Timwin

In Sweden there was a case in which Thai pickers had a minimum wage set but they sold all the berries to another company and still demanded the salary from the original company! This might the same group trying to pull the same sh*t in Finland too...

Only this group of 50 out of thousands of pickers are demanding somekind of compensations together with the Finnish young (city) communist alliance. The kind of people who think all company owners are capitalistic greedy pigs (except of course their own daddies paying their daily bills . After all, being a champange socialist is hard work!

Don't you worry guys. His son's football field was saved from the flood by her loyal servants. For a minute they thought the raining will ruin the grass but luckily, they covered and sandbagged the field just in time. So it is all good!

We were lucky it did not escalate to all out civil war. When I saw those various government buildings burning on TV in many cities after the crackdown, I thought this is it, Thais are going to war. I'd bet some last minute secret negotiations prevented just that.

Corruption so fuc_ked up in Thailand. Recently had to pay 5000 Baht to get girlfriend's nephew out of jail. The rest of family paid 10000 more.

He did not do anything except bought an used motorbike suspected of being stolen. That suspicion turned out be completely false, the family showed all the necessary papers to prove it. The local police still demanded money for release! At first it was 30000 Baht. The motorbike probably costed only 10000.

Not compaired to the other Scandinavian countries. For instance, a worker in a supermarked will only earn 300 baht an hour in Finland, and about 650 baht an hour in Denmark...maybe even more in Norway.

And here we are talking absolute minimum wages....

It really puts the U.S and UK into perspective. - 1.World countries, my ###

List of countries by gross domestic product at purchasing power parity per capita

Norway: 55,009 dollars

USA: 49900

Sweden: 41,191

Germany: 39 000

Denmark : 37,657

UK: 36,941

Finland: 36,395

Not much difference between Finland, Denmark or UK...

Thais can earn on average about 200-250 000 Bahts after all expenses (flights, accomodation, travel, food) with that seasonal job in Finland and there are many thousand Thai berry pickers every summer there. The same in Sweden. Not a bad job at all for them...

I think it is just gotten so big that some lazy, boozing trouble makers are also coming for "easy" money. Then they realize they have to actually work quite hard and start complaining

Thailand GDP per capita is mere 5500 dollars (surprisingly Malaysia is at 10400 dollars). So there is a huge incentive to participate in drug dealing for working class Thais. In Mexico too both the cops and the army are very much deeply involved in drug trading. Hopefully Thais will not copy the idiotic, American supported worldwide war on drugs.

Just make sure you are worth more to her alive than dead No large life insurance policies, most of your money left abroad and a family lawyer from a big company, not some two bit "lawyer" from a local shop. Monthly agreed allowance to her is probably the best way to go.

One big red flag is "unexpected" large expenses in her family that later turns out to be nothing but lies. Especially if nobody else in her family is paying anything, just you. There are certainly unexpected expenses, because there are no social services, but check those out from time to time. Whether that tractor really was bought or a nephew got his computer

Many bar girls do also farang hopping, one guy paying for rainy seasons and another guy for hot seasons. They are sometimes very clever foxes :-) Actually, look it as "burden" sharing

Loss of face thing, I noticed the Thai logo on the fwd fuselage was painted out overnight. Obviously their highest priority!

I reported a fuel/oil leak from a 747's No2 ecu. The purser came along and took a look and said it was water. I pointed out that at 36000' it was a bit cold out on the wing and perhaps he might like to go and get the co-pilot to have a look and log it. No one turned up but the purser did take my name and address to allow the airline to write and thank me for my flight safety awareness. Needless to say I never got a letter!

Another wannabee expert. If there is an oil leak, I'd bet it will show in the cockpit panels. It could be actually water, thin atmosphere plus the pressure changes around the plane. The faster you go, the lower the pressure.

I don't fly in any model Airbus. Look up their record. They have to many "incidents".

There are French, British and other nationalities working on Airbus planes. The British make several

Models of the Rolls Royce engines which are very good engines.

I just don't want a plane that was made by people speaking different languages. There is to much

Technical date involved.

Jay-sus, how old are you? 90? Your info about planes is a "bit" outdated!

FYI, Boeing planes are also designed/made by a lot of different nationalities. French, Japanese and Italian companies are manufacturing many parts to the Dreamliner 787, among many many others and also to many other models. Both companies have very complex global manufacturing network.

Airbus btw is moving to Seattle when Boeing is moving to southern states. Airbus might actually end up saving many high paying jobs in Washington state!

American style service...now that is so <deleted> fake crap. "How are you, sir? Oh that is wonderful, have a good day, sir!". Repeat that about 1000 times per day with that forced smile. It is so awful to see, might as well speak to a hologram.

Is it any better than the crumpy Thais? At least they are more honest to show what they really feel if you learn to read the body language.

high-end tourists are a valuable commodity and deserve to be

treated accordingly, because word-of-mouth recommendations are precious.

You mean that 650 dollar package to Cambodia is "high end"?! That driver probably got 40-50 dollars out of that for the whole trip. The guy is driving 10-15 hours per day and you expect him to be all smiling all the time?! About 300 kilometers of driving while farangs bitching and moaning all the way. How far do you think you can taxi with 50 dollars in Belgium or in US?

Thailand unemployment rate is 0.77 percent so obviously low paying tourism industry is not that attractive to Thais.

What you guys expect? Jamaica, El Salvador, Panama all score better (rank 83) in the corruption index than Thailand (88). Malaysia is a much better with the rank of 54 and even China is at 80.

http://www.transparency.org/country#THA

What is good in this, that at least many Thais are outraged obviously. Maybe some day in the future, the Hi-So money is not going "talk" them anymore out of troubles. Probably what has surprised the cops is the outrage. They thought they will be handle this the usual tea money way. Unfortunately, they seem to get away also this time but at least "the usual way" is getting harder and harder to do.

I see that many of the TV user are comparing Thailand to a First world country, instead Thailand should be compared to its neighbors. I have been living here in Bangkok 5 years now , My 1st and 2nd year was crazy for me as i moved here from Miami and could not understand the system , the mentality etc. But from my 3rd year to now i learn to accept that this is not my country and i am here based on year to year visa with no hope of being a citizen. Now all i do is drive carefully, respect the laws which are more sensitive to us then the local people and have a happy family life and not put my nose into Thailand internal problems as even if i wanted to change something i can not because i can not vote or i can not get elected. There for I mind my own business and let them sort out theirs.

Same here, it is just a waste of time and energy to try to tell them "back home we do this and that...blah blah". I learned to let it go, you cannot fight Thai society internal battles for them. Anyway, I'd bet things are going to start changing during the next 10 years.

In order to a real change to happen Thailand needs a much larger working middle class, which is at the moment quite small. Today they are also concentrated mostly on making more money to themselves, securing their position and aping the Hi-So class.

Brazil today is at more advanced state of society development where the middle class is large enough to have some real political power and they have started questioning how Brazil is run by the elite. Their Hi-So class and society in general are just as corrupted and crooked as in Thailand. The Brazilian middle class want a real change, they have really woken up.

Thai poor working class is not there yet mentally. Sure, they are opinion pieces in newspapers (in English mostly) but that is about it. The factory workers on the floor level just do not give a dam_n because they are busy working and raising their living standards. Maybe within 5-7 years they start questioning...

You have to remember Thailand GDP per capita is only about 5000 US dollars (2011 figures), same as in Jamaica or Ecuador. Myanmar, Vietnam are at 1500, Brazil is at 12500, South Korea 22500, Hong Kong 35000, Singapore 46000 and Australia 60000. Thailand is pretty much what you can expect for such a low figure GDP, developing country...

About at 10000 dollar level some real changes start usually happening in a society, like in Brazil today.

Thailand will do fine until multinational companies relocate their factories to the next country to be exploited. Like many countries in Africa.

In worst case this will start a vicious drug war like in Mexico. Tens of thousands of deaths and no end in sight.

Collection agencies usually forward these cases to Asian partners, most likely to some agency in Singapore with no jurisdiction in Thailand of course. Then they will send few threatening letters with "Unless paid ASAP we will forward this to our local lawyers". After that, they do nothing. They try to intimidate debtors to pay something and it works for maybe 10-20 percent of customers. Easy money.

Debt collection agencies buy these debts in bulk, paying something like 5-15 percent of the debt value per loan. Unless the debt is huge, something like 50000 dollars or more, it does not pay to them to go chasing which is costly (thousands of dollars per case). Even in those cases there must be easily recoverable assets in Thailand, like a lot of cash in bank. They do asset search in those cases first.

It is still recommendable to negotiate with creditors, try to renegotiate the sum lower. Usually after few years they are happy to do it because it is still profitable for them.

As Manarak said, you lose probably 75.000 liter a month. If the leak is outside you will notice a wet spot, even if the leak is under concrete with that amount of water, but it will be difficult to notice when it's inside the house because ceramic tiles don't absorb water. May a discoloring of the grout can give you a hint.

There must be a path to sewage pipe or to some ditch nearby. Maybe check the nearby area ditches.

Thailand unemployment rate is 0.5 percent so no wonder you have trouble getting repairmen. My house roof has been now "fixed" three times because of rain water leakage but now it needs the 4th time. The trouble is the unskilled repair guy MIGHT be available next month and nobody seems to know any better guy!

Thailand seem to be a paradise for DIY guys if you want to do it right the first time I am considering putting plastic sheet or something all over the roof but probably will not be such a good idea

There's absolutely nothing about these rascals that appeals to me and I have become very confrontational. The Thai males in particular are so unpredictable and a wrong comment at just the right time could lead to a disastrous outcome. Leaving Thailand is not an option for me, so I either need to cut out my tongue or find a good natural treatment for stress. Any ideas!

Get out of condo and buy/adopt a big dog and lots and lots of bar girl visits. Thailand is very strict pyramid society underneath and you are the odd man out. Especially if you do not have a good Thai girlfriend smoothing things out patiently.

Most Thais do not understand farangs at all either. They just see a big farang gorilla man shouting and moving his big hands in a threatening manner. You might as well speak Klingon to them. Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!