klubex99

This makes me feel sick inside. The sociopath in Dubai cares about nothing except his own selfish self/

He is not in Dubai any more. He was asked to leave because the Dubai government declared that the islamic video ordering a fatwa on his head was in fact 100% real and they didn't want the crap on their doorstep.

He applied to go to Hong Kong and his visa was rejected for the same reason.

Not sure where he is skyping from at the moment.

In particular, Western countries should come clean and urge the Yingluck government to stop pretending that her government is democratic. They should also be frank in commenting on the political situation in Thailand, as they have done with other countries, if they genuinely care about real democratic development, not just form or style as some do.

So far, the West has been muted over the controversy, even though it is a strong case of human-rights violation. The European Union and the US - the great promoters of democracy - are probably stunned by the audacity of Thaksin and his Pheu Thai Party. After all, they have backed the Yingluck government since her party won the election. They have even credited her for bringing political stability, which remains superficial. It would be hard to make a U-turn.

The European Union [..] the great promoters of democracy.

Great piece aside from this.

Lisbon Treaty? Had the UK population been given the chance to vote it would have lost 20:80% or close to it.

If the UK population was allowed a vote on anything to do with EU issues, it would lose 20/80% That is why the UK public never gets invited to a referendum..... ever!

I transferred 1.5 million baht (£30,000 GBP) earlier this year and it was in my account the next day.

Let me try to get a handle on this.... you say that you can buy 50 rai of land with rubber trees in place and with a sea view in Phang nga province?

Really?? That's 8000 per rai. Are you sure it is not 400K per rai?

I will buy it from you the next day for 2 million... do we have a deal?

By the way, the bank values your land same as government land office does and that is always much lower than actual selling price. We paid 65K per rai on 12 rais earlier this year and the land office valuation was 20K per rai. If we gave the chanote to the bank, we would be able to only borrow 20K per rai.

I was looking at some sea view land in Phang nga back in April. It was valued at 10 million per rai.

Yeah there is inflation here.....but so what?.... ITS EVERYWHERE!...

Still cheaper to live here than in the States or Europe. AND great weather, great food and great people!

Where are you living?

Its all relative really. Many things are cheaper in EU and USA than in LOS. The weather is good in lots of EU and USA apart from the colder north. People are people where ever you are, I see nothing more great about the people here than in many places I have been to in Europe and USA.

No problem then.

If it`s a case of one person wee wee ing everyone off, than why not all band together and make an official complaint to the local authority?

Funnily, I have had a couple of conversations with wifey about making an offer to buy the house off him. Would love to expand our own and add some offices for the company. worth a thought.

What makes you think that Sunday is a day off in Thailand. Where I live, Saturday is the "low" day where some businesses are closed. Sunday is full bore except for the government offices and banks. Rant on, but get busy living rather than complaining because nobody really gives a rats ass about your problem, and you know it!.

Strange how my wife and her entire family work Mon to Fri jobs and have Sat and Sun off..... I just think you live in a weird place.

Don't really give a rats ass that you don't give a rat's ass. I started the thread because I wanted my rant and felt entitled to my rant.

But you are obviously a hypocrite, because you feel entitled to rant about the fact that I am having a rant.

Me thinks it may be thee who needs to get 'busy living' (hypocritical comment 2).

Sunday morning rant No2 over.

According to many of our klubex99 previous threads, he certainly seems to have had much to gripe about and is not having a good time of it here. His daily struggles with the Thai people and Thailand continue.

Down my way most of the neighbors retire to bed early and wake up early, it`s the way of life in these communities, and has been probably for hundreds of years. I certainly would not expect them to change their habits of a lifetime just to appease me.

Back in Farangland, I once complained to a neighbor regarding his frequent late night parties. Ended up with his mates vandalising my car and throwing eggs at my windows. Nothing like this has ever happened to us in Thailand. Making some noise in the morning is not an extreme in my opinion.

My advice is, chill out, get used to it, buy some earmuffs or try to adapt into the culture and ways of the Thai people or move on. This is Thailand and perhaps Thailand is not for him?

I don't think it is a Thai thing, It is nothing to do with the culture or Thailand in general. The Thais in my street ( I am the only farang) Seem to live the same lifestyle as myself. As a matter of fact the wife just told me the neighbour on the other side of him was complaining about it also. The Thais in the street seem to have the same attitude as me, it is nothing to do with Thainess. It is to do with a thoughtless individual pissing 'everyone' off.

Yeah wheres the Tony pics?

I couldn't be bothered in the end. That thread fizzled out.

Move ;-)

Very original.

Its serves you right after leaving the " whats happened to Tony" thread in shambles.

Haha.... Sorry for that one. I just thought it had run its course.

What's wrong with this place?

He shouldn't have seen the light of day again..... in any CIVILIZED country!

What the hell is wrong with some of these people?

Sunday Morning at 7am and my neighbour starts angle grinding steel box section.

OK, so the guy doesn't drink and never goes out, and is in bed by 9PM at the latest, then gets up at 6am every morning. That's fine by me. But not everyone lives like that. Many people in our moo baan (including myself) likes to go out on a Saturday night and maybe have a couple of drinks and lie in on a Sunday morning.

I have no problem with people doing improvements on their home, I had mine done, but would not let power tools be used until at least 9 to 9.30AM out of consideration for others.

This is not just me complaining, my wife is also pissed off at him and equally thinks it's not acceptable this early on a Sunday. This dude is turning out to be a major pain in the ass.

The other morning he was out there real early with a drill, putting holes in his exhaust manifolds trying to make his pickup sound like a clapped out Ferrari (Yes, he's one of those idiots) Then sits there revving the engine constantly with a big stupid smile on his face. Now when he drives down the street he drops the revs, puts the clutch in and revs up like he is in a hot rod.

The guy is like 45 or something, with the mind of a teenager.

Sunday morning rant over.

Let’s just forgive and forget and we can all start afresh once again.

Roughly translated means.

Thailand, please prepare to bend over and be roughly shafted a second time without lubes.

Don't know why you didn't uncover these issues whilst the project was 100% on paper?

How have you given a retail price to your customers without knowing the cost of your raw materials?

Are you more upset with the status quo or this error in planning?

Please remind me to never ask YOU for any business advice, because you clearly have no clue what the hell you are talking about. I bet you never ran a business in your life.

If you bothered to read the OP properly you would be able to see that we are in fact still setting up.

The product has been perfected and the R&D stage completed. The premises located and the equipment and suppliers list drawn up.

Who the hell issues a retail price to a customer when production has not yet been set up? It doesn't work like that and you don't build in your equipment purchasing costs, that comes back from your profits as it is classed as initial investment. You get a rough ballpark cost and price and just because I never put my costs and price in the OP doesn't mean we don't have one, it means that I didn't put it because it is irrelevant to the post.

To get the exact costs, you have to start production. Because you have to take into account fuel and running cost fluctuations, shrinkages, and a whole lot of other things you can't tell exact until you start.

As a matter of fact, we have been a lot more thorough than most start ups in the fact that we have also secured many many order enquiries (in principal) from supermarkets such as Makro, Tesco and Big C and independent retail outlets.

Another glaring fact that you seem not to understand, is that it doesn't work the same in LOS as it does in say... your country. Because unlike the UK the supermarkets here don't (or very rarely) buy orders to buy from a supplier. If they like the product, they will stock it on a share of the sales basis. So you only need to give a ballpark retail price.

So please get your facts right before commenting on the inefficiency of others, because you have just embarrassed yourself.

100% on paper .... my arse!

I just asked some simple questions and you get highly defensive and aggressive. Why is that?

I'm not interested in a pissing contest, only to say yes I do run a business here. And have done in the UK. So I'll take your bet and stake whatever you fancy - how about a million baht? Put up or shut up.

But why didn't you make any of these enquiries as part of the planning phase?

A simple, non-emotive question that draws anger from you.

The point being it's easy to identify the issues you are now facing and to plan for them in advance, without resulting in a ranting attitude and lots of stress while you have customers waiting.

I asked my wife what likely issues we'd face when setting up here and burnt the phones before investing a single penny, to get the lay of the land.

I fail to understand your outrage at a problem that consumers here understand, let alone business people.

Rubbish. You were being critical, not merely asking questions.

As far as 'why didn't you make these enquiries as part of the planning phase?'

Answer... I already said we made a full list of requirements and sourced all the manufacturers and suppliers of everything on the list. At some point you have to pick up the phone and send emails as you work through that list. We haven't just used guess work. Every item on our list has several manufacturer/suppliers on it based in LOS from info we got from the internet..

Waste of time.... Anyway... Thailand has had its chance, we are sourcing from overseas now and are racing through the list.

The other problems I faced was the "face issue"again!

You ask for delivery, quantity, timeline etc, they always say "no problem" but in reality rarely deliver what was agreed and will never ever be consistent either. They never say, no sorry cannot do that, even when they know dam_n well they cant do it, you never know what is true and what isnt with this stupid attitude.

DONT RELY ON ANYTHING!

As for the employees losing them money, the employees couldnt care less, its not there money or business and they can usually get another job on minimum money in a heartbeat.

Good luck with it, you'll need lots of patience and dont believe for one minute that once the supply flow starts or something is agreed that it will continue because in my experience it will change every time no matter what contingencies you put in place.

The last point I'll make is to make sure you make plenty of allowandes for what will feel like "not another f_cking holiday" !!! so many holidays and days off for this or that festival uts really difficult juggling deliveries and stock with constant flow interruptions.

Thanks for taking the time to supply this response. At least you are constructive.

Yes... I have already taken that 'face' thing into account. These problems are not just related to LOS, it actually happens in the UK too at times, where suppliers will say anything to keep the contract and try to break their necks following it through, but knowing they will fail to produce.

That is why we will be keeping at least 1 month of production materials etc, we are even budgeting for lots of spares and contingency equipment so no matter what breaks down, we can at least have a cheap alternative to keep us running at even though reduced capacity, we are at least running and can increase the production hours on an overtime basis until we are back to normal. I like to work on the basis, we provide nice automatic equipment for you, if you break it, you go on to manual until its fixed. Employees tend to look after the auto machinery better that way.

My wife and her family are actually against the idea of Thai employees and are much in favour of Myanmar people, even if we employ them illegally. The family run quite a few businesses between them and always use Myanmar folks. They are much more reliable than the lazy Thais (their words, not mine). They also have the contacts to keep the police off their backs. I am personally a bit wary on this one, but if they say it won't be a problem... then who am I to argue?

Don't know why you didn't uncover these issues whilst the project was 100% on paper?

How have you given a retail price to your customers without knowing the cost of your raw materials?

Are you more upset with the status quo or this error in planning?

Please remind me to never ask YOU for any business advice, because you clearly have no clue what the hell you are talking about. I bet you never ran a business in your life.

If you bothered to read the OP properly you would be able to see that we are in fact still setting up.

The product has been perfected and the R&D stage completed. The premises located and the equipment and suppliers list drawn up.

Who the hell issues a retail price to a customer when production has not yet been set up? It doesn't work like that and you don't build in your equipment purchasing costs, that comes back from your profits as it is classed as initial investment. You get a rough ballpark cost and price and just because I never put my costs and price in the OP doesn't mean we don't have one, it means that I didn't put it because it is irrelevant to the post.

To get the exact costs, you have to start production. Because you have to take into account fuel and running cost fluctuations, shrinkages, and a whole lot of other things you can't tell exact until you start.

As a matter of fact, we have been a lot more thorough than most start ups in the fact that we have also secured many many order enquiries (in principal) from supermarkets such as Makro, Tesco and Big C and independent retail outlets.

Another glaring fact that you seem not to understand, is that it doesn't work the same in LOS as it does in say... your country. Because unlike the UK the supermarkets here don't (or very rarely) buy orders to buy from a supplier. If they like the product, they will stock it on a share of the sales basis. So you only need to give a ballpark retail price.

So please get your facts right before commenting on the inefficiency of others, because you have just embarrassed yourself.

100% on paper .... my arse!