ExpatOilWorker

21 minutes ago, thaifoodruns said:

Started watching Subbura on Netflix in Italian with English subs

 

I'm on episode 3, looks promising didn't check my phone once during!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

 

The 2015 movie by the same name also looks good: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4025514

2 hours ago, Beats56 said:

500 miles and three stops..no way they will go 300 miles with one stop

EV is the way of the future. Either embrace it or be like the ones that said autos will never replace horses. Norway has the most EV cars

Not California. 

Down, down and then down again.

2 hours ago, trogers said:

Asset Bubbles

 

Bursting of the Bubble

 

100 years wait for Return of Investment

 

Sounds familiar? But due to the vigilance of the major Thai banks, when they started raising the hurdles on application for mortgages since 2015, any popping of bubbles would mainly affect the cash wealth of speculators.

I guess it is safe to conclude that The South China Morning Post is best used to wrap fish:

"The misguided monetary policy (of the Fed) may be the culprit", The Central bank of China also joined the QE party.

" Germany and Japan do not have significant asset bubbles." Japan had the mother of all asset bubbles in the '80, but the kid that wrote the article was probably not even conceived back then.

"While Western central bankers can stop making things worse, only China can restore stability in the global economy." In your wet dreams. If they relax capital control China will bleed dry of foreign capital.

"The most likely cause for the bubble to burst would be the rising political tension in the West." What?

"Andy Xie is an independent economist" Andy makes fish wrapping paper.

1 hour ago, Beats56 said:

500 miles and three stops..no way they will go 300 miles with one stop

EV is the way of the future. Either embrace it or be like the ones that said autos will never replace horses. Norway has the most EV cars

Not California. 

Once the novelty and tax breaks wear off, people will stop buying Teslas. They already did in Denmark.

16 hours ago, cheeryble said:

  On 10/8/2017 at 2:39 PM, Naam said:

China's estimated demand (dated 2015) of housing units till 2040 between 18 and 22 million per annum.

16 hours ago, cheeryble said:

 

Thats ballpark only 1.5 units........probably very small units......per 100 citizens. Dont sound like much to me.

on the concrete side, I’d been thinking a lot would be going into infrastructure.

Ain't infrastructure a positive thing for future growth?....especially at a time of cheap money ( which cheap money Trump and Co seem determined to miss out on)

On the contrary, it is a lot, in fact it is am astronomic number. China is in many ways 20 times bigger than Thailand, land mass, population GDP'ish, etc.

Does Thailand have a housing demand of 900,000- 1 million per year? Absolutely not.

Probably closer to 100,000 (http://www.property-report.com/detail/-/blogs/thailand-real-estate-relentless-expensive-and-highly-desira-13)

17 minutes ago, lvr181 said:

Lies, lies and damned statistics 

True, if we could run the world on lies, then the renewal industry could power the entire galaxy.

Meanwhile Chinese solar producers are going bankrupt and First Solar is trading at $48, well below its $300 all time high. The sun is still shining on the Oil industry.

2 minutes ago, zakk9 said:

If you start with 1.5% of the total need, and increase solar capacity with 50% each year, which would be less than they do now, it takes less than 12 years to go to 100%.

Sound like a nice dream, but a dream that is also all it is. What will be the cost of this exponential growth? 100% of GDP?

To be fair, Denmark does generate more than 100% of electricity demand on very windy days or 3-5% of the time, but that will never happen in energy hungry China. Consider yourself lucky if they reach 10% in 12 years, then you are only 90% off the mark.

3 hours ago, zakk9 said:

Solar panels that are made today have a life expectancy of 25 years, and it's increasing steadily. Energy for the production of solar panels increasingly comes from.... guess what: solar panels.

 

While Thailand is not at the forefront of this development, it's happening here too. Very many factories in Thailand have their roofs covered with solar panels, and there are several, but still experimental, solar power stations running in Thailand. What is lacking is an infrastructure for charging of electric cars like we see in many European countries.

 

The leader is of course China, where the output from solar power stations increased 80% just the first quarter of this year:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/china-solar-power-output-increase-80-per-cent-three-months-renewable-energy-source-a7719021.html

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40341833

 

One can only smile or maybe even outright laugh of graphs like the above. If plot is as percentage of total electricity generation in China you will soon see that is accounts for less than 1.5% and it is not even keeping up with the growth in power generation.

It is important to distinguish between dynamic and static energy. Dynamic is cars, trucks, planes, ships, etc which is mainly oil and a small amount of gas.

The grid is static, which is dominated by coal and a bit of nuclear. ALL the hyped up renewals are static and coal is getting hit from 3 sides at the moment; renewals, gas and political pressure based on the environmental impact. 

Oil and gas consumption is still growing at a healthy rate and sometime in 2018 we will for the first time consume 100 million bbls/day or about 1,150 bbls ever second 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

On 7/28/2017 at 11:25 AM, Dave67 said:

When I worked in China at one we stayed near (Within 100k in China is near) Shaolin Temple and the Terracotta army. We went to the Shaolin temple and it was a nightmare, they have shuttle buses to take you up the hill and its a scum down to get a seat, Guides with Megaphones conducted the commentary to several different hoards at one time, another scrum down to get a view of any attraction, litter and empty water bottles strewn everywhere. I made the mistake of going to the Toilet for a piss and it was a trough cut into a concrete floor full of <deleted>.So I never went to see The Terracotta army.

 

Off topic point Worked in Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Zhengzhou and many other smaller towns, It's common to see little kids poohing in the street they actually have a flap on the back of their trousers to allow that to happen , so add that gobbling and slurping and disguting table manners, I've seen a Government official bark up a grolly and gob it under the table at a company dinner. I feel the pain of the people who are having their homes invaded. Rant over

You didn't miss anything. The original Terracotta tombs were all raided, what they are showing now is all fakes and replicas.

2 hours ago, Naam said:

 

let's meet again in 2040 and evaluate the situation.

That is a bit of a long cliff-hanger, lets check again in 2020.

5 hours ago, Naam said:

China's estimated demand (dated 2015) of housing units till 2040 between 18 and 22 million per annum.

The lofty forecast for China are bringing back memories from NASDAQ in 1999 when Corning and Extreme Networks were digging up Americans streets and laying miles of miles of "dark" fiber optic cables in anticipation of eternal growth in bandwidth demand. 

What will happen if there is a drop or even a pause in the housing demand in China while supply is still pouring onto the market supported by borrowed money?

In the west we are used to financial crises every 10-12 years and the remedy is always to throw a few politician to the wolfs, elect a new government and like lemmings we (they, not us of course) move forward and believe in the new dream.

China have had 30 years of positive growth, how will they handle a financial crises?

13 hours ago, cheeryble said:

I heard that more concrete was poured in China last year than in the whole of history, everywhere.

It may be a wee bit over, but this is impressive enough from Forbes....

 

 

Assuming Forbes got the numbers right, the big panda in the room is for how long China can sustain this relentless pace. Did they build another 147 (US) years in 2014-16? What is next 200 US-years in 2017-2019?

Also the more they build, the bigger they become, the return on assets will decline.

Eventually they will saturate their own market and live with a flat growth, just like Japan did. When this happen, it will of course also be felt in the Thai real-estate market.

6 minutes ago, lungbing said:

Because when you convert it back to GBP in the UK you would get an awful exchange rate.

You can exchange it all to GBP in Thailand at a very good rate: https://www.superrichthailand.com/#!/en

2 hours ago, Gillyflower said:

I'm one of these Western women............I have been going to LOS for many years now. I'm not looking for a relationship (sexual).  Too old to be bothered with men, BUT I DO like their company.  When I go out I just like to have an agreeable time.  Over the years I find that men (we are talking about Thailand), once they realize I am not looking  for  a holiday romance, don't want them to pay for my drinks , not expecting anything later, they only want the uncomplicated CONVERSATION, on maybe all sorts of subjects (not that I meet many intellectuals in CM), more or less the same mentality  and no problems of language.  In other words to be on the same wave length.

 

Actually in some cases, it is rather funny.  Some of them bring their women, who don't sit with us and look on rather benignly whilst hubby/bf and I sit for some hours drinking and talking.

Maybe they feel like this guy. Anyway "The upside of anger" is actually a great movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365885/)

First read this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-04/bulldozers-can-show-you-where-the-economy-s-going-before-the-official-data-do

Unfortunately the raw data for Thailand alone is not available, but it interesting to see that construction equipment is working twice as many hours in China than Japan/US. 

201709komtrax_e.pdf

This is a good little gig. I can't wait for my daughter to get into puberty. Anybody got a price list for the latest Mercedes?

2 minutes ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

A couple of things I do miss about Western Women at times:

 

They usually pull the shower curtain closed when taking a shower so they don't flood the bathroom floor two inches deep in water. They don't come crawling into bed with a wet towel wrapped around them. They're not always freezing because I keep the A/C cranked down low, so they don't run over and turn it back up every time I leave the room. Small inconveniences I'll happily tolerate to avoid Western women like the plague.

How many girls do you have running around naked and jumping into your bed?

To solve the air-con conundrum, my wife sleep with Canadian down duvet while I use a thin blanket. A/C is blasting away at 23 C.

16 hours ago, Lakegeneve said:

 

 

BTSC Dark Green (Suk) line  (BTS) -

1) The BTSC has ordered for 22 new 4 car sets from Siemens in May 2016 for the when the Samut Prakhan extension. These are being built in Turkey with expected deliveries in late 2018 & early 2019.

2) At the same time, the BTSC ordered 24 more 4 car sets of CRRC (Chinese) for the North ext to KuKot/Lam Lukka rd. These should be delivered in late 2018.

(Note: 4 sets will be kept for reserve/repairs etc)

 

Thanks for the update. 

Has any quality difference between the Siemens and the Chinese mad rolling stock been reported?

As a passenger I feel the Siemens train stops much smoother while the Chinese breaks jerks, especially when it rains and the track is wet.

Still no plans for 5 car sets on the Silom/Sukhumvit BTS green lines?

8 hours ago, Csaw said:

Jokes?? You gotta be joking right?

The other day my wife asked what the chicken's dad is called? 

She found out pretty quick and lets just say it was a lovable moment.

9 hours ago, spiritr7 said:

Bangkok ban is only on 13th 24th 25th and 26th 

Today. October 5th is also alcohol free.

12 hours ago, fxe1200 said:

What really puzzles me, that, according to a witness, a woman inside the concert hall said: "You are all going to die." That happened 45 minutes before the shooting. Who was that woman? How did she know? Allegedly the shooter(s) have carried 23 weapons and masses of ammunition into the hotel. This must have been recorded by the hundreds of CCTVs in that place. Any of these recordings, have yet not been published. The preliminary behaving of the shooter showed zero unusual acting. His act came out of the blue. I would like to see more unedited evidence. This case, though still in its early stages, reminds me of the shooting of John F. Kennedy. The still classified documents are to be released this year, 50 years later. That is the time frame for the world to finally see the truth.

No wonder I feel so young, we are on in the year 2013, according to you. His brother Robert F. Kennedy was shot next year (50 years ago).

On 10/3/2017 at 1:57 PM, giddyup said:

It was a choice the US made, not sure how they were sucked into it. It was an irrational fear that communism was going to take over SE Asia.

There is a pack of Vietnam era music on TPB, just search for Vietnam war music.

18 hours ago, giddyup said:

Just finished The War In Vietnam a 10 part documentary, 10 years in the making. If this doesn't convince you of the folly of war and the incompetent and egocentric leaders who got the US into it, nothing will. Gripping stuff.

Absolute best documentary for years. The way I see it America was sucked into the conflict against their will. Lyndon Johnson was very hesitant of increasing the war effort, but once they were committed there was no easy political acceptable exit strategy. The all out bombing had worked well in WWII, but was not really effective in mountainous jungle.

Since the documentary cover a lot of the protests in the US, they should have included small section of the cold war also, like the massive US/Russian nuclear arms race. 

Fascinating to think that amidst all this war and chaos, America sent a man to the moon.

I wold love to see and equal detailed documentary about the Russian war in Afghanistan, but I guess that will never happen.

2 hours ago, hugh mckee said:

why do you ask me this? in hope that it fails? life's a gamble, I like to gamble, gambling paid for my condo,

I paid 100% upfront, yes have a good laugh, it's my gambling nature, condo will be finished early next year,

all floors complete and windows mostly fitted now in all apartments, condo is beautiful and right next to beach,

it will not fail and if i wanted to sell then being in such a great location with great sea view will mean I'd sell no problem,

my wish is I have it 'til I die.

 

now guys sorry but must leave you, got a flight to las vegas, leaves in 3 hours....see ya

You really are judgmental to the extreme. It is like trying to make small talk to somebody at a bar by asking "How do you think the weather will be tomorrow?" while you casually look at the grey sky and his answer is "Ohh, so you just want it to rain. You really enjoyed the 2011 flood, didn't you? You like to see people lose their home and life?"

When you quietly take your beer and move away, it dawns to you why this sad old man is always sitting alone.