beautifulthailand99

Thailand has always screwed the poor that's why it's so cheap to live here relatively. As a quid pro quo though they should probably have just one price at the parks and attractions. After Covid virtually every counrty is in big trouble, half the councils in Britain are going bust as well as most of the public servies in one way or another so it's not surprising that every goverment is looking to shakdeown all the money that they can.

His time inside was for kiddy fiddling I believe apart from the fact he paid sod all and took as much as he could from the state.

Surely if they were to realise these ambitions and were still in a state of war with Russia - they would just get attacked by Russian missiles/drones or sabotage.

And a Russian pothead nearly drowned last night at Jomtien. The pot carnage continues....

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Probably thought because there was a senior Thai who did time in Australia for heroin smuggling he would be amongst friends.

Abu Dhabi has just laid out the red carpet including a flypast with Western jets to welcome Putin to the Kingdom. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/06/putin-makes-rare-visit-to-the-uae-saudi-arabia-to-talk-relations.html

I do believe that there is a cohort of the US electorate that will vote Trump in for a laugh. When I was at school we had an election for head of the 6th form and we voted in the class joker who was a recalcitrant rebel. He won by a landslide and then the headmaster basically annulled the election on the basis that he was unsuitable.

I knew a jobbing builder who spent a lot of time in Thailand, he worked for cash for most of his life and was on the sick for a bad back and depression and had done a spell at Her Majesty's Pleasure. He had a council flat in an outer suburb of London and was on pension benefit so his flat was paid for and had pretty much a full pension and still did odd jobs for cash. Was as white as you like and racist to his bone and spent 3 months whoring in Thailand whilst being the tightest person it was ever my displeasure to meet.

We need to have a coup to stop a coup - that or a "controlled demolition" ! A probable KGB person of influence is looking at a second term and pulling out of NATO scary stuff indeed.

I've gone from hating Trump to thinking if he wins it's going to be the greatest political sh1tshow ever with the Clinton's in jail and more. Real end of Empire sort of stuff. RIP USA.

He's trying to flog off this forum he can't be that stupid!

These 2 events were a severe wake-up call as to Iran's capabilities in the new era and the US projection of hegemonic power. They put long-range missiles onto a US base with pinpoint accuracy defeating AD systems on a US military base and setting 5% of their oil reserves on fire. Then add Russia to the mix with satellite intelligence off the scale of mad. Cheap drones are a real game changer - Ukraine has been the theatre where a lot of lessons will have been learnt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Martyr_Soleimani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abqaiq–Khurais_attack Oil would go to the moon and global economies would crash. Buy gold now if you think that could happen expensive as it is.

I almost didn't believe that then I looked it up.Bleedin' hell - what should we carry to the beach just in case such an event was to occur? https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-016-1931-8

Thanks but not to worry she does all the money side of things in Thailand I just do due dilegecne asking you excellent gentlemen for your collective wisdom. Much appreciated. The banking cartels here rob the peole dry. In the UK I'm getting 5% interest on easy acess with Tandem app only bank and commercial interrest rates are around 6% so roughly 1% is their cut. In Thailand I think they are charging similar for loans and giving at best 1.5% - a hefty cut indeed.

A sneaky way of selling it - she was with the teller for a long time whiklst I sat at the back playing with my phone and initially she was convinced it was the 10% annual. In the UK this would be rank miselling but then TIT !

<coughs> smoke !

It is when you have the rose-tinted spectacles on and a peg on your nose. It's the Ryan Air of cheap places to live - you wanted cheap and you got cheap but don't complain because it's cheap. We bought a condo in Jomtien so I'm invested but only for 3 months of the year - that's enough. It ticks all the boxes though - cheap condo, cheap transport, close to the airport plenty of markets and malls and plenty of your home folks to talk to when you need to. But if my wife wasn't Thai I would never consider it. Just too hot, too dirty and too mono-cultural. There are only so many cover bands playing the hits that I can take before going mad!

Lovely thanks for the answers will do.

Just that point in the question - when we were here last year I saw some on Thepprasit Road and it seemed like a useful thing to have to save carting around loads of heavy water bottles. Should add beer to that supplier as well for good cheer !

It's a shame particularly since they will be smoked out terribly up there. A lot of them are very woke and can't stand to see in your face prostitution but if Pattaya falls then so does Thailand.

Hats off to Dan he talks Pattaya up and is right about the direction of travel for the wider area so what if he riffs along and gets somethings wrong? Starting to see some young and healthy looking digital nomads who realise that it is a good cheap hub to work out from.

The thing is they don't need the Shins anymore - Thaksin helped to kick MF into touch and neutered Phue Thai and that job is done. He will probably get a pardon on December 6th on health grounds as he will be found to be in dire straits. The ruling elites still hate them it's just they have had to tack to the wind in this instance. Yingluck isn't necessary anymore they may well keep her out just to show who has the power which is certainly not them anymore.

Some of that is undoubtedly true - early on in the conflict we had a lot of briefing Putin was on his last legs and was about to die sort of stuff. All nonsense or that there would be a palace coup to eject him which didn't happen. He seemingly has never been more powerful and the one person who spoke his mind got blown out of the air. The US wants to move the focus onto China and prepare for potential conflict there and now Israel has blown up as well Ukraine has moved down the pecking order. Very telling that Netanhayu turned down a solidarity visit from Zelenskiy shortly after October 7th whilst welcoming every other leader with open arms. They are supping from the same cup and there's only room for one of them. That and the sort of ammo and kit Ukraine needs is pretty much exhausted whereas Russia has gone onto a war footing with it's military-industrial complex and appears to have gotten around sanctions like Iran has managed for over 20 years. Oh, and Biden wants a foreign policy win before the next election not a forever war. Dark times indeed for Ukraine in every respect. It would appear that Zelenskiy and the Russians were on the point of a peace deal in the months after the invasion but Boris was sent to say don't worry fight on we've got your back and the result has been the utter destruction of the country,it's youth and the displacement of millions that will probably never return. This is from March 2022 https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-neutral-status-russia-peace-agreement-volodymyr-zelenskyy/

It talks about easing sanctions on Russia, accepting that Ukraine will need to give up territory and withholding aid could force Ukraine's hand. It also quite rightly points out that US interests are different from Ukaraine's interests and has a lot of soft soap to ameliorate that message but the days of an open chequebook (not that there ever was) have come to an end. Meloni's off-the-cuff remarks to the Russian pranksters also revealed that the EU want to end this sooner rather than later. It is Zelenskiy who is holding out and cracks are beginning to show between him and his army chief Zaluzhny. US silent coup probaly incoming sometime before the spring. The US is your friend until they are not. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/world/europe/zelensky-rebuke-general-zaluzhny.html The office of President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday chastised Ukraine’s top military commander for publicly declaring the war at a stalemate, suggesting the comments would help the Russian invasion. It was a striking public rebuke that signaled an emerging rift between the military and civilian leadership at an already challenging time for Ukraine. Speaking on national television, a deputy head of the office of the president, Ihor Zhovkva, said Gen. Valery Zaluzhny’s assertion that the fight against Russia was deadlocked “eases the work of the aggressor,” adding that the comments stirred “panic” among Ukraine’s Western allies.