Neeranam

What age did you moved to Thailand?

Yes it it tragic. If you had kids you'd understand.

Not if you don't do anything and have no fun.

Tourist were beheaded when I was there in 1992, when there were only about 300 people at the full moon party, What a great place to be when young.

Please explain. I have no idea why you would want tourists dead.

Pattaya?

100 times safer than walking around in London. Thais are peaceful and tolerant of foreigners.

Damn, I missed this post !

I was talking about my topic in 2020

I was talking about my topic in 2020

It's a spiritual disease, finding a higher Power is your answer. Dr. Carl Jung’s Letter To Bill W., Jan 30, 1961 https://silkworth.net/alcoholics-anonymous/dr-carl-jungs-letter-to-bill-w-jan-30-1961/#google_vignette

I knew of a few innocent people to be killed by police in Kalasin, Khon Kaen, and Mahasrakham 20 odd years ago, just for being drug users. The police were and are the biggest dealers around and used Taksin policy to kill all their competitors, not just in the drug industry but basically it gave them the chance to kill anyone they wanted. I taught this incompetent PM around 1997 at a prestigious school in Bangkok, at the time her father was Minister of Finance and made his billions by 'orchestrating' the Tom Yam Gung crisis with Big Jiew, the most corrupt PM ever.

Yes, smoking is all in the mind, except I had one sleepless night as I cold turkeyed a huge amount of Swedish Snuss which got me off the habitual thing.

Nowhere near as bad a Benzos or methadone.

Agreed. It was a gateway drug only when illegal. Totally harmless, unless recovering from other substances.

So I can message people in my message inbox but no new members.

Why do you think that? Do you know about BOI incentives? This policy protects the Thai economy - local businesses and are not pushed out by larger, wealthy foreign companies. Is it just sour grapes or Western entitlement that you think it unfair? You ignored my question if you think it fair that Thais retiring in the US must invest $500,000 in an american company and pay at least $10k in legal, application, and other fees related to immigration. Old Hank on the other hand, jumps on a plane, pays an agent $500 and sets up a business with 49% of the company very easily. Oh, once a year he has to pay $5 more to get into a park and moans about it on the internet

Called me out, on what? My point was that it is so much easier for Yanks to retire here, or start a business than the other way around. Although I wasn't replying to you, do you think it is fair?

No. Can Thais retire to the US by paying $500 a year to an agent who bribes an immigration officer to bypass immigration requirements?

Please enlighten us as to the importance of expats on the Thai economy. Extremely minimal in my opinion, but I'm not an economist. .

Not true. I got Thai citizenship by being married to a Thai and working as a teacher for 3 years, earning 40k baht a month. Nowadays, there isn't even any requirement to speak Thai. The process only took 3 years from when applying. ' I looked into getting Australian citizenship and that was much harder.

I agree except that I believe Thailand is a 'higher' place in many areas other than financially - spiritually, for example. Also the community spirit; my mother told me she never speaks to her neighbours and doesn't even know some of their names. Actually, Thailand is better in many ways to my native Scotland in many respects. BTW, there my daughter, who is a UK citizen had to pay more than other teenagers when getting into many places last year. She couldn't get a Young Scot card. Also, my other one has to pay 13,000 GBP a year as a foreign student, despite being British. Thais are Xenophobic, perhaps for a good reason, and the ban on foreigners owning land happened when Japanese were trying to buy up all of Bangkok, and the Chinese. Thais don't particularly like farang but tolerate us and I've had very little discrimination and racial abuse compared to what I would have as a Thai in the UK. yet, this topic appears every few months and usually old expats who have been here a few years moan about not getting Thai discount when in fact they don't realize what side their bread is buttered.

Not sure why you would show a card that says "non-Thai" in big letters on the front.

I worked with two nonces, both were Americans, one was called Prowler. I try and have some compassion for them as they were seemingly both abused as kids. Can't find any compassion at the moment for this guy.

Nonces are probably worse off in a UK prison.