Krataiboy

Thinks: must buy some shares in a cement company.

5 hours ago, goldenbrwn1 said:

Well that’s where the growth market is...But I do agree they are of poor taste and quality.  Try one of the many Swiss sheep farms....you won’t regret it and promise yourself never again......I promise......?

 

 

Are their actually any sheep in Switzerland? I thought it was all cows and gnomes.

What horror stories! But has anybody thought to complain?

8 hours ago, naboo said:

Those numbers are all over the place.

Sorry. My brain must have slipped into neutral.  The judges earn a mere ten times as much as their compatriots on the minimum wage. I forgot to mention that in addition to their salary, they get an annual bonus of a further 31,204 baht.

It's a struggle for some!

1 hour ago, mommysboy said:

Quite possibly, you have just had it your own way for too long.

 

Regarding Thailand: rotten system gets rotten results.

Have you looked lately at the rotten results the UK is getting from an increasing rotten system? 

Boris: "Now look here, old chap. How are you going to deal with those uppity Iranians?"

Trump: "Usual way, buddy - regime change."

1 hour ago, sukhumvitneon said:

This whole mess could've been avoided if it weren't for the Balfour Declaration where the British promised the same piece of land to two different ethnic groups simultaneously. 

It's called divide and rule. That's how most imperial powers gain and maintain an empire.

Put the kettle on and alert Alice, the March Hare and Dormouse that the Mad Hatter's tea party is back in town.

. . . there is a roadmap in place for the national polls. 

Now they've got me really worried.

Fate has done him a big favour.  This is the ultimate junk food, as unhealthy as it is unappetising.

4 hours ago, blazes said:

I'm glad to see the Q one irritatingly sees in N American acronyms has taken a walk here.  I've always assumed that the Q stood for "queer".  If so, why add Q to LGBT when "queer" can be inferred from the letter G????

 

I await enlightenment...

Today, queer is a blanket term for anyone who is not heterosexual.

3 hours ago, Juan B Tong said:

Queer?

 

I like this accurate word.

It's nice to see it embraced by the "community"

 

I was born before politically correct speech and in my youth they were queers. 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was a lad, queer was slang for a homosexual man.  Today it is used as an umbrella term for anyone who does not identify as heterosexual.

2 hours ago, wolf81 said:

George Soros is a very dangerous man, hardly a philanthropist. For whatever reasons unclear to me he’s trying to destroy Europe through his NGO’s by advocating for mass immigration of Islamic and African countries. Most immigrants will never work, yet still they will receive benefits (housing, monthly income, etc…). The tax burdens on the working populace will increase and/or the welfare state will be stripped. At some point people will become very angry.

 

It will end in civil war in a few years. 

 

P.S.: many extremely rich people (Bill Gates, The Clinton’s, etc...) have their own foundations. Its a very effective way to secure perpetual inheritance for their children and it’s a great way to avoid taxes as well. The idea is that most money in spent in stock and a few percent each year is spent on some “good” causes and to pay the employees / directors of the foundation, often closely related family members. Donations to foundations can often be done tax free.

I have no illusions about the motivations of any of these people. I should, of course, have put the word "philantropist" in quotation marks first time around.

5 hours ago, Eligius said:

This is one of the best, truest posts I've seen here in a long while. Spot on, Tomta.

 

The universities say they are encouraging 'critical and analytical thinking' - but you just try to initiate an undergraduate discussion group in which Republicanism vs Monarchism is discussed, for example - and out of the door will go your 'critical thinking' and you yourself! And you will be lucky if you are not charged with lese-majeste.

 

It is the same, as you say, with many other topics. 

 

The Thais live in a reality-denying universe.

 

Sadly, the West appears to be regressing in terms of free expression and encouraging the young to challenge the contemporary landscape of ideas.

Political correctness are now stifling public debate and free speech in my own homeland, the UK, and I am constantly coming across disturbing evidence of the takeover of academic institutions in the US by post-modernists and neo-Marxists. 

The surrender of the middle ground on both sides of the Pond to the "progressive" left, manifested in academia by the establishment of  "safe" spaces at college and university campuses, threatens to produce future generations as conformist and uncritical as those churned out for decades in Thailand - with all of the problems that implies for Western society as a whole.

6 hours ago, connda said:

I wonder how much that perk costs the Thai public? Government officials can't afford their homes, well, at least the upper crust that is.  <eye roll>  I know a whole lot of the rank and file public sector employees personally who make do on their salaries.  The bigger fish seem to need high-end housing on the public dole.  Go figure.    Well, TIT.  I guess at least I know what my VAT goes toward.  lol

My heart bleeds for the judges who can't afford to pay for their own mortgages.

From what I have read, they are having to scrape by on a measly ฿654,368 a year (or nearly a thousand times more than the estimated eleven million Thais who earn the minimum wage).

Their equivalent hourly rate is ฿315 - or 15 baht more than workers at the bottom of the scale received for labouring an entire day.

Here's a great chance for the Generals stated aim of bringing a little more happiness to the people. I suggest they (1) tell the judges to buy their own homes and (2) use the billions saved to build lots of affordable starter homes for hard-up families,

Who knows - such a gesture even win Big Chief Five Rivers and his braves some badly-needed votes at the upcoming elections. Or is it too "populist" for their refined taste?

Lacks the ring of authenticity - especially the gay references.

42 minutes ago, Advocate said:

Those posters who are accusing the Thai government of manipulating its currency to higher values than they expect are wrong. They evidently don't understand why currencies are manipulated.

 

Currency manipulation usually works the other way when the currency is artificially held at lower values than justified by the balance of payments in order to boost exports and inhibit imports.

 

 

In recent history, the only government to hold its currency above free market values was the British government. They were defeated by George Soros who made ~ 1.4 billion dollars from speculating on the GBP and the British government lost GBP 27 billion trying to support an over-valued GBP before they were forced to devalue as other speculators started to follow George Soros betting against the GBP.

 

https://priceonomics.com/the-trade-of-the-century-when-george-soros-broke/

Soros denied trashing the baht a couple of decades ago and went on to become the world's most famous philanthropist, giving away most of his money to worthy causes we wouldn't all necessary support - like, currently, trying to reverse the UK's decision to leave the EU. 

Oddly for arguably the world's most successful capitalist, he donates most of his billions to organisations which backing radical left-wing causes and politicians.

Don't the numbers speak for themselves? In 2017 the UK economy grew by 1.7 percent, its lowest rate since 2012, Thailand's GDP is expected to grow by 4.0 perdcent in 2018 and by 4.1 per cent in 2019.

We all know how deeply in debt the UK and so many EU countries are - not to mention the US. The situation is totally different in the East, which is rising again out of the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis far healthier than its Western equivalents.

If I had any money to invest, I know where I would put it - in those resurgent tigers.

Better read the small print carefully.

One of his stated policies is to recycle rubbish - which makes him a natural for political office. 

Who needs technology? My former missus, a Thai lady, always brought back perfectly ripe durian from the market. The secret was literally at her fingertips.

She would tap a likely-looking fruit while holding it close to her ear. The sound it made determined whether or not she would buy. As a bit of a durian addict myself, I can't recall her ever making a mistake.

She was also at pains to explain that the foreign reserves were still in the form of foreign currency, which was something that did not deteriorate

Really? My foreign currency reserves, in British pounds, have dropped alarmingly over the last couple of years. 

5 minutes ago, KiwiKiwi said:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haka

 

Anyway, is it important or worth the attempt at a personal insult? If it's important I'm happy to answer, but not if you just want to be insulting - I have more important things to do.

 

It's off-topic anyway.

You can run, but you can't hide.