Another short blog post while traveling. I bring you a resource page about taxes and IRAs, inflated tax brackets, some investing beliefs I agree with, we catch up with all the latest shenanigans in the crypto and NFT world, why the West must defeat Russia, a great explainer of the Israel-Gaza war, two very disturbing stories about psychos, a round the world train trip you can take me to if you can afford it, a graph about North Korean defectors over the last 25 years and just a few links and notes from the quirky miles and points space.
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Hello from the lounge at the wonderful Sukhumvit Hyatt Regency in Bangkok, Thailand! This is another short blog post published during my vacation in Singapore and Thailand, we will get back to the longer posts you have become familiar with after my return back to USA.
So, let’s get into it with about ten wonderful links for your education, entertainment and sometimes inspiration…
Morningstar has a lot of resources for investors. Among them, there is the Tax Guide and IRA Resources that will answer a lot of your questions about taxes and IRA accounts. Staying on the personal finance front, you know, everyone hates inflation but it is not all bad. Sometimes inflation is indeed beneficial to your bottom line. Wider tax brackets in 2024 will lower what taxpayers owe Uncle Sam.
We are not done yet on the personal finance front. Here is another great article: 24 Things I Believe About Investing. I would not have shared it with you if I did not also believe these lol. And I also had a really hard time to pick my favorite five:
I believe simple beats complex
I believe every investor in risk assets should be comfortable seeing their money incinerated on occasion
I believe a good strategy you can stick with is vastly superior to a great one you can’t stick with
I believe a long time horizon is the ultimate equalizer in the markets.
I believe optimists are better investors than pessimists.
Molly White is back after covering the Sam Bankman-Fried trial and here is a post catching up with all that has happened recently in the scammy crypto world: Laser Eyes.
I followed here the SBF trial and it was kind of exhilarating. And all along we were faced with his Stanford professor parents watching their baby “boy” (WTF, Sam is 31 years old!) go down in flames. Can you imagine being in their shoes? I just can’t…Anyway, this Wall Street Journal piece was very interesting: Smoked Fish, Shaggy Hair and Tears: 8 Unforgettable Moments From Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial. And is this the time when the jurors come out and get famous, you know, like Kato Kaelin of the OJ Simpson trial?
I can not believe there are humans out there who still dabble on stupid ape pictures. But this happens with all bubbles I guess. Anyway, meet some of them and shake your head too: The People Who Lost Serious Cash on NFTs.
Anne Applebaum’s latest is a must read: The West Must Defeat Russia. Amen!
Amazingly put together must read piece: Israel-Gaza war explained.
This New Yorker article was one of the most difficult reads I came across lately: The Kingpin Who Kidnapped Migrants for Ransom.
Ok, the story about the kingpin above was difficult. But this one was the most disturbing, wtf is wrong with some people! The Lurker. It didn’t matter if she knew you — if you were a professor and Asian American, you were a potential target. Hopefully we never run into a psycho like this wow.
If you have a lot of money to blow, this is quite an itinerary (and price tag!): A brand-new round-the-world luxury train route is launching next year. From the Canadian Rockies to the Malaysian jungle, the 80-day itinerary zig-zags across the planet.
A ticket for the full three-month itinerary starts at £90,099 (€103,495, $113,599) [Gulp!]
Amazing 8K Video of the Annular Solar Eclipse.
Taking a break to post here one of our pics from a Thailand beach. Since this blog (just had its 11th anniversary yesterday!) is likely not going to be discovered and seems destined to be on a perpetual struggle to cover its costs, management’s hope is to be discovered by a Hollywood agent to give us spots as extras in a Netflix special so we can make it big.. Ok, I am laughing now and I hope you are too.
I used to post about North Korea a lot in the earlier days of the blog. Not much after the pandemic as the country became even more shut off from the world, which is a hell of an achievement. I did watch recently a documentary with stories of how a family escaped helped along the way by a South Korean priest who has devoted his life to this cause. What a hellish trip.
Charted: The Number of North Korean Defectors (1998 – 2023)
Just a few notes about the miles and points space, the reason this blog was created and, you know, has evolved a bit in the last 11 years.
Devaluations keep coming: Southwest Devaluing Reward Points In 2024, Points Worth 4% Less.
I am going to add this link to my blog’s Miles & Points Resources permanent page: Best uses of Avios for Award Tickets (British Airways, Iberia, Qatar, and Aer Lingus).
A few scrambled notes from our trip:
Our daughter is on her way back to the US. She is flying Thai Airways from Bangkok to Frankfurt and then on Lufthansa to Detroit. For just 44,000 (pre-devaluation) United miles.
I found Business Class flights on the same route for me but I have to stay one more night. I emailed my Hyatt Globalist concierge to take care of this and awaiting confirmation. It cost me an additional 66k United miles (on top of the original economy award trip for 44k). Still looking to do this for my wife but she is flying out of Kuala Lumpur so award availability starting there is even more scarce. I think the days of transferring Chase points to United are over and I need to get more familiar with Air Canada’s Aeroplan program going forward.
Correction: The five nights at the Phuket Hyatt Regency cost 63,000 World of Hyatt points and the five nights at the Bangkok HR cost 40,000 World of Hyatt points.
MILES & POINTS
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Let me leave you with this:
Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.
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Enjoy Bangkok, George! Hope you get discovered soon.
I was recognized at the lobby of the HR today….maybe I have arrived
Congrats on being discovered. And glad that your collection of points / miles
is doing rather better than “bored apes” …
Woot! Lots of good reading here! Thanks for the post! Glad you are enjoying your trip! I still do not understand people being invested on that crypto stuff and even worse, that NFT lunacy. But fun to read about it! Thanks!
I finally got around to reading the Michael Lewis SBF book. I honestly don’t get all the vitriol toward Lewis. I thought it was a good book. Based on the reviews you’d think it was a book proclaiming SBF’s innocence, which is not at all what it is. It’s also not a book about what a crook he is and how he deserves to rot in prison. Anyway, I’d recommend the book if you’re interested in the subject.
You should just take a month or two of this blog’s earnings and try that luxury train ride so you can let us know how it is.
Question: any thoughts on that new IBM retirement plan? Good/bad/doesn’t matter?
Not sure when the next blog post will drop here…
Taking it easy in Bangkok. Going to another massage (real one, not that kind) in a few hours. Wife has reconnected with one of her Malaysian hometown classmates who leaves a short 5 minute walk from our hotel, talk about a small world. Our Thai masseuse from Ann Arbor is visiting and we had dinner with her and her family last night in the food court of a luxury mall….not much foot traffic. Thailand is still missing its Chinese tourist pre Covid crowds.
I added one more night to the Hyatt Regency stay. To coincide to earn another 3k points for every three nights.
Tomorrow we do an all day tour to hit all major sites.
Food here is amazing. And so amazingly cheap.
Still have not made it down to breakfast, we just go up to the lounge. Service is amazing here, it comes naturally to the very kind Thai people. If only housekeeping stopped messing with the A/C settings!
May get to Chinatown today…
I can see now why so many Westerners come here…if I was single lol.
When I travel the stock market dives. I guess not this time, we had a melt up yesterday.
@ Nick: What IBM retirement plan? Running a little behind over here…
@ Paul. On Michael Lewis: His behavior and attitude towards his subject pretty much stops me for making him richer. The more I think about it the more ridiculous this guy was all along.
There is a Hyatt Place at just 5,000 points and I heard it is also pretty good. Still, the HR at 8,000 points is such a mega bargain.
Ok, lounge time, see ya all soon….
Thanks for the few blog supporters who bought me a coffee…I think this venture here has no chance to ever go for an IPO, lol.
Article on the IBM 401k plan changes:
https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/has-ibm-built-next-generations-401k-plan
“ pretty wild that the first job openai took was sam’s”
Big Nicaragua news!
https://www.cnn.com/style/miss-universe-2023-nicaragua-sheynnis-palacios/index.html
Hi from the Lufthansa Senator Lounge in Concourse Z in FRA. I am not sure the 66k extra UA miles I spent to bump to Business Class was worth it. Thai Airways BKK-FRA plane was a triple 7 and old, the entertainment system froze twice on me, the food was good but nothing special and the flat bed was ok. But the Royal Silk lounge in BKK is fantastic.
Good to be going home, I missed it and I missed blogging. I also did not miss blogging for free after 11 years smh.
I banged my toes in the shower door Friday night and had a bloody cut. The staff at the Hyatt Regency were fantastic cleaning it up. Can’t wear a shoe…just another bloody episode involving my feet LOL.
Went out my last night in Bangkok. Retraced my steps from Hangover 2…omg, this place is super wild. I can clearly see why so many Westerners retire here.
Had a really strange thing happen to me at the Senator Lounge. Pretty packed so I sat in one of those booth like places for laptop connectivity. I had no idea the space for my feet was open so I bumped once to the other guy’s feet. I said oops and then just reset my feet. I may have slightly bumped his feet again, don’t really recall, you know, jet lag and all. And then….abt 5 minutes later the guy stands up and says out loud “Can you stop kicking my feet?”….I was shocked and said “I am sorry”, he sat down and then I kept smh. Another overly worked German old dude, WTF! He then left after another 5 minutes…Shit that happens when you travel.
Ok, another coffee, time for the last bird to take me home.
Sam firing: Totally shocked, wonder what the guy did.
Miss Nicaragua: She is very tall!
If Greece beats France and Gibraltar beats NL, will GR make it to the European Championship? Fingers crossed!
Lol. I don’t like betting in general. But I will bet when I am 100% convinced that I will win. And I can assure you that Gibraltar will not beat the Neterlands and most likely Greece will be honored to spare a tie lol.
WTF is going on with OpenAI?
I am back beating jet lag and I will post this week…not sure when, I may go back to the regular long Friday posts.
If a post does not appear here on Wednesday, we will get back to normal on Friday with the biggest post to date it appears…
Well, I am now aiming to post this Friday.
I was doing great about the jet lag. But yesterday I went to bed at 7 pm and woke up at 2 am, so weird.
Greece managed to stop the French from winning every Euro qualifying game. And we can still make it if we beat Kazakhstan in Athens in March and then beat the winner of Georgia-Luxemburg. Team played well and we can do this.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
Hope you’re enjoying Thailand! Wow have redemption prices gone up since I lived in the Sukhumvit Hilton in BKK during COVID, obviously. I am planning to head back for the “holiday” period and looks like only 200k biz redemptions each way. Ouch.