Saturday, December 22, 2007

I'm Losing By Saving

So I just completed my first month of meticulously tracking all of my expenses after my first paycheck. So my first paycheck was just under 2,000,000 won, or just under $2,200. Over the last the month I spent a little over $500, which gives me a savings rate of over 75%. This will probably be the highest rate of any month though, as I had rather low utility bills this month, since they covered part of the time no one lived here.

Anyway, my expenses worked out as so:
62% - Food
15% - Transportation
7% - Gifts
7% - Entertainment
5% - Utilities
4% - Other

I managed to keep track of all my money except for 1,923 won. This is actually very odd as since there are no coins smaller than 10 won, I have no idea how to account for the missing 3 wons.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Democracy Takes Two Steps Forward and One Step Back

This past weekend, there were three rather important elections.

First, the Hong Kong Legislative Council Election

Pro-Democracy candidate, Anson Chan, won with a 14% margin. This comes immediately after District Council elections that saw large victories for Pro-Beijing candidates.

Second, the Venezuelan Constitutional referendum

Chavez's proposed amendments were narrowly defeated. His proposals would have paved the way for highly centralized socialist government, granting him a great deal of authority with few checks. Even if you think the proposals were not so bad, the fact that they were even defeated shows that democracy still works in Venezuela.

Third, the Russian Legislative Election

Putin's United Russia Party increased it's share of the vote from 38% to 64% amidst claims of vote-rigging. Of course, the other choices weren't much better. Of the three other "major" parties one is the Communist Party, one is an ultra-nationalist party, and the other more or less supports Putin.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Currency Updates

A few weeks ago, I made some predictions as to when various currencies would hit certain benchmarks against the US dollar (as a monthly average). I now have the November monthly averages, so here are my updated predictions.

May. 2008: 1 Euro > $1.50 US (2 months sooner)
Jul. 2008: 6 Swedish Kroner > $1 US (3 months sooner)
Sep. 2008: 900 Korean Won > $1 US (no change)
Sep. 2008: $1 Aussie > $1 US (1 month sooner)
Dec. 2008: 7 Chinese Yuan > $1 US (1 month sooner)
Apr. 2009: 30 Indian Rupees > $1 US (no change)
Dec. 2009: $1 Canadian > $1.50 US (1 month sooner)

New
Sep. 2009: 1 Swiss Franc > $1 US
Sep. 2009: 100 Japanese Yen > $1 US
Dec. 2009: 5 Swedish Kroner > $1 US