FarangTalk

Pajero means w*nker in Spanish.

You are buying the NGO propaganda. Check with the large Thai employers in the industrial centers who use large numbers of foreign workers. Thais do factory work and so do people from Cambodia. The maids that work in large hotels are from both Thailand and Burma. Same work. If there are any large employers reading Thai Visa they can tell you. My small company only has 70 employees and my Thai workers are upset I am paying new Cambodian workers more because they get free housing. But I can only speak for my one small company and the 20 or 30 companies close to mine. Perhaps you have a better source of information.

I am not buying any propaganda. I am basing my observations on my experience of living in Thailand for 15+ years and running several successful businesses.

Some may never find happiness regardless if it is the LOS, Europe, the USA or elsewhere. Their unhappiness, pain and anguish is best viewed from a distance. Peace All.

Yes, I too pity those Burmese, Cambodians and Laos workers that are abused and mistreated by the Thais.

It's unfortunate we didn't get to find out what the vast majority of foreign workers actually think about Thailand and the Thais. I suspect the result would be too unpalatable for some of the rose tinted glasses brigade let alone the Thais themselves.

What would the Burmese have to say about the apartheid style curfews imposed on them in Phuket? Or what would the Cambodians enslaved on Thai fishing vessels say?

Western expats are only a very small minority, and let's be honest, far removed from the realities of life in their Sukhumvit ivory towers.

You may also be a bit removed from reality as for many foreign workers have a better deal than Thai workers. For example they are paid for housing and transportation and Thai workers doing the same job at the same pay are not. Talk to any employer using foreign help in Thailand and they can acquaint you with the rules.

Very few Burmese, Cambodian and Laos workers have anything near like the deal Thai workers receive and they make up the vast majority of the millions of foreign workers here. You will rarely find a Thai doing the sorts of jobs those nationalities do, and for less than minimum wage and in terrible conditions.

As I said those on expat packages are few and far between especially Westerners. Those that are paid in excess of their Thai colleagues or have a 'better deal' are usually worth the extra and/or indispensable.

I recall when the global economic slowdown started there was a mass exodus of Western expats from Bangkok, and the numbers of Westerners employed on packages has not returned to anywhere near the same levels, and never will IMO.

It is all semantics anyway as we are talking about minuscule numbers in comparison to Thailand's massive legal and illegal foreign workforce of exploited Burmese Cambodians and Laos nationals.

Some may never find happiness regardless if it is the LOS, Europe, the USA or elsewhere. Their unhappiness, pain and anguish is best viewed from a distance. Peace All.

Yes, I too pity those Burmese, Cambodians and Laos workers that are abused and mistreated by the Thais.

It's unfortunate we didn't get to find out what the vast majority of foreign workers actually think about Thailand and the Thais. I suspect the result would be too unpalatable for some of the rose tinted glasses brigade let alone the Thais themselves.

What would the Burmese have to say about the apartheid style curfews imposed on them in Phuket? Or what would the Cambodians enslaved on Thai fishing vessels say?

Western expats are only a very small minority, and let's be honest, far removed from the realities of life in their Sukhumvit ivory towers.

If they are paid like many expats whereby there is no income tax and you are on a full expatriate deal, the place is heaven.

No place safer and clean than Tokyo with unbelievable variety. if you're on an expat package with rent and perqs then you can't beat Japan. If you need to cheap it up, the US now beats Thailand. Try comparing buying a car with Thailand and the US?

Unfair to pick one thing and suggest Thailand is more expensive than US.

Sure a car here is as or more expensive than the US, but in Vancouver I paid $1200 a month for a basement suite. Here $100 all in for a 2 bed 2 bath townhouse. My life here is a fifth the price. Japan is expensive as hell and they really despise foreigners.

$100 for a townhouse?

I'm calling nonsense on that one.

If everyone votes out of respect for the majority, it means the first person decides how everyone votes.

Maybe if everyone voted how they wanted, or particularly for an MP, how the people who voted for them wanted, then maybe the majority would actually vote differently.

Which is exactly what I was saying vis a vis the Friends of Newin and the abhisit coalition MP vote but you seem to think its different. I've got news for you there's a common demoninator - a reward of some sorts, usually money.

The friends of Newin group was recruited specifically to vote-buy in the North East, where the Democrats thought they could out-bid Thaksin for the rural vote.

They failed to take into consideration the underlying reasons for Thaksin's success in that region; policies the people believe benefit themselves and instead focused on financial incentive. The people saw through the sham though and recognised Newin as the corrupt gangster he was, and always has been.

Thaksin will take one for the team now by aggravating some of the red shirts, but once he's back he'll make moves to appease them and start to extract revenge on those of his enemies that received amnesty.

He's in a stronger position now than ever.

I don't see people calling for Thaksin to be assassinated. They are suggesting that he will be.

The post hoping for his assassination by sniper has now been removed as well as my previous reply.

Amusing to see the wishful thinking of the Thaksin obsessives on the demise of the PTP and calls for Thaksin to be assassinated.

However, the reality is many of the reds were always a liability, and it is no surprise that those reds wishes are now being ignored. For Thaksin to return a deal was always going to have to be reached with those behind the 2006 coup and the military with puppet Abhisit and Suthep possibly taking the fall. They were always dispensable and always being controlled when in office.

There will be no mass protests against the TRT as before. The whole premise of protests without financial support is a non-starter. Sonthi is silenced and will be made to serve his jail sentences if he stirs up trouble.

It's in the bag boys, and you know it.

Got to pay for the rice program some way

The potential major problem on the horizon is that if Mr. T comes back and it goes haywire there will be no tourist industry.

There's going to be a problem if he comes back or not.

He's involved with the split in Thailand but it isn't only about him.

There's a split in the ruling faction and he is on one side, hence he was removed by the other side.

Also: LOL @ anyone thinking they will get anything in return for their 500thb.

Sat in a V40 T5 today and was impressed with the finish and trim.

My concerns would be resale value and repairs.

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Very scary indeed. It's easy to denigrate Thaksin as a wannabee despot. But, he's also a very cunning manipulator. He created the insurgency and used this as means to get a puppet government in place, that could work on his whitewash, restore the assets previously seized, and at the same time replenish the family coffers. All controlled from outside the country.

He wants to create enough confusion and camouflage so that his criminal conviction and outstanding criminal charges can be made to disappear. Then he can return a free and innocent man, avoid any accountability for known past crimes, and ones that may subsequently come to light, petition the court to return his assets (hope he can show how he accumulated them), and of course take his rightful place as head of the government. Then, he can complete the job of removing and remaining checks and balances, become truly untouchable and law to himself, and take revenge and retribution on all who oppose.

You can see he studies history as well as having a detailed knowledge of the Thai legal frameworks and how to manipulate them. He dangerous combination when added to the wealth and power his clan control.

The consequences of a person with this sort of personality taking control have been seen many times before. Hopefully some people will realize this and put a stop before its too late.

All a direct consequence of others manipulating ways to get rid of him without using the correct checks and balances.

You reap what you sow Thailand, time to learn some valuable lessons.

Year Zero was the Khmer Rouge's Pol Pot's designation for 1975 and the KR takeover and genocide. Year Zero also refers to the French Revolution of 1792 and the elimination of the French monarch. Thaksin's characterization of this year zero or set zero with regard to his return should be very incendiary to many Thais.

Carefully chosen by this paper to obtain such an unfounded and imbalanced reaction.

Apologies. When you said, "it shows", I assumed you were in that 'camp' that considers people from Isaan a bunch of loutish, uneducated rednecks who are best ignored. A number of comments in this thread have been made along those lines, and I don't track who says them. I have little patience for folks who denigrate the people of Isaan, and there seems to be a sizeable contingent of them here, probably folks who have never seen Isaan itself (or who think that Isaan women are all the same as the ones they meet in their favourite watering hole). I now see your intended meaning was different. My mistake.

That said, I have been sympathetic to the challenges faced by the working poor of Thailand (the farmers of Isaan, etc.) long before I met my 'Thai family'. You suggest that I have been 'brainwashed' (my word) by my Isaan social circle. I look at it in quite a different way: I have gained insights into the lives and challenges faced by Thai farmers (for example) to a degree that a denizen of Bangkok cannot. How they struggle to make ends meet and how they feel preyed upon by the authorities (corrupt police, etc.) while they see rich people in the cities literally getting away with murder (though they, of course, continue to drink Red Bull). I'm not romanticising them or treating them as 'noble savages', but I can understand their anger and feelings of disenfranchisement. [Even small things like when women from Bangkok have teased my girlfriend about being 'see dam' ... she laughs, but I know it hurts her].

You might be surprised to learn that I had a girlfriend for some years who was from Udon and was an ardent yellow shirt. [see, I do live in different worlds]. I realised that our differences were too great when, one day, she exclaimed that "all Cambodians should be killed" and suggested that there is no proof that the ruins such as those at Phimai were actually built by Khmer. And she had a university degree! There is 'craziness' on both sides--and I wish there were not 'sides' at all--but we also need to try to understand where the Red Shirt frustrations come from. And I think it's wrong to say Thaksin created it ... he merely 'rode the tiger'.

p.s. No, I was not in Bangkok during the Red Shirt protests nor was I affected by the Yellow Shirt seizure of Suvarnibhumi Airport.

Apology accepted. No problem. I now understand why you said what you did.

With regards your other comments, all i will say is that i feel there is generally a complete consensus amongst all foreigners who have lived here for any amount of time, that the poor rural folk in this country have been badly treated for a very long time. No dispute going on there. The dispute arises with the suggestion that Thaksin's political parties / movements are any different in the way they treat the rural poor. I don't think they are. I think it is all window dressing, carefully constructed just to win votes. The Democrats are no better, but at least with them, there is less of the pretense and people mostly know what they are getting with them.

The way many of the people in Isaan have taken to their hearts Thaksin, makes me feel sad, because i think they are pinning their hopes on a totally false promise. When they go to the ballot box and put a tick for him, i have the same feeling as when i see them paying their hard earned 100 baht to buy a lottery ticket. Supporting Thaksin is wasting their time and energy, in the same way as buying lottery tickets is wasting their money. I wish they would keep their adulation and unfaltering support, for someone who actually deserves it, and i wish they would keep their 100 baht in their back pockets.

But there isn't any other choice. There's no-one else that deserves it, least of all the Democrats, who quickly sided with Thaksin's chief mafia godfather and vote buyer, and arguably most corrupt faction Bhumjaithai with Newin Chidchob at the helm, appropriately named after a Burmese dictator, to further their own ends.

Your biggest mistake is thinking the Democrats represent something other than the elite and their interests, they certainly do not. They were an integral part of the machinations that allowed the 2006 coup, the PAD protests, the military junta and the judicial coup. All the red shirt actions that followed were tantamount to, and were directly a consequence of those machinations.

As one un-named villager commented about Thaksin, "Of course, he is corrupt—all politicians are corrupt, but this is the first corrupt politician who has done something for us."

The rural poor certainly know what a vote for the Democrats represents, and that's why they remain un-electable. People in the rural areas cannot forget their collusion with the elites to topple the government they elected at the ballot box, nor do they forget the corruption under Chuan and Suthep, nor do they forget the Bitter Medicine policies of the late 90's, which left them feeling disenfranchised, neglected and marginalised.

In that you are right; they know exactly what they are getting with the Democrats.

Far easier to do business in Cambodia from my own experience.

I can own 100% of my own business there, unlike in Thailand, while business visas are far easier to obtain etc.

To have a Singaporean company Singaporean nationals have to be involved during the setup I believe, and it is almost impossible to get residency nowadays.

Death row if he pleads innocent, commuted sentence to life if guilty.

Make no mistake; they will execute Africans, they did several Nigerians in one go by firing squad back in 2005.

Yet they still catch them on a regular basis and the jails are full of them. Go figure.

My gf used to work at one of the casinos at the border.

You would not believe some of the stories about how dangerous it can be.

Thailand is rapidly becoming a lawless, dangerous and inhospitable place opening more of these casinos would ensure another step in this direction.

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They are all overpriced but I like the Robin Hood, as long as you avoid the food, Londoner has all the atmosphere of a car park, Black Swan is OK but small with overpriced food.

 

True, all very pricey. Had a couple of meals at the Black Swan last week; they were decent enough. With the demise of the Green Vespa, there is no more pub grub to be found in Cambodia.

The owner was a nutter and not popular with the locals apparently.

His food was good for pub grub stye nosh though.

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In a way, I am also against a blanket amnesty.

I would love to see Abhisit and Suthep end up in prison.

However, I also try not to let the very low esteem I have for these two persons blind my views...

The political deadlock should end and it is time to push the reset button.

As much as I think that Suthep is an awful politician, as much as I think that Abhisit is useless for this country and that both should be held responsible for the deaths of 90 protesters, ... I also think that it is time for all sides to end this destructive game.

A blanket amnesty would certainly leave some people unhappy, but the never ending game that is played by the Dems since years is going nowhere.

An amnesty is a way to go back to square one and start on a new base. As mature and adult people.

The only problem is that the Dems are not able to compete on such a new base.

They see the amnesty as a threat because once it is passed they would not know what to do, what to say, and what to fight for...

They should reform themselves, offer something for the future of the country, make themselves appealing to the people, and give away their silly warrior's behavior forever.

The country needs to be reset and brought back to normality.

People who stubbornly obstruct the way to reconciliation should be held responsible too...

For the sake of the country I am ready to swallow the pill... and accept that Abhisit and Suthep don't end up in prison.

Except if they really want to, of course

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To a point I agree with Gerry. It is so easy for politicians to stir up trouble in Thailand largely due to the pleasures that Thai people seem to relish and need from gossip and conspiracy theories.

By now I suspect that most Thai people consider that the constant barracking Thaksin has become boring. Further perhaps that many people like me have become evermore convinced that Thaksin is a victim of the malice that seems to throb at the heart of the Democrat Party.

Such is the smell of fear emanating from the 'Anti-Thaksin Brigade'. That fear feeds off the slanderous and libelous fecal verbosity that emanates from the Democrats and their allies. Now the nauseating malevolence begins to feel ever more likely that Thaksin is, and always was innocent, of all those accusations for which no juristic person in Thailand could ever produce any tangible evidence of Thaksin's alleged criminality.

So it looks evermore likely that former PM Thaksin really is innocent and that after five years of self exile, a criminal record and a punitive fine of Bt47 Billion needs to be made whole in name of Thaksin. This is with a view to Thailand saving face by negating the Democrat's assertions that Thailand is not and never has been mature enough to be a democracy. Such they believe in spite of the fact that the Great and Revered Monarch of Thailand declared his land to be a constitutional Monarchy in 1932.

Thaksin, already recognized around the World as Thailand's greatest champion of democracy since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy must come home on assurance that his personal safety will be guaranteed.

This is a matter of Thailand's jurisprudence and therefore the Amnesty is not an issue in the Thaksin case.

You are joking right?

I travel the whole world and meet many people because of my work but i have NEVER met a foreigner that has anything good to say about the criminal. Comments I hear most often lately are: "Today, Thaksin and his family are STILL robing Thailand empty. The guy really hasn't learned anything".

Most foreigners, in particular the ones that live in or are frequent visitors to Thailand don't seem to have a grasp of Thai history or politics, are naively distanced from the realities of the average Thai, and the vast majority have only been here since Thaksin came to power, so they don't know anything else.

Anyone for cake?

In a country where status is everything, this is just how they like it.

The more expensive something is, ergo the better it is.

I'm always puzzled when I see foreigners buying anything other than trinkets or counterfeits here. Wherever you came from or are going to it is almost guaranteed to be cheaper.

Even in the airport, wine and spirits, electronics and anything that is not Thai-made is far more expensive than the majority of other places.

I'm lucky to be able to travel a lot and purchase all (almost without exception) luxury goods overseas.