Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

GarthBox I guess it's time for another post, isn't it? I'd like to say that I'm no super-expert in my field. I could remember one time I started talking about the need for constitutional reform. What I always choose to speak about first is the need to liberalize the economy, let more FDIs come in, and allow FDIs to own 100% of their businesses . Instead,  get shot down by arguments like, "Why let them invest here? Only they will be rich!" Even worse, they'll have  the credentials fallacy which can go with these kinds of insults that I can get every now and then: "Shut up! You're not an economist!" "Do you know Sonny Africa of IBON Foundation graduated from the London School of Economics and you didn't?" "Do you have a degree from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo De Manila University, or any of the Greenbelt universities?" "The school you graduated from is not one of the hardest to enter!" "You

It's not enough to say something. The question is, "Where's the substance or the empirical evidence?" When I start quoting from the late Lee Kuan Yew, these diehard 1987 Constitution of the Philippines defenders start diverting the topic by pointing out my errors to spite me than to correct me. They would ask if I know the Deming Theory of Management which talks about quality management in the company culture. Okay, that was something worth asking but as said, can these people really understand the problem of the Philippines has been more systemic (that is, within the system ) than just the people running the system? What allowed the legislative to be filled with people who know-nothing anyway? That's why I didn't want to vote for Senator Robin Padilla (who ironically understands the need for reforms, read here ). Unfortunately, so many Ad Hominem attacks have been done.  A past article I wrote was Should you  listen to either Davide Jr. or Kishore Mahbubani

KL Foodie I remembered having a meal at Tealive Ayala Central Bloc (read here ). What I never thought of was that Bryan Loo, the founder of Tealive and CEO of Loob Holdings, was once the CEO of Chatime Malaysia. I read through Compare Hero's article on Chatime vs. Tealive  (the article was updated last November 2021). From the ashes of a terminated contract came forth a rival for Chatime.  The Bubble Tea Disagreement The original disagreement between Chatime and Tealive started back in January when La Kaffa, the Taiwanese owner of the Chatime brand, announced they had terminated the master franchise agreement with Bryan Loo and his company Loob Holding even though the agreement still had more than 20 years to go. The reason for the termination was that Loob Holding was allegedly using raw materials that were not part of the prescribed recipe to produce its tea. During the initial press release, La Kaffa International also declared that all Chatime outlets would now fall under the d

I remembered seeing this meme on the Facebook page Philippine Anti-Fascist League (PAFL). It's obviously run by some bitter fellow. I heard this bitter fellow is just some student and he allegedly has a teenager administrator helping him. The meme might be an obvious poke at the education system today. Today, I have no intention to get a Ph.D. after I felt that the Philippine education system might be dumbing me down. The meme itself says that constitutional reform proponents' highest form of education is "Tell that to Singapore!" Ironically, these guys haven't really proven to Singapore their claims. The members of PAFL just rant nonsense on the pages. Some of them are members of economically absurd "thought leaders" such as Kabataan Partylist and the League of Filipino Students. Funny enough, none of them have ever bothered to tell that to Singapore . Are they too scared to be proven wrong or what?    I did write about which grandfather would you trust

As a child born of boomer parents, I believe most of my peers are born from at least one boomer parent. Baby boomers are born from 1946 to 1964. I'm afraid most of the idiotic comments I'm reading on Facebook are written by baby boomers . Some of them still insist on facts that weren't available to them back then. For example, it's very common to see baby boomers who still insist that the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. ran a parliamentary form of government even with all the evidence pointed to them (read my article here ). Some people still argue that the problem is the people than the system running the people. There's really so much stupid argument to deal with a lot of boomers huh? Fortunately, some boomers are still open-minded .  Fatigue as a badge of honor taught during pre-college days Having grown up in the 1990s, there was this misconception that fatigue is a badge of honor . I remembered being chastised over my poor study habits. I keep getting told that so

As I've sipped two glasses of Tealive's Aren Caramel (read here )--I was tempted to research more on palm sugar from the Arenga tree. Arenga bears the fruit that Filipinos call kaong and Indonesians call kolang kaling. As a Filipino, I prefer to call it the Kaong Tree or Punuan ng Kaong. This video is from Masarang, Indonesia. Masarang in Tagalog means strong. If the Indonesian word means strong as well--this is a very strong foundation. The research on palm sugar landed me in the organization called Yayasan Masarang or Masarang Foundation. The video I just shared shows the struggle of palm tappers and how FDI can help in learning environmentally-friendly practices.  The late Lee Kuan Yew even published in his book From Third World to First about greening Singapore. The pernicious myth that's spread around is that Singapore supposedly only opened to FDI due to lack of natural resources . However, other countries rich in natural resources like Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Chi

As a fan of Indian food (depends on the type actually), I also remembered the time when people talked about the 5-6 lending scheme. I had a few Indian-Filipino classmates during my business administration days. It was funny to think that some people attempted to borrow money from my Indian classmates. I went to Indian restaurants and met again some Indian-Filipino peers there. I remembered eating at Mr. India before they became Bollywood Tandoor. There's also Cherry's the Spice, Bharat Spice, and Little India Healthy Cuisine. I could also remember attempting to eat at an Indian restaurant early in January, only to find that the place have been jam-packed with motorcycles. Some people who went in and out were wearing turbans. Ah yes, the very feeling when January becomes a busy month to collect Christmas loans (read here ). There's also that long weekend last April this year (read here ). I could remember a few songs that addressed the issue. There's a Cebuano song by Ma