Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

I ran into DNews where I got the video (above) to share. The interesting fact is that flies can get a bad name. In business, there's the term that the place is simply visited only by flies, to show that business is bad . Flies love dirty places and they're carriers of germs. However, I was soon amazed to learn about maggot therapy a few years back. Maggot therapy is using disinfected larvae of flies that only lay their eggs on decaying tissue. These tiny maggots begin as much decaying tissue as possible. With that in mind, I even feel like if one day I ever get diabetic or have a slow-healing wound, I would certainly want that procedure! I would choose to have disinfected maggots on my wound, even if the idea sounds cross. That would be better than losing my foot! After showing interest in maggot therapy, I certainly find this procedure amazing! An interesting concept from Singapore that I wish I knew existed Singapore may be a first-world country but you can't get rid of w

It's very easy for the Philippines to brag about being a democratic country . Vietnam still considers itself a Communist country, evidenced by the hammer and sickle, and the existence of the Communist Party of Vietnam . I watched the video above this paragraph to see where Vietnam and the Philippines have their individual strengths and weaknesses. The video admits that Vietnam is export-oriented while the Philippines still strongly relies on OFWs. This reminds me of what Filipino economist Andrew J. Masigan cited back in 2021 in Business World : As usual, the dollar inflows from OFW remittances and service exports (IT-BPO industry) save us from financial ruin. Between 2016 and 2020, OFW remittances pumped-in an average of $32 billion a year while our service exports contributed an average of $36.5 billion a year . Have OFW remittances and service exports been enough to cover our deficits? No. There is a still a gap and it is funded by debt . The negative list of Vietnam is rather t

I was checking on GInvest and I'm not surprised that the ATRAM stock investments have gone down. I checked my current portfolio and things went down. I was tempted to panic-sell until I recalled Grandpa Warren Edward Buffet's advice. It's sad that business schools, based on my experience, never taught students how to invest in stocks properly, not even the business schools. It's a good thing that Buffett himself speaks in such a way that I can understand it. I may not be the Oracle of Cebu City (nor do I intend to). I decided to Google Warren Buffett again for advice. I might need to buy a book by Buffett though before I can continue this project.  The article (from Yahoo! Finance ) I found was written last October 23, 2010. Here's some advice that I should heed instead of social media gossip: But numbers are only part of the equation; Buffett also emphasizes the human element in investing. As he stated in his interview, " Some people should not own stocks at a

It's October 31 tomorrow.  I remember writing a Halloween post about protectionist scare tactics . This time, I'm going to address a new issue. A lot of Halloween costumes these days are anything but limited to ghouls and ghosts. Some even dress up as angels and superheroes. Though, some people would still want to dress in the scariest costume, right? The meme above by the Simple Sum Philippines might strike a big point. It's because a considerable amount of Filipinos really have poor financial habits . It's almost as bad, if it not just as bad as the typical American and overspending . The scariest costume is a jar with a label that says PHP 0.00 savings.  As Christmas is around the corner, the November sale is around the corner. Why do so many people wait until the last minute? It's easy to reason about living paycheck to paycheck. However, one could examine the many dumb ways that the paycheck is drained after payday (read here ). I believe it's often called

Back in high school and after college, I had a sedentary lifestyle. I would play countless hours of video games and watch TV almost non-stop. Exercise tends to sound so complicated. Fortunately, it doesn't have to sound very complicated since exercise shouldn't always sound like being athletic. The moment I got a Xiaomi MiBand--I soon installed Google Fit aside from the official Xiaomi app (which gets really buggy) and the Notify for MiBand app. I started off rather fat in 2013 and I'm happy to say I've lost a lot of weight. A fitness band would be used to count steps. At first, I aimed for 6,000 steps a day but I wanted to beat that record. 6,000 steps was my bare minimum . There were times when an exercise would barely give me the steps I wanted. I could do some cardio boxing, feel very tired, and still not get the steps I wanted. Fortunately, fitness devices can be used in workout mode. With my MiBand, one of the things I did was to set it up to workout mode. I could

As a Filipino, I've observed the Filipino diet tends to lean on a sweet tooth. What causes this probable genetic disposition of the Filipino to crave sweets? That trait might be traced to one's ancestors. Newsweek also mentions it might be with the DNA . The Malaysians and the Filipinos have close genetics. The Britannica also cites this about Filipinos: The ethnically diverse people of the Philippines collectively are called Filipinos.  The ancestors of the vast majority of the population were of Malay descent and came from the Southeast Asian mainland as well as from what is now Indonesia . Contemporary Filipino society consists of nearly 100 culturally and linguistically distinct ethnic groups. Of these, the largest are the Tagalog of Luzon and the Cebuano of the Visayan Islands, each of which constitutes about one-fifth of the country’s total population. Other prominent groups include the Ilocano of northern Luzon and the Hiligaynon (Ilongo) of the Visayan islands of Panay

Interaksyon I was running out of ideas until I saw iPhones on the Facebook feeds. Right now, I'm indirectly invested in Apple stocks via the ATRAM Global Technology Feeder Fund and recently, the ATRAM Global Opportunity Feeder Fund. ABS-CBN News reports that scores queue for iPhone 15 release . This was just the introduction of the whole event: Around 200 peopl e queued outside an Apple Premium Partner store at a mall in Makati City on Friday, with some even having spent the night lining up, so they could be among the first to get their hands on the latest iPhone model. Accessories worth several thousand pesos were given to the first 300 individuals who purchased the iPhone 15 before dawn.  Now, I'd like to also present this part about Filipinos and the iPhone craze: Krisel Loreto, the marketing manager of Power Mac Center, said they host the giveaway annually to help patrons “make the most of their investment.” “ We all know iPhone comes with a hefty price. We do events such a