Howdy from SingaporeFollow

Yay. I survived. Long *** flights, but at least business class (they call it "executive" on JAL) is reasonably comfy, specially on the 747.

A few lessons learned so far:

1. After a 12 hour flight, trying to get through the security check for the next flight is harder than it sounds. I'm not even sure why I had keys in my pocket, really!...

2. They don't make you take your shoes off at the check in Tokyo. Unless you forget to take thinks like keys, cell phone, etc out before walking through the detector. Then they make you wear the "special slippers". Apparently, people there have reall small feet too, which just adds to the hilarity.

3. Don't assume that the Hotel buffet you just wandered into can't possibly be that expensive. Not sure how I'll explain that one to my boss.


It's pretty humid, but not too terrible. Of course, I'm pretty sure the universe was mocking me when, after the aforementioned buffet fiasco, I decided to walk around to see what other sources of "normal" priced stuff might be had, only to realize that there's a freaking McDonalds right across the street. I may not be sure God exists, but I'm pretty sure Satan does...


Oh. I also found a KFC and a 7/11, so I'm good. OJ was cheap, and the vodka was expensive (bout half the price of the hotel room bar). So I'm set for the moment anyway...

I was in Singapore airport last week (again). If you havnt got time, or can't be ****** to go into Singaposre itself, I reccomend the swimming pool on the roof in Terminal Two as a fine place to drink loadsa beer and show off your tan.

And if you can be ***** to go into the city, then Little India is the district with the best food and the Raffles Hotel is the best place to get a Singapore Sling whilst checking out the totty.

Edited, Oct 18th 2009 7:03am by paulsol

Vacation or work, O Verbose One?

Do we have a pool going on how long it is until gbaji gets caned?

Don't try to smoke a joint over there. I hear that if you get caught with more than a certain amount of drugs, including weed, you'll swing.

Find a soapbox.
Find a wall.
Find a can of red spray paint.
Spray paint a downward facing arrow on wall.


Stand on soapbox and proceed to tell all of Singapore how incorrect they are using as many words as possible.

What the hell do you mean by that? Sounds you're trying to accuse me of being a racist while telling me that Singapore is a large city and that Gbaji couldn't possibly find a megaphone in all of the Malay peninsula.

Edited, Oct 18th 2009 1:39pm by Tzemesce

Ohhh... gotcha. Will do.

And I suppose the solution is to unionize? You're like a badly scratched record there Smash...

I know it galls you that some people actually make good money without tricking the system, ******** over their employers or the taxpayers, or using some other leverage to get paid more than they're worth. But that's what therapy is for... ;)

Oh, the experience of it all.

No, the solution is to make it more worthwhile to keep jobs in the US than to ship 'em overseas. (Granted, this technically screws over the taxpayers because you're pushing more of the burden of paying for the government onto individuals instead of companies.)

Sure. But how do you do this? If you give employers the freedom to pay their employees the market value of their labor, you may lose some labor as a result of offshore competition, but the labor costs in relation to other parts of the economy are "natural". It's not perfect, but you know that if a job exists, it's because it's cost effective for it to exist.

I made my comment about unionization because the process of job protection such as that practiced by unions ultimately hurts labor in the long run. If the problem is that businesses might shift their workforce offshore due to differences in labor cost, then it should be obvious that the last thing you want to do is increase the cost of labor locally. Yet, that's exactly what unions do. And unfortunately, in order to make that work, you have to keep lumping more and more government rules and tariffs into the works, which protects the unnatural labor rates for awhile, but ultimately hurts us more than helps.

Like so many aspects of economics and politics, there is no "perfect" solution. But some solutions are better than others. In this case, I would much much rather work in a field in which my employer is free to fire me if he thinks my work isn't worth what he's paying me. Because then I know that since I have a job, what I'm doing is worth the cost. And that's not likely to magically change over night. The more protections we try to create, the more we ***** with that dynamic. Workers jobs become less safe because there's no mechanic in place to ensure that they don't become priced out of a job.

Corollary: most jobs aren't cost effective to exist in the US. (The ones that are, are in areas where what's being produced cannot readily be transported internationally because the items are perishable and/or cost more than the labor differential to transport.)

Since obviously 93% (give or take a bit) unemployment is highly undesirable, why not basically say "here, we'll let you write off an amount of income equal to X, where X is greater than the total wage differential you're keeping in the US"? This is where the "it screws taxpayers" part in my response came in, BTW, which you kind of ignored completely.

Rather than decrease the cost of labor, increase the effective revenue produced...