55Jay

Seems to be a dismal lack of initiative and foresight at all levels of government below the PM,   although I'm sure there's the ever-present funding/budget/contractual aspect to it.

It's as if the plethora of civil servants in Amphurs and palatial Provincial Government Offices, don't exist.  It takes a high body count or a crisis/epidemic reported on Facebook to get the attention of the media and, in turn, causes the PM to swing into action, issuing obvious orders (and funds?) down the dysfunctional chain of command before anyone does anything that they should of done already.

I would like to think the PM, as a retired military man, as am I, is frustrated having to deal with this level of incompetence and impotent jobsworths who must be embarrassed into fixing a pot hole,  or spray to help keep the mozzies down BEFORE hundreds of people get ill and/or die from Dengue, or to get off their asses and clean out klongs and sluices to keep water draining properly.       

I'm sure there are conscientious and capable Thais in the government system, but along with funding, suspect there is a systemic problem with delegation of authority, aggravated by the culture - Thainess.   Keep 'em crawling around on their knees in homogeneous subservience, Wai deeply and pray you'll make it to 60 and a pension without drawing too much attention one way or the other.

2 minutes ago, The Dark Lord said:

Who cares?

Righto, me ole fruit bat!

That's the thing about Florida I suppose.  Potential for damage is present every year. 

Who comes up with these dumb names for Moobans and condos. 

Probably the same moron who photo shops the website pictures.  Gotta love this one.

Take a hint.....quit calling.  At least her "brother" didn't answer.  You know.....the one that lives with her.  LOL. 

Agoda Map.  https://www.agoda.com/hotels-near-suvarnabhumi-international-airport/airport/bangkok-th.html

"One woman who said her son had been killed by police threatened to kill officers herself."

^ And there you go.....

"I don't care if he had a gun," she shouted. "His life matters."

^ Apparently not to him, which is why he's dead now.

Sorry, I only deal in immense.

I just can't be bothered with huge.

19 minutes ago, Chicog said:

I blame the system he's exploiting, and it's up to the politicians to fix that (but they won't).

But what is galling is the litany of tweets the hypocrite has put out about others doing the same thing.

He shoots from the hip to satisfy the base..... the foot dragging on this tax returns is a rare moment where he realized he's painted himself into a corner.  Like the birther issue.  He spun that at the last debate into a valuable, public service.  Wow! 

3 minutes ago, Neurath said:

Oh my, look at what the Golden Boy managed to do:

 

"The eye-popping figure [1 billion dollars] would amount to almost 2 percent of all so-called net operating losses claimed by all American taxpayers that year". http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

 

The average operating loss claimed by ALL other taxpayers was $97,600. 

 

If it was done cleanly then just release the returns and let's have a look. He won't because it wasn't. He's a big fat leach sucking the blood of the public. A big whining corporate and personal welfare queen. It's not illegal to go to a party and shove ALL the pies down your fat gullet either. However, it is despicable. That's him. Despicable, greedy and gaudy and happy to let others carry the tax burden that puts uniforms on our troops kids in our schools.

Well, Donald Trump isn't your "average" tax payer, so it's the NY Times trying to boil it down to false comparisons in order to foment and incite the dopes.  Seems to be working.    

He's a rank amateur compared to the biggest and worst one known as the US Government. 

I'm not dismissing Trump's deplorable behavior, but if he's done something illegal all these years, IRS would be leaking like a sieve and the media would be going ape shit.

Instead, what we have is wishful thinking by political hack "reporters", spun to manipulate Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen, who the media also considers "Low Info, Emotional Dopes".

This EuroNews JournoBoob even says it wasn't illegal, then dismisses that fact and carries on with his salacious regurgitation of wishy washy terms like "May have" and "Could have", suggesting Trump has somehow "played with the tax rules.     They trot out the big dollar amounts intending to foment $hock and disgust among the little people.  They characterize  carrying loss forward into out year tax returns, as some sort of exotic, underhanded tactic reserved for the rich with expensive, tricky accountants and tax attorneys.   They characterize this story as a "revelation", and are working overtime to sell it to The Dopes.

If Trump handles this correctly (which he probably won't), this scheme will back fire on the media.  All the sudden, they'll be seen as the underhanded ones attempting to manipulate The Dopes, and when that crystallizes, they'll bury this story faster than Hillary's IT Geek typed  C:\DEL *.*    

Yup, this could easily end up as yet another arrow in Trump's quiver when he says the media is dishonest and rigged.  

Right.  The gold digger types might refer to their generous farang boyfriends/husbands as "Nam Jai" - something like that.   That's a total turn off to me.  I take care of business and help take care of my wife's aged Mom, it's small money, not a big deal.  They know I've got money and we don't want for anything, within reason.  I don't brag or dish out cash to show how "Nam Jai" I am.  I "take care", but I do it my way, by my rules, not theirs.  I also know how to say "No" to stupid shit, and do so when appropriate.

For the most part, my wife is a lot like me.  Not wasteful, don't like to pay full price but won't blink if it's something we need or it's gotta be done.  She can pull 5 Grand out of the ATM, go to the mall and come home giggling about 1 blouse she found on a promotion/sale rack for 100 Baht.  She's good like that and I feel lucky to have a woman like her, and in so many other ways as well. 

16 minutes ago, HuaHinHim said:

I'm not American or knowledgable on tax but can anyone explain to me in laymans terms how making a loss exempts you from future tax for a period of time? I only ask because I had a large business loss once and my government didn't give a toss, I never got any tax breaks for future years, they still wanted their pound of flesh and I only had half a pound to give.

My portfolio isn't terribly sophisticated but in simple terms, when I sold investments as the 08 "Crash" was unfolding, several items were sold below what I paid for them, creating a loss, which was applied as a reduction to my taxable income.  Mine was only about 6,000 Dollars total.  3k was applied that year.  3k was carried forward into the next tax year.   I'm sure Trump's is far more complex.

Within certain parameters, you can also write down gambling losses, which always seemed strange to me, but there you go...

I don't see the "offense" here, although Trump has re-written the "rules" on gutter politics, so it's relative comparison. 

Every American and US tax liable non-Americans, can and should arrange their affairs to pay the least tax.   Anyone who tells me it's "patriotic" to pay taxes, is a moron.  I was able to write down losses for TY08, and carried some into TY09, and I'm just a Turbo Tax commando. 

If Trump's lawyers and accountants maneuver his portfolio within regulations and the IRS finds no violations, well then, good for him.   I'm not impressed (or jealous) of the much larger figures being thrown around.  If his lawyers/accountants have screwed the pooch, it'll come out in the wash, and then watch how fast Trump throws his suddenly not too smart lawyers and accountants, under the bus.

If you haven't seen Trump's deposition in suit against CZ International, dated 16 June 2016, pull it up on Youtube.  It's dry but I watched the whole thing (1hr 30mins, 2 parts) the other night, and it gave me far more insight into Trump than any rally or debate, and pretty much confirmed my unflattering view of him.    

"No, they are not and it will help to weed out the 'bad' guys."

Selecting "No" indicates you do not think Immi has become more intrusive.  The second half of that response cancels the first by indicating it (intrusiveness) DOES exist and will help weed out the bad guys. Huh?

At any rate, I haven't noticed anything new and unusual in my interactions with Immi.  Was expecting to get the Farang Survey at my last 90 day in July, but it never materialized, nobody mentioned it, so I did the deed and exited stage left.  Due again this month.  Think I'll try online this time.

5 hours ago, The Dark Lord said:

I am on 4 years here and frankly my self assessment of my mental state is very low. Bored shitless, bugger all to do ( unless being ripped off by those fair and honest citizens is your thing) and increasingly fed up with being viewed as some sort of alien. 

 

It it is a small provincial town with small provincial mentality. You are the foreigner and as such not a part of their perfect and orderly lives.

 

in my experience, dishonesty is the norm. 

 

Unless you you are willing to take on such xenophobia, my suggestion is stay where the farangs are. I am making plans right now to get out of this appalling hell hole and move to a more civilised place.

 

oFC it is always your choice 

Such as? 

At least from the OP's version of this, sounds like he did right by the lady. 

On the other hand, he could of posed his seemingly innocuous question about how elderly transplants get on here, without any of the blow by blow details of his intervention.  The question stand on its own merits. 

Perhaps he's looking for reassurance he did the "right thing"?  Or worse, seeking praise and adulation for what he did?

1 minute ago, anotheruser said:

I went to full time language school in Japan to get a visa to stay there. Guys who think the hours are tough and classes here in Thailand are expensive should think again. Was around $12,000 a year and you had to attend 4 hours a day 5 days per week if you wanted any chance of renewal. The course was 2 years in length. Sometimes i wish I had those hours back lol This is part of the reason I won't devote myself to learning Thai in the same way. As soon as you leave Thailand you will be visiting Thai restaurants in another country to have any hope of using this skill. 

 

Now we are off topic though. 

Agreed.  I just want to achieve a bit more independence in day to day life.    Nice chatting with you, take care.  J.

6 minutes ago, anotheruser said:

There was a time when I was broke living in Thailand maybe 15 years ago and poured hours everyday into reading and writing. Good way to kill time. Some people do crossword puzzles or play games like bejewelled and such. I always thought if you are going to do those type of things why not learn something. Some people doodle and so do I but in my case I was doodling Japanese characters and it was satisfying and fun.

I dabbled with Japanese when I was stationed on a ship in Yokosuka in my late teens/early 20s.   Nothing serious, just enough to get around, play with the girls, memorized Sukiyaki to sing at karaoke,  able to recognize my home train station - which was something like, "Skinny lady, fat man, watching television". 

28 minutes ago, anotheruser said:

With a smart phone you can essentially get by and learn Thai when you want to. The days of needing foreign languages for basic survival are about done. These days learning languages is more about satisfaction and curiosity. I am not great at Thai but am somewhat bemused by people that wouldn't even know their own name after decades. Surely even with out effort people must pick up some of it? I guess some people have no curiosity at all.

Sure, I have picked up some Thai by exposure, as I have with other langs in other countries I've lived/worked in - Thailand's just the latest one.   The only language I've ever studied at school was Spanish, which made sense in San Diego, California, and did come in handy on several occasions.  Thai seems a lot more finicky to learn, but I don't have any desire to be fluent, no plans to work or engage in Thai society any more than I do now, and fair odds we'll leave Thailand at some point.   But, as long as we're living here for the foreseeable future, might as well try to get beyond survival mode.  Not like I have anything else to do, so why not.  

26 minutes ago, anotheruser said:

 

Not really as good as learning Thai but when I have something odd I need I use a smart phone. I do not look up they Thai word as it is easier to just use an image from google. Thermal cpu paste you say? 

 

I never even knew what you were looking for is but this is pretty clear to anybody. I have found this method eliminates any problems trying to learn words and difficult to find items. I have used the dictionary and shown them Thai words or spoke Thai words but sometimes the dictionaries are so inaccurate that you can't beat a picture. 

 

Don't get me wrong I know a fair amount of Thai but can't be bothered to learn every specialty term known to man kind. 

You're right, of course, but more broadly, I don't know a fair bit of Thai, and it was just another example of how I struggle with the simplest of things here without Mama along to help out.   Which has an impact of my state of mind as long as I am living here.   Not a revelation, just took me a while to get off my arse and do something about it. 

2 hours ago, stander said:

NY Governor Raises Possibility NJ Train Crash Was Work Of ‘Our Enemies’ [VIDEO]

Speaking to reporters at a Thursday press conference, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo raised the possibility that Thursday’s horrific train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey was somehow the work of “enemies” of the United States of America.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/29/ny-governor-raises-possibility-nj-train-crash-was-work-of-our-enemies-video/#ixzz4Lim9to9p

Must be great not having any adult, editorial supervision at the esteemed Daily Caller, allowing "reporters" like this cheese dik Christian Datoc, to post utter nonsense like this.  Accordingly, the top article on the right margin is about Kim Kardashian flashing some under-boob.  Nuff said.

OP (who's long gone by now?), do this.

1.  Remove references to Thailand and Thai women from your OP.

2.  Replace with your home country of _______ and a woman you met there the same way.  

3.  Re-read your OP in that context and tell us what you think.

You're in SoCal.  Get out of Walmart and take a walk on the beach, water's still nice - about 68F.

I've abandoned any hope for this guy but part of me still tunes in thinking maybe this time he won't act like an immature teenager. #disappointedyetagain.

One debate coach said Trump could "win" the debate if he just held it together and "acted" presidential.  Geez, you can't set the bar much lower than that and still, Trump managed to <deleted> it up.   He has trouble staying on point, seems to get lost in his own mental fog.  He blurts and can't control his facial expressions and body language, and these are not behavioral traits of a successful negotiator and deal maker.  He's lazy, won't prepare (much), has a hard time taking advice or criticism, and is still making excuses about not being a "politician" or a debater.  He's been at this a while.  Still unpolished, unprepared, no signs of learning, developing, improving.   

He's fine as an organizer or cheerleader for or against someone or something - Birther, Obama, Hillary.  Whatever, just feed him some talking points, wind him up and let him go.  But he's just not a serious candidate for POTUS, and that's too bad because we really could use one right about now.