retarius

No sorry, I know you sympathies with Israel and I respect that. 25000 is the latest estimate of Palestinians civilians killed. On top of that the Israeli authorities claim to have killed between 5000 and 9000 Hamas fighters.

I'm not really in a position to judge how good the education system is here compared to the one that I received because I left university 50 years ago. But the PISA system seems to be using the same methodology over several years and so declining performance year after year should give decision makers pause for thought. Even in a poor education system some students will excel and become prize winner as @KhunLa points out. But one cannot run a modern economy on a handful of really talented people. I tend to think the average student is more important in predicting if your economy will flourish or fail in the future.

Obviously guilty from my perspective, you can't murder 25000 innocent people like this, even in a search for revenge. I suspect however that the ICJ will find some technical reason why they don't have jurisdiction in the case, to avoid losing credibility with most of the world. But the whole Israeli operation seems to be designed to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and to make the now cleared land available to Israelis.

Depends on interest rates largely. If Biden's poll numbers keep declining and the Fed are forced to US cut sharply in the it may go the other way.

They never heard of soil pipes here. We tried to vent our system with a mammoth fan and a very large outside 4" soil pipe.....it should have worked in theory, sucking the miasma out of the septic tank, but it didn't. On the bright side the pipe is very long and there is no smell now, even when it rains and the water table rises and pushes back on some of the drainaways.

Down 150 baht on a price of 34000 baht? Is that plummeting? A bit of hyperbole I think....someone wants to shift some excess gold.

I drink Yorkshire tea....brilliant stuff, I think I'll have a cuppa now, it';s just past 4 o' clock.

Thank you for bringing up to this topic. Lotus is leading the charge for shrinkflation and crapflation (using cheaper inferior materials). Their prices are scandalous. And the increases (supposedly for inflation) bear no relation to what is reasonable. I shop there because frankly there is nowhere else to shop where I live and even Tesco is a 40 km round trip. Other things I hate are their inventory control....everytime I start buying something, it goes out of stock for months on end. The other thing is their car park, it was too small to begin with, now they keep flogging off bits to the car park for a car wash, for Amazon, and for all these useless 'markets'. The branch nearest us is the worst run store I have ever seen. Empty gaps on shelves which are where customers come to buy from. The good news, is that the store itself, as opposed to the other stores in the mall, is usually empty now. If you can park, you can shop quickly and efficiently and get out of the checkouts quickly (they installed self check outs some time back, but have decommissioned the gimmick, maybe for theft). But the restaurants, the banks, the phone shops and the food hall, are always busy. The toilets suck.

Excellent stuff. Nakba has to be addressed, but a two state solutions should be tried and not pre-judged. Israel must give up all land stolen since 1967, and the Palestinians will have to accept that any other territorial claims they have will be ignored. Pity the Israelis like Bibi turn a deaf ear to Levy and and carried on with the Hate.

The headline points to an obvious truth, Israel should stop its occupation and give Palestinians a homeland like the Jews have. Netanyahu's rejection of the two state solution because he wants to steal more Palestinian lands is an outrage. But just a correction, there are no schools in Gaza, just as there are no hospitals functioning because of the Israeli bombing. Israel seems not to notice that their actions cause the Palestinians to hate them, so stop the action to stop the hate. There is no justification for all this murder and hate from Israel, treating Palestinians like they were subhuman. If you kill people their relatives will hate you until they die.....but if you steal their land they will hate you forever. Getting rid of Hamas will not get rid of the original injustice, and will result in a movement more extreme and violent than Hamas. With drones it's pretty easy to deliver any sort of really nasty substance into Israel, and it is only a matter of time until Hamas or its successor gets hold of really nasty stuff. Better to solve this by negotiation rather than an endless cycle of violence,

Yes, timing might be an issue. As I said (I think) I'll file US taxes for 2024 on Oct15th 2025 (having paid the taxes in the first quarter of 2024). I'm thinking if I pay Thai taxes on money remitted here during 2024 at the end of 2024, then I will have the data of how much I paid to Thailand (my deduction) by the time I file US taxes for 2024. But I'm not really sure of the tax calendar in Thailand as I have never filed taxes here.

I think this is an overestimation of the result. any sane person could see it was a stupid idea to sue someone for share in a defunct company, but it ruined Pita's shot at PM.....and that is a lasting result. Giving him this tiny victory now costs the elite nothing at all. We will find out later if the more serious charges laid against him are found to be upheld. That could put him out of politics for 20 years and in jail if they were vindictive, but would make a martyr of Pita. So it depends on what the time frame and the instructions of the court have been, ie do they want to really kill him off now and risk unrest, or let him off the charges and let him stew for 4 years in opposition hoping his shiny new exterior wanes before the next election.

True....it is a shame that so many expats simply live where their wives come from, maybe that iOS not the best location. I was lucky I got to choose the location of where we now live.

Thank you for this. Have some patience with me because I am old and the brain is a bit addled. I do understand the concept of deferred income. However I pay income taxes on the US when I draw it out (by choice). So it is no longer income, to my mind, but savings. As an example say I withdraw $90K from the 401K each year and then give 30K to my ex-wife in the states, 30K to myself remitted in Thailand and 30K to the tax man in the US. I was not aware that the DTA gave Thailand first dibs on the money. Personally I would rather give it to Thailand, but it is more inconvenient having to make two tax filings rather than one. I suppose what you are saying is that for 2024 tax filings, on the $30K I bring here in the example, I would owe taxes here of X, but be able to fully deduct those taxes paid off my US taxes (as long as the Thai tax rate doesn't exceed my marginal tax rate at home of 36%). Am I correct in this thinking?

I have the same question. I am at an age where I have to start drawing down my 410K account in the US. The sum I must withdraw each year is relatively large and it would be great if I could simply declare that none of these withdrawals are income by showing the statement from Dec 31st 2023.

Many of us think of retirement as a single thing....ie where is it best to retire to? But as you age you want different things. I was 54 when I retired and wanted night life and lots of it. I'm 70 now and want peace and quiet. I have lived in cities most of my life and generally enjoyed the hustle and bustle...Thailand is a noisy place generally and the noise is now the major irritant in my life. Like a lot of things, there are alternatives but it behoves us all to really examine what we need on a day to day basis and pick a location based on that.

This is bad news. I'm assuming you rent? This has all the hallmarks of a financial and housing disaster for the person left holding the bag when the music stops. I've always avoided condos (buying or renting) because the financial responsibility when things goes wrong never seemed to be very clear (to me at least). I'd be inclined to look around for somewhere else like a whole house owned by one person, and stay at the condo rent free for as long as you can. Be prepared to walk away (moonlight flit) at a moment's notice.

Israel should be shunned by decent people and ostracised. Go BDS.

I agree 110%....yes Hamas was authorise by Israel's occupation to attack and occupying force. The subsequent butchery by IDF what we already knew about the occupiers and oppressors.

Honestly we need to grow up a bit. My guess is that Pita is like every other politician...a self serving liar....yes he's new and fresh like Thaksin was in 2000 or whenever. Young people don't know that power corrupts everybody and as soon as Pita gets power he will do a 180. It is the law of people and politics.

If laws cannot be understood by reasonably educated people, then they should allow lack of knowledge of the law as a defence. The US tax code was 90,000 pages loge 30 years ago, it is probably 200,000 pages long now, how can anybody, even experts, know what is in 200,000 or even 150,000 pages of legalese. It is blinking stupid. And no you should not be required to consult a $500 an hour lawyer to find out.

Is he old enough to get a life sentence and spend his life in jail? Are kids entitled to a couple of mistakes? I don't know, I'm asking.

Yes I agree. And no, I wasn't;y having fun with you.

yes...no longer doing or did any sort of trading for years.

A personal opinion here. I would keep them open in the event that I needed them in the future. The only downside would be reporting the accounts to the IRS in your FBA in the event that the value of the balance is more than $10,000. The other downside is that things change here eg they stop enforcing the tax law, or more likely your home country where your credit/debit cards are issued stops accepting your home address because you live in Thailand.