Miami Bob

As seldom as I comment on this forum, I couldn't help myself on this topic. My first reaction is to hope like hell that obomber gets defeated in November, just to save Thailand the agony of having to host him. However, upon reading some of the postings, I realized that even Thailand is not free of socialist desires. Fortunately, I hope, most of those desires are held by non-voting expats.

I was particularly amused to read that obomber is "out there making a difference". Yes, yes he truly is. He's making a difference for the Afghanis, the Pakistanis, the Egyptians, the Libyans, the Yemenis, and the Syrians. Soon he'll be making a difference for the Iranians. And, let us not forget how he makes a difference for his fellow (?) Americans. Unemployment approaching 15% (if you read the honest numbers), inflation pushing 10% (if you read the honest numbers), at least half of all Americans receiving some form of public assistance, indefinite detention for any American that the government deems worthy of such (read that they don't like you), and murder for any Americans that obomber deems worthy (read that they really don't like you). A spate of "executive orders" designed to destroy every remaining freedom Americans have.

I had to laugh out loud hearing what a phenomenal saviour old man joe is. About the only thing he displayed is disrespect.

No, I'm not sitting in a dimly lit crummy hole, either. And, I never called him a communist. I called him a socialist. His mentors used the word communist.

Well said, nice post. But remember those things are not just about Obama, he's just the latest puppet. The agenda of the global power structure basically remains the same no matter who wins the election. I would say Romney is the lesser of evils but don't expect any basic underlying changes just because Obama loses the election. It's continuity of government and continuity of global corporate agenda and the mega rich global families that control them . Hard to go into details in a little written forum like this. Be sure to familiarize yourself in depth with something called "agenda 21" and not just the smiley-face version fed to the dumbed down general global public. Cheers.

If he does come to Thailand the one thing you can believe is that the real reason for the trip is unlikely have anything to do with what he claims it is. Based on his track record you have to assume anything he says is a slick talking bold faced lie until truly proven otherwise. But don't worry he probably won't come because it doesn't sound like he will get re-elected. Going by alternative news sources that are not controlled by the global elite and actually attempt to tell the truth, it sounds like the global/wallstreet mega banks and the rest of the fortune 500 that he represents have decided Obama, or whatever his real name is, has outlived his usefulness to their agenda. It sounds like Goldman Sachs and others are backing their puppet on the other side of the aisle Romney this time.

I used to work on radio towers in my youth, 1500 footers, but we always used to say you are just as dead from 100 ft as from 1000 so it doesn't really matter that it was the tallest building around. The lack of precautions during high work was one the first things that struck me when I first came here. It just seems to be a cultural thing, safety is not a high priority throughout the whole society. " up to them".

Perhaps the very definition of "loose cannon" = a drunk teenager with a gun.

For years I parked my commercial truck on the little street in front of the Bee Gees recording studio on Miami Beach. I can still vividly remember Robin standing out in their parking lot during a work break stretching his arms and looking at the stars with kind of a relaxed happy look on his face. Seemed like a cool guy. My best thoughts are with him and his family.

Does anyone find the fact that a wanted Mafia boss uses Facebook to update his travel status???? What ever happened to the code of silence......

That's the first thing that came to mind when I read the article....what was he doing posting on facebook of all places!!! Why didn't he just ring up "big brother" on the tely and tell them where he is!

I calculated once that in USA [ Florida] lottery if you take the one time cash payment option with taxes paid upfront the after tax check you receive is actually about 35% of the winning amount they advertise in the media. The $640 mil figure is if you take the 30 year payment option which includes 30 years of interest and then you pay taxes on the check every year. I would take the one time payment, the USA might not even exist 30 years from now!

"Investigators tracked him down after monitoring his Facebook profile and that of his friends and family" .

Someone wanted by inter pol is dumb enough to be on facebook! That's amazing!

In the bigger picture this sounds like part of AGENDA 21 [ agenda for the 21st. century - Rio global summit 1991] gradually going forward all over the world to remove humans from the wilderness areas and concentrate them into small highly controlled areas.

Soylent Green

Yes only Soylent Green was a fictional movie... Agenda 21 is reality. Moving the populations into designated areas is only part of the agenda. They are having a follow up global summit this year again in Rio, Brazil to discuss progress. It also includes centralized control of all energy and resources globally. Obama and all the other major leaders will be there. It's a scary prospect in my view.

In the bigger picture this sounds like part of AGENDA 21 [ agenda for the 21st. century - Rio global summit 1991] gradually going forward all over the world to remove humans from the wilderness areas and concentrate them into small highly controlled areas.

It depends on which immigration officer you talk to, at which office, which year and what they had for breakfast.

One year they I showed them my 800K in a long term savings account and they said it's no good and I had to go put it into a regular savings account and come back the next day.

Then the next year a different officer said it's no problem you can have it in a long term deposit account as long as it's with a Thai bank.

This past year I used the long term account again and they accepted that, no problem.

If they do not accept your long term account and tell you to put it in a reg. account then they could say it hasn't been in there for 90 days and screw you that way. That's when you may have to pull the cash out.

If you leave the money in a long term account an never withdraw it they may question you as to what you are living on.

The very safest way is to keep it in a reg. no interest account, draw it out gradually over the next 9 months and then put 800K back into the account again 90 days before visa renewal time.

Thai immigration is like playing Russian roulette, you never know for sure. I have been here for 9 years but don't take my word for it, ask expats that have been here for 25 years and they will tell you basically the same thing.

"State is upset it cannot steal more from people using outrages tax-rates or that some are trying to avoid having someone steal from them."

That sums it up quite nicely! The car-import tax is way too high. It's just stealing from the people indeed.

I drove a MX5 in my home-country:

Price of a new MX5 in the USA: about 800-900 kbaht.

Price of a new MX5 in Holland: about 1.3 Mbaht (in Holland cars are considered quite expensive already)

Price of a new MX5 in Thailand: about 2.6 Mbaht (about double the Holland price and triple the USA price)

They do this for what? Protect people from not buying a local made car?

If they just lowered these taxes to half of they are now, much much more people will buy imported.

I think the government will even collect more revenue if they did this, since much more people will buy the car of their dreams.

A couple years ago I went to the BMW international website and searched what a new BMW 7 series with V8 costs in different countries and converted them all into US dollar. Here are the results:

USA - $86,000

Germany/Italy - $136,000

Holland - $170,000

Thailand - $425,000 !!

I did this when the exchange rate was 35 Baht to a US dollar and it is 30 now so now the 7 series would be about $484,000 USD

I also looked at the Thailand BMW site and found the 6 cyl. 7 series was 8.5 million Baht, V8 - 14.5 million and V12 - 18.5 million. So you pay and extra 6 million Baht to get the V8 instead of the 6 cyl. That's because of the horsepower tax Thailand has in addition to import tax.

I would to have a mini S but it's 3 times the USA cost so I had to settle for a Thai made Ford Fiesta S...handles real nice for a low prices car.

I don't think Thailand in the next year will be the right place to be for anyone with financial pressures and health problems to be. Count your blessings to be back in the USA. I honestly think Thailand and the world economy is in for an economic adjustment.that will be painful for some elderly foreign pensioners.

Completely agree, making my way back before the feces hits the fan.. At least I hope so in light of this flooding.. And there are opportunities of a lifetime back home for the entrepreneurial spirit with motivation and determination.. You just need to carve your niche so put your head down and get to it..

I have to disagree. Inflation is going to hit the West just as bad as Thailand. A little pension will still go further here in Thailand. And "health problems"...you want to pay USA prices for health care/health insurance premiums! And what about the ever increasing loss of personal freedoms in the US and UK. And now they are beating the war drums for an Israel/US hit on Iran...if that happens I don't want to be in the USA. I'll take my chances here in Phuket.

You can do that it's your prerogative but I'm not retired and still healthy it's cheaper there in almost every aspect versus quality here especially for the high ticket items and I have children, the cost for a decent school here is prohibitive and often substandard so it's not even close to a wash..

Do you have personal freedom to own property here? No you have "freedom" to make other people rich off your back. And there is still a long way to go before the personal freedoms you claim are lost there and to eclipse what is not even granted to foreigners here, like having to report every 90 days for example as if I was a parolee. You can't LOSE freedoms you don't have in the first place that's the only reason you take notice of some losses back home, because you take them for granted but here they never even existed..

Try speaking candidly about certain people here and see where that gets you? Or what about the control and censorship of the Internet and TV?? Yeah it's much more liberal here ..

Yes I've always said it's cheaper to live in the USA if you want to live a high roller life style with Ferraris and yachts mainly because of protectionist import taxes in Thailand. About the only high end thing cheaper here that I know of is housing.

ABout censorship, loss of freedoms, etc.....that's something I don't talk about in public forums.

I don't think Thailand in the next year will be the right place to be for anyone with financial pressures and health problems to be. Count your blessings to be back in the USA. I honestly think Thailand and the world economy is in for an economic adjustment.that will be painful for some elderly foreign pensioners.

Completely agree, making my way back before the feces hits the fan.. At least I hope so in light of this flooding.. And there are opportunities of a lifetime back home for the entrepreneurial spirit with motivation and determination.. You just need to carve your niche so put your head down and get to it..

I have to disagree. Inflation is going to hit the West just as bad as Thailand. A little pension will still go further here in Thailand. And "health problems"...you want to pay USA prices for health care/health insurance premiums! And what about the ever increasing loss of personal freedoms in the US and UK. And now they are beating the war drums for an Israel/US hit on Iran...if that happens I don't want to be in the USA. I'll take my chances here in Phuket.

Just look at the Thai Soaps - it is all women-beating , gang violence - guns - drugs etc yet if somebody smokes they blur it out . They are fed this every day - and they think this is normal

living

Yes, I always say to my Thai wife when she watches those stupid soaps " why are they always so angry?" But the soaps are like that in other countries also. And the blurred out cigs are so stupid and just ruins the movie...like the kids don't know what they are putting up to their mouth!

This is what happens when there is a shortage of good ganja at a reggae concert.

:lol: You got that right! To much booze and yaba and other hard sh*t. Long way from the good ole days of woodstock. Sounds more like the Hells Angels at Altimont Calif. with the stones only magnified to the tenth power.

US/UK style big brother spy tech coming to your local neighborhood in Thailand. What will this also be used for in the future if not now.

I've been reading about health/diet/exercise for over 30 years. I'm no expert but I have learned a lot. Last year I became obsessed with making my stomach totally flat and ripped like when I was a high school wrestler [ I'm 64 now] so I went from 143lbs. to 128lbs. Not that many pounds total but it's over 10% off a body and had very little fat to begin with. If I may make some recommendations. It's not about how much you eat as much as WHAT you eat and not about how much you excercise as HOW you exercise. It's not about how many calories you burn WHILE you are excercising, it's about how high you raise your metabolic rate. Slow aerobic is better than nothing but as soon as you stop you soon stop burning calories. What you need is Anaerobic [ wind sprints] that get your heart and lungs pumping big time. I do 30 second wind sprints on the stationary bike at max resistance. The results is your met rate goes WAY up and stays up for 24 hours. That's the key! Go here www.mercola.com and search his "peak eight"

program and subscribe to his free newsletter. Diet -number one thing to remember { sugar is the enemy"! Or any simple carb that digest quickly. Watch this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM lecture by a professor at U. of Cal that runs an obesity clinic for children. It will put you light years ahead in understanding how to lose weight.

About soy VS cows milk. Milk is good if it's UNpasturized whole milk like it comes out of the cow under sanitary conditions. I drank soy for 25 years but stopped now because 90% of soy sold in the USA is GMO which is a health disaster. You can get soy here in Thailand from Australia that claims to be non GMO. But there are other drawbacks to soy I have learned about in recent years in addition to the female hormone issue. There is no perfect answer to your question.

Good luck !

What a crock, European tourists do not go to Pattaya to learn about the Thai culture they go for sex, if they arrive totally unaware that Pattaya is the biggest brothel in the world they pretty soon find out and have a disappointing holiday. I must add I admire the large expensive hotel chains that are moving in, but being a cynic I suspect they have their eye on the rich middle East guys rather than mum, dad, granny and the three kids from Birmingham.I must add this guy sounds a little crazy ( read a lot ) to suggest Mexico will be a rival to Thiland ref tourism, nobody dare go to Mexico because of the drug murders. I have Mexican relatives living in LA who are too afraid to cross the border to visit their own family. does this guy work for TOT //???????

Yes I got a laugh out of the Mexico comment also. There is a war going on there. My sister used to go to Mexico frequently from Texas but now they even avoid the road that runs along the border. So if this author is so far off in that respect than how accurate is his other info?!

Yeah - this poll is accurate...

The better countries are at hiding their corruption.. the MORE corrupt they are.

Nothing Thailand has done has been felt around the world.

The United States and their bankers on the other hand....

Yes the USA and their bankers... but expand that prospective and think about who actually has much of the controlling interest of those banks like Goldman, Well Fargo, JP Morgan and think Rothchild and Barclay families. It's a global banking cartel responsible for this unprecedented corruption scam affecting the whole world. If the general public ever becomes aware of what has happened it will make the corruption in Thailand look like kindergarten.

This is only Bangkok immigration?? I assume the marriage extension of 40,000 a month pension is not under scrutiny ???

Don't count on them giving you the marriage visa based on 40,000 pension income...it depends on the officer and what he had for breakfast that day. Last year I showed them a letter from the embassy AND proof of a little over 40,000 and he said it "wasn't enough if I had an emergency" and wanted to see my bank book. Fortunately, because I was looking to buy a house at the time, I had way over 800,000 in my Thai account so then he said " OK I am going to give you a retirement visa" NOT a marriage visa. We believe he did that because the marriage visa involves much more paperwork for them and I never give them any tea money. So now I keep 800K in a Bangkok bank account that makes 2.5%... not a bad return in these times of low interest. That's the simplest, safest way to do it but I'm waiting for them to change that game someday also... like raising it to a million!

Here is a follow-up to my original post. I went back to BKK determined to make this happen and found out if my Thai wife signs for the loan they will give it to me and the car can still be in my name personally. Doesn't matter that she has no job, no income and no credit, only that she is Thai. As so many have said before in this forum......amazing Thailand!!!

Does anyone know of a Thai bank that has a reasonable policy toward loaning money to farongs? I recently tried to borrow B470.000 from Bangkok bank to buy a car. I offered to use the B800.000 I have IN MY BANGKOK BANK account as a guarantee on the loan plus allow them to take the monthly payments from my US government pension payment that is automatically sent every month to my Bangkok bank direct deposit account. They actually rejected the loan because A. - I am 64 and the limit is 65 [close!?] and B. - I don't have a work permit. What possible difference could those things make if the guarentee cash is already deposited in THEIR BANK!! This is the stupidist bank policy I could possible imagine! I'm some of you out there have been through this....any ideas?

Not only are the Thais not so concerned about safety but when you have an accident it costs a lot of money to replace all those explosive devices called air bags.

There is a good show on National Geographic playing right now about the history of automotive safety going back 100 years including the evolution of the airbags systems. It's really interesting and dispels some of the old myths about what does or doesn't make a car safer.