caughtintheact

Thai businessmen are probably looking at ASEAN as a way to increase their profits. No tariffs on imported goods. So they can keep the same prices and put more into their pockets. Foreign exporters will skip doing business with Thailand since they won't see an increase in their sales. Thailand, the hub of "They just don't get it".

It doesn't exactly work like that. Lower tariffs mean lower costs to businesses that import raw materials to use in making products for exports. Lower prices also mean consumners get lower prices. If the business owners put more money in their pockets so what? They serve their customers with products that the custromers want and need or they would not stay in business. Without the added costs of tariffs businesses can hire more people when they need them. They also hacve more money for equipment, maintenance, R&D, etc.

Why do you say you have no USA address? There is an address shown in your passport, and if for some reason that cannot be used, you should have a domicile. Have you tried checking with the relevant authorities in the USA? Have you contacted the U.S. Embassy in Thailand?

Detroit to access the pension funds of city employees to pay the banks who guaranteed loans to the now bankrupt city of Detroit. True story, God help those poor people who worked all their lives and now lose their pension fund, wow how bad is that.

I have a nephew who lives in America and he is going to bail out if and when he can.

If it's a true story you should be able to help us out with a link. Detroit is bankrupt and the pension fund is short by about 5 billion dollars. Kind of hard to take money from an empty cookie jar, and one of the reasons that the city is bankrupt is because they made the pensions so high they could not generate enough revenue to pay for them. Once upon a time Detroit had a population of 1.8 million, and now it is down to less than 700,000. To keep pension promises, there has to be wealth creation, not wealth destruction. Those who have their pensions reduced believed the promises of crooked politicians. It is the politicians who made bad promises that are at fault, not the people who now have to clean up the swamp.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2013/07/25/detroits-bankruptcy-should-be-a-warning-to-every-worker-expecting-a-pension-or-social-security/

Now, a few malcontents want to shut the entire government down, because like you, they are clueless as to what is the "government". Talk about self-serving.

You are right. We should not blame "government", but should blame politicians for just about all the ills of the world.

The threat of a government shutdown, though, is not to close down the government, rather to defund Obamacare, and get the politicians to cut spending. The politicians spend too much of the taxpayers money. While we appreciate the hard working GS and FS ranks, you are still living off the taxpayer, and although you pay taxes on the money you earn,, the work you do does not create wealth.

The USA is over $17 trillion in debt and has unfunded liabilities in the neighborhood of $100 trillion. Each year we are spending about a trillion dollars more than is taken in by taxes.

So don't be offended when you work for the government and are included in the blame game for what the politicians do to make our lives miserable. I recommend that you read Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson", which clearly explains why most everything the politicians tell us is malarkey.

A new law called the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) will, from 1 July next year, require all financial institutions around the world to report directly to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) all the assets and incomes of any US citizens with $50,000 (£31,000) on their books. The US could withhold 30% of dividends and interest payments due to the banks that don't comply.

So you split your assets up among a variety of banks in Thailand and never let a balance exceed 50 k usd so the banks report nothing...it would be wise to have several accounts anyway since eventually the Thai version of FDIC only insures each bank account up to 1 million baht.....unless you are a very wealthy person I don't see the problem. As for spending 5000 usd to pay someone to file your taxes then somebody is either very lazy, dumb, or rich. As previous poster said there are all kinds of tax software programs available.

Pornchop.

This is not entirely accurate information. There is another law of the IRS called FBAR (only indirectly related to FUBAR), and its long name is the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) Google FBAR and look for the IRS link.

The FBAR requires all U.S.; citizens with bank accounts abroad (and who control other financial instruments) to report all holdings if at any time during a tax year the aggregate of the accounts is US$10,000. Thus splitting up the accounts is not going to help avoid taxes. This law is already in effect although in past years it has not been enforced. The FATCA that you cited is a report in addition to the FBAR report.

In other words if you hgave 10 accounts in Thailand or other countries, and each has no more than $999, you do not have to make a FBAR report. But if on even one day during the year you put an extra $10 (or get $10 interest) in any of those accounts, it will raise the total to $10,000, and you are liable for making the FBAR report.

The IRS will certainly compare the FBAR reports against the FATCA reports and if you do a FATCA report and not a FBAR you might have to pay a fine of $10,000. The foreign banks will have to report as well, as you pointed out, but their reports will also include the FBAR. The only way to beat the system is to stay out of it by keeping less than $10,000 in all accounts during a tax yea.

Based on this, the attractiveness of changing citizenship might be a bit more attractive for some.

And remember that we are talking about accounts worldwide, not just in Thailand or one other country.

The headline would more accurately explain the matter if it read::

"Tesco Lotus, Makro, Big C to freeze, reduce artificially high prices caused by inflationary government policies."

The 2nd amendment is absolute and unconditional - "...shall not be infringed.". If the majority of Americans really want gun controls, then all they have to do is amend the constitution.. Poll results for highly controversial issues should never be presented without the methodology and question wording clearly stated. There are many ways to bias and skew the results. The bottom as matters stand now, is that the constitution must be amended if the right to keep and bear arms is to be made conditional.

Not true. Heller acknowledges that limitations exist and Scalia has confirmed the same during interviews after he wrote the majority in Heller. Haha, where in the world do you guys get this whackadoodle stuff. Stop reading Freemen Are Us and white supremacists cites and pick up something written by someone with more than a 9th grade education.

Regardless of what judges have said, that does not change the words "shall not be infringed", and when judges interpret and add conditions that are not in the Constitution that in itself is unconstitutional. Judges should not interpret the constitution, they are supposed to uphold it. As for those who do not fear overbearing governments, try asking those who were murdered by governments in many countries. Oh, that's right, you can't ask them because they were murdered by their governments.

And as for producing a study that shows that criminals are afraid of people who are armed,that is a fallacious argument, because you cannot prove what never happened and what is not reported, such as law abiding, armed citizens fending off attacks in their homes by criminals. But if you look at ther FBI data at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8, you will find that the homicide rate is down in the United States since 2007.

The 2nd amendment is absolute and unconditional - "...shall not be infringed.". If the majority of Americans really want gun controls, then all they have to do is amend the constitution.. Poll results for highly controversial issues should never be presented without the methodology and question wording clearly stated. There are many ways to bias and skew the results. The bottom as matters stand now, is that the constitution must be amended if the right to keep and bear arms is to be made conditional.

Its shocking to think how many brainless people are in possesion of these guns.....

Over 316 million of those people you are referring to do not go around shooting people indiscriminately. Yet, in spite of this you want to rob the people of the right to self protection from criminals, lunatics, and an overbearing government. But did you ever think that the American left loves mass shootings so they can run around screaming for gun control (not to mention that it can raise a lot of money for their "cause")?

Remember the Hopeless .....whoops....Hopewell Project. The "U-Turn pillars"* are still lined up along Viphavadee Rangsit Road.

*The term U-Turn pillars was coined, I believe, by Dr. Seri Wongmontha to signify that investors arriving at Don Muang International Airport (as it was called at the time) will see the pillars of the Hopewell Project, do a U-Turn, go back to the airport and get a flight to a better investment climate. Now, oif course, using the Suvarnabhumi International Arport, investors may not get to see the remains of the Hopewell Project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangkok_Elevated_Road_and_Train_System

Thought I read somewhere that the Govt had held meetings with local banks to explane to them why they should invest in the 2.2 trillion loan.

If this is true then they are looking to borrow the money from the Thai people, as they have done with the 350 billion, probably because they know no overseas investor would lend at a reasonable rate.

I don't recall the source, and cannot be sure it is accurate, but it quoted the government as saying that 60% of the borrowing would be domestic and 40% would be from overseas sources. This, of course, does not mean that the funds can be found. That the government talked to Thai bankers does not preclude also talking to foreign sources, and it does not necessarily mean that the Thai bankers will take the risk. This brings up the question of the rewards that the bankers can expect for taking the risk, and whether or not those "rewards" will be induced by coercion. . In a form of government that has elected representatives, the solution is to vote out the government and replace it with a government that has no intention of borrowing 2 trillion baht, but of course that has to be done before any commitments are made. .

pizzachang makes some excellent points. Laws deter honest, responsible citizens from commuting crimes, but do not deter criminals or the mentally ill. In almost every case of the mentally ill committing mass shootings, the culprits showed signs of mental illness, but nothing could be done about it, because pf the laws protecting their privacy. Politicians made those laws, but it is the voters who elected them that are to blame. The fact is that well over 300 million Americans do not go around committing crimes, do not commit mass shootings, and are not mentally ill. There are also undoubtedly many mentally ill people in the USA that do not commit mass shootings. Yet some would penalize the right of the majority to protect themselves by laws punishing the majority for the sins of the minority (criminals and mentally ill in this context). The 2nd amendment to the United States Constitution states, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/second_amendment

Like it or not, if people want gun controls, then the Constitution must be amended, otherwise the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The phrase, "shall not be infringed" is unconditional. If it were the will of the people to amend the constitution, it could be done at any time, but the fact is that the majority of the American people are against gun control, and those that want legislation to impose "some" controls are either ignorant of the wording of the Constitution or just prefer to ignore it. Another argument is that auto incidents kill more people than guns, so why aren't people moaning about the need to ban cars....or roads?

It is (almost) always easy for governments to throw away money from their taxpayers in order to be able to say, .."we did something".

Both the article and a number of comments seem to assume that the government will be able to raise the 2 trillion baht, which may or may not happen. If I recall correctly, a significant portion of the debt will have to come from lenders overseas, and with the Thai economy plunging as a result of other faulty government actions, will external lenders be willing to assume high risks? After all, debt is debt, regardless of whether it comes from building condos with inadequate collateral or repairing/creating infrastructure. Government projects and policies rarely, if ever, tell us the forecast impacts on all of the people. Fir example, how much inflation will the additional debt cause...i.e., how much higher will the prices of food and other products go? When prices increase because4 of higher taxes to repay the debt, how many people will lose their jobs? How many people will not get hired because of higher costs of production? Will these shortcomings be outweighed by the jobs created to do the projects? These points are aside from the questions about whether use of the high speed rail will justify the investment and debt incurred. Incumbent governments are rarely around when their projects go wrong. But all projects use scarce resources, and have impacts far beyond the objectives stated, The Thai people must start asking not merely what the benefits of such a project might be, but who will be harmed and to what extent.

Every cloud has a silver lining and this one is that there are 160,000 cars not on the overcrowded roads.

But is it a silver lining to have over 1 million more cars on the road? And don't bet that those cars that were cancelled will not be sold anyway, will appear on the roads, and that silver liniing is non-existent.

Keeping strong baht is not consistent with the government policies in case Thailand wants to stay competitive. And they need to export and sell for cheaper.

You can't always look at exports or imports as if they are separate from each other. Thailand imports a lot of raw materials that are used to make products for export, So if the baht gets weaker, products that have no imported content or a small value of imported content can be priced better for export. However products that use a high value of imported raw materials will cost more to make and may not be as competitive (exportable) as they were before the shift in the baht's strength/weakness. In addition many government policies and the ripple effect of those policies are inflationary, and that impacts costs of production and the ability to export.

A good start to remedy the situation would be to give about $30 billion of public money to the poorest people of thailand i think. This would greatly ease the suffering.

And when that money has been spent, what nedxt? Or have you given all your money to the poor, are now poor and want some public money?

Check the parking.ps website http://parking.ps/en/ ..click the American flag icon for English and scroll down to the bottom of the page. It says, "

True vision are charging you for movies etc, and also showing adverts. That is wrong it should be one or the other. I also don't think this only applies to Thailand, I believe it applies in all countries.

You do not know that it is wrong unless you can prove that the subscriberr fees without the ads are more than enough to pay for the operating costs, upgrades, and profit of the company. You as a customer have a choice...subscribe or not. If you run a business you determine what your revenue streams will be, because you know your cash flow. Your subscription fee may be subsidized by the ads to keep the company in business, and if the com,pany failed 1.4 million people would lose the provider they obviously prefer, or they would have already stopped paying for it.

recycler, on 06 Sept 2013 - 09:41, said:

Raising the minimum wage was an election promise of both sides and to my opinion quite a good idea as there hadn't been any substantial raise in a very long time and it's struggling at 5000 Baht a month.

recycler needs a course in basic economics. An increase in the minimum wage without a corresponding increase in demand for products is inflationary, .When you see the minimum wage increase, few people seem to understand that only two groups benefit. The minimum wage earners benefit in the short term until the inflationary effects cancel out the increased pay as we are seeing now. The other beneficiaries are the politicians who benefit from getting votes from economics-challenged voters. But what about all the unskilled labor who want jobs but get priced out of the market by the minimum wage increase? What about the youngsters who are seeking their first job, but can't get one because the minimum wage has been increased? Their ability to get job training, and gain skills and experience is delayed because of the minimum wage increase.

In addition many or most people in minimum wage jobs do not stay at the minimum wage level forever. They remain at minimum wage until. they qualify for higher pay. You seem to think that because there is no increase in the minimum wage for a long time that the same people stay at the same level all the time, and that is incorrect. As a matter of fact, as the inflationarey effects of a minimum wage increase take hold and prices rise, the next demand is.....for another increase in the minimum wage. In other words it becomes a vicious inflationary re-cycle (pun intended) that causes higher costs of living for all.

No one is forcing anyone else to read the ads. No one is forcing anyone to use True Vision. It is rather funny that some of the same people who want the government telling True Visions what to do are the same people who say they do not want the govertnment manipulating other prices. such as cooking oil, rice, etc. When politicians intrerfere in markets there is a payoff - to the politicians, and a pay loss to the people. If the politicians did not get something for their actions (votes and/or money) they would not be bothered. The real question is whether or not the TV component of True can survive without the ads? According to Wikipedia True Visions has about 1.4 million subscribers. If there are really objections to the ads, shouldn't the majority of the paying subscribers be the ones to determine that? And if the imnpacts of dropping the ads involve higher subscription fees, how many of the subscribers will be willing to get rid of those ads? If a feww people complaining can dictate to the majority of paying customers, that is a formula for disaster.

The rational approach is to decide whether or not keeping True Visions is worth more to you than the fee.

1) If the value of keeping True is worth more to you than the subscription fee, then don't srop your subscritpion.

2) If the money is worth more to you than the value you get from keeping True Visions, then you should drop your subscription.

Almost all legislation and government manipulation of prices is inflationary, and even in tiny increments, a little inflation here, and a little inflation there adds up to lots of inflation everywhere. Thailand is not alone in forcing inflationaery policies, but that is hardly compensation for those higher prices caused by politicians.

When the 300 baht daily minimum wage was introduced, prices of some things in some places went up for no real reason,

Prices went up for a reason...because businesses had higher costs to operate as a result of the minimum wage increase. Those costs get passed to consumers, because the increase in the minimum wage was artificially induced by government, not because of a rise in demand for labor or an increase in the demand for the product. . . Minimum wage increases have many and real impacts. They present an entry barrier to those seeking work, and many of those are young and poor and people with no experience that will not get jobs because the government raised the minimum wage and now companies will not hire. The increase benefited only those who were already getting the minimum wage and because of increased costs and prices the increase over the longer term is just inflationary and not beneficial to anyone. It just sounds good.

Like all governments everywhere, the results of every policy interferes with market mechanisms, and there are results that can be foreseen, but usually are not, and there are worse impacts that are not foreseen. Unfortunately far too many people only see the words on paper, i.e., "B15,000 baht per tonne.", or, "a higher minimum wage", and think, "Isn't it a wonderful thing that the government is doing for the poor?" However, as time passes and the results of those "wonderful" policies can be measured, the people do not realize that those "helpful" policies are costing everyone more, including those that the policies purported to help. And to compouns trings even more, the people want to re-elect the same policiticna who will still go around claiming that they have "helped the poort". This kind of ignorance on the part of the people uis not just common to Thailand.

I think you haven't been around much. There are lots of people living out of their cars in the USA these days(!). And a significant part of the population have no health care. Try finding a Thai who can't find affordable housing. Or gets turned away at the hospital due to lack of health care coverage. I think there is less poverty in Thailand than the USA.

Do you mean no heaqlth care or no health insurance? I have not been there in many years, but as I understand things, hospitals will not turn away people for emergencies. Have I missed something?.

Children shouldn't be seen as an investment at all.

And if their relatively small expense isn't paying off in huge quantities of immediate joy on a daily basis I'd suggest you're doing it wrong, and fixing that should be a top priority, mostly for their sake not yours.

Choldren are an investment if you expect some return from them, otherwise they are a sunk cost.:)