Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

Tax season can be stressful. I think about how easy it becomes to overlook certain stuff. One can be distracted by either happy events or sad events. I remember how I accidentally signed the wrong document when my paternal grandmother died of old age. I remember how I could easily forget receipts until I started to document them. Memory should be the least reliable tool ever. I tend to get mad whenever I become forgetful. We end up excessively scolding others for their bad memory. I even end up either (1) scolding others too hard, or (2) being too hard on myself. That's why I've grown critical of the education system itself. Just imagine that even honor roll students are forgetting what they learned back in high school. Right now, I even have to download notes to relearn stuff that I learned in college . This may be the best picture for college, especially for those without a board exam. I didn't take the board exam since I'm a business administration graduate. I confes...

Let's face it that the market will never be all yours. That's what Adobe needs to learn as it still continues, it's really bad business practices. It's a good thing that I asked around before getting Affinity Photo. Adobe Photoshop's usage is really plain bad. In economics, there's such a thing as the law of substitutes. If something is too expensive, get a more affordable substitute. It's like,  don't get an iPhone if you can't afford to buy an iPhone. It's like why I would still prefer a Samsung or a Xiaomi over an iPhone. An iPhone is too expensive for my taste, even for a guy with somewhat expensive taste! As I look into Adobe's subscription (which will cost me PHP 3,000+ per month) vs. a one-shot purchase for Affinity in my Windows account, we know which is better. Affinity Photo works in nearly the same way as Photoshop does. My only minor complaint is that I couldn't make animated GIFs with Affinity Photo alone. Hopefully, Canva...

It's no secret that Adobe was the get-go for those who grew up in the 1990s. Who can remember using some of the programs like Aldus Pagemaker, Adobe Photoshop (and the term Photoshop got popularized, as a synonym for editing), and Adobe Acrobat. Unfortunately, Adobe's disgusting practice of a  super expensive subscription-based business model is really foolish. I watched this video and I have every right to agree. Did Adobe think that they would dominate the market forever and that people would stay loyal to them? Just looking at the video I shared gives me good reasons to leave Adobe for good. Why would I pay PHP 3,000+ (per month) for nostalgia if I could pay PHP 1,000+ for ownership of at least one Affinity program? Affinity Photo has given me the basics of what I need (and want). Sure, I'm willing to pay some extra money so Affinity Photo can help produce animated GIFs. Otherwise, one may get used to creating the frames manually, then using another program to create the...

If there's anything I want to say--only economically illiterate people would vote for Teodoro Casiño's promise. The chances are that (1) it's all for a vote, or (2) he doesn't understand what he's doing. In my case, I assume that Casiño is simply saying it, all for a vote instead of the second option. Chances are that he's only saying it, for a vote. Because nobody in the right mind would push a PHP 1,200 minimum wage, given the condition of the job market! I would like to write this article because what he's pushing is inflationary . It's because no matter how much you look at it, #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba is plain bad accounting (read here ). How can you increase wages without increasing the prices of goods and services? Business & Plans   I wrote about opening #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba stores nationwide . Until now, nobody has ever bothered to do the challenge. Why haven't they opened a single successful #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba store? As one would lo...

It's annoying that people live with a "sentimental value" in mind. There are a lot of things that some people probably grew up with. As a 1990s child, I grew up on this and that. Some people may remember the good old days with Adobe Photoshop. I remember seeing people use MS Paint, telling them to try Photoshop and teach some basics, and I enjoyed using the program. However, Adobe's monthly subscription model is costly . Why should I pay for PHP 3,000+ for nostalgia? The same can go for tenants. Just because a tenant has been there for at least a decade, doesn't mean that these tenants should be coddled for "sentimental reasons". Why should tenants who have been there for more than ten years, be allowed to stay there, if they're toxic? If I could ditch Adobe after many years, the same would be true for toxic tenants . It's crazy when erring tenants say, "But come on, I've rented your place for more than 10 years." Is it me or are to...

Another practical way to teach Chinese (as a second language) is to connect to real-life situations. Did I already mention one reason why I hated to study Chinese, was that teachers were forced to simply focus on rote memorization more than understanding (read here )? Anyway, I found this photo on Facebook. These are some simple words that all connect to scam. This would make a good lesson for standard Chinese (华语) to learn words that are connected to scam. It would be ideal to do some vocabulary, fill in the blanks, and do a conversational lesson. One example of a conversational lesson (which was called as bon toi in Hokkien) would be like this: Question: What is a phone scam?  Translation: "什么是电话诈骗?" (Pinyin: "Shénme shì diànhuà zhàpiàn?") Answer: A phone scam is where you are offered something too good to be true by a phone call. Translation: "电话诈骗是指有人通过电话向你提供一些好得令人难以置信的东西." (Pinyin: Diànhuà zhàpiàn shì zhǐ yǒurén tōngguò diànhuà xiàng nǐ tígōng yīxiē h...

I haven't posted a Chinese language lesson for some time. As I said, I didn't like Chinese lessons because of the focus on too much memorization  (read here ). I found this photo on Facebook. One of the biggest problems of Chinese education back in my day was that you had to learn Amoy before learning Mandarin. The process itself is a red tape. Why not learn Mandarin being introduced in the language you're most comfortable with? For example, why not teach Mandarin to Filipinos using their language or in English?  HSK Online For starters, here are some measurement units for Chinese mathematics. One problem with Chinese mathematics was that we had to learn Chinese first, before learning it. I'm talking about introducing Chinese to people who have zero background. It would be good to introduce these measurements first before teaching them how to solve problems.  What I find strange is that the Chinese word for meter also means... rice? Yes, funny but true. However, using G...