to be true then you ought to reject it outright. It's like how cryptocurrency billionaires may just be paid to promote a scam after all. They might just be out there in some vicious networking scheme where scammers join in to scam others.  This reminds me of childhood stupidity. I guess it's very easy to fall for unbelievable stories as a child. I remembered how a classmate of mine (who now has a good career) once stupidly said, "So and so is richer because he has more nice stuff." Thankfully, his thinking patterns changed. Such wasn't the case with another person (with the name first name) who bragge

Read.Cash There are so many financial gurus right now. I kep hearing stories of people who became so rich so fast. However, the basic drill of any claim is that if it's too good to be true then run . This is why people fall for people like the late Charles Ponzi and the even more infamous, the late Bernard Madoff. Now, you have people who claim that they could easily earn that much money in such a short amount of time . This is really no less fishy than the claims that you can earn high returns with very little risk. I feel like revisiting moments claimed to have achieved "so much" at my age. Some people even claim that they had made (or have) that much money at such a young age. This isn't the case for big entrepreneurs since it took years for people like the late Henry Sy Sr., John Gokongwei Jr., Lucio Tan Sr., and maybe I can say Warren Edward Buffett never became rich so fast! I could easily lie right now that I have this amount of money. I could easily take photo

I remember during the late 1990s when the song "Dayang Dayang" (Princess of the First Degree) was played on the radio. The origins are often debated whether or not it was from Muslim Mindanao or from the other neighboring countries. The Philippines has had settlers also from Malaysia and Indonesia. A parody cover by the late Yoyoy Villame was called Dayang Daya or Cheating Cheating. It was probably making fun of the Indian five-six lending business. Indians tend to be called Bombay because of the location known as Mumbai. I even made the mistake of referring to Indians as "Bombays" more than once. The song "Dayang Daya" does talk about the five-six lending services. It does target a lot of gullible people. I even became nearly distrustful of Indians in college for quite some time.  I wrote how a Merry Christmas may lead to an Unhappy New Year due to debt burden (read here ). I tend to say to myself, "Somebody hasn't paid their debt!" every ti

I was thinking about several bad reviews. I'd order food from Foodpanda and Grab where I notice some falsified claims. It also reminded me of several false claims like the Robinsons Galleria "snakeman", the fried towel from Jollibee (which I still believe was an act of sabotage), and maybe I could talk about several fake reviews just to get attention. Mistakes do happen (at times) and I remembered someone wrote a review of few mistakes on a restaurant. Meanwhile, I noticed somebody could just deliberately put an insect, picture it, badmouth, the restaurant, and the deed is done. I think the same could be very true for the bad reviews of AXA Philippines at Trustpilot (read here ). I really feel like asking if Trustpilot can truly be trusted or not. I decided to do some research about Trustpilot on Google . It's no surprise that sitejabber has Trustpilot at a very low score . Again, I can't be sure if it's not that easy to take down fake reviews. I decided to re

CardCow.com I remembered one of the reasons why I was scared to do stocks was because of the day-to-day trading losses. I feel like the person I heard who borrowed PHP one million (and lost it) to invest in stocks must've done a day-to-day trade. One of the warnings Warren Edward Buffett gave is never to borrow money when you buy stocks. Stocks are not as liquid and they get hit by day-to-day fluctuations. Sometimes, the big gain in stocks happens after a certain period of time. Checking the feeder funds from ATRAM this morning made me think that while it's rising--there are still day-to-day fluctuations to deal with it.  An earlier post was discussing why I want to avoid day trading (read here ). I heard people emake money out of day trading. I decided to try a simulator  in day trading. It turns out it's not worth it. I already lost a huge amount of money to a bad customer. I felt every loss I made in the simulator was reliving that moment. Several times, the fluctuations

Above is a meme I found on Facebook a few days ago. I thought I'd not be writing anything for now. Instead, I was thinking of giving a "sequel" to my Intrigador Financials joke post (read here ). I feel the abundance of social media gossipers has given me the motivation to write another joke post. This time, it's the MARITES which means Master in Arts in Relaying Information Through Exaggerated Storytelling . We can all forget about getting a master's degree in economics. Instead, we can pretend that Intrigador Financials has now opened a financial literacy academy. We can start a new school of management with Intrigador Financials. Instead of a Master in Business Administration (MBA) or a Masters of Arts in Economics (MA Econ)--we can imagine having a MARITES graduate school program from none other than Intrigador Financials. I was thinking about how Intrigador Financials' MARITES program will try to develop financial literacy. Chances are their preferred mod

It would be interesting to think about how people got into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. I watched the documentary Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King on Netflix, (read the review here ). The documentary really showed this one fact--social media gossipers make poor financial advisors (read here ). The trend to join stuff like the Quadriga-CX scam or how Ruja Ignatova (who's still missing and probably still alive) got a huge following.  BBC News also shows how Ignatova's Bitcoin following was developed by social media gossip : Why have so many people continued to believe in OneCoin, despite all the evidence?  Investors often told us that what drew them in initially was the fear that they would miss out on the next big thing. They'd read, with envy, the stories of people striking gold with Bitcoin and thought OneCoin was a second chance. Many were struck by the personality and persuasiveness of the "visionary" Dr Ruja. Investors might not have understood the