MrWorldwide

I dont see the prospect of China going down the tubes as being something to celebrate. A worldwide recession ? No thanks.

I seem to recall reading something about this 'glut' a couple of years back, and anything citing a tabloid like 60 Minutes as it's source will always be dubious, but those skyscapers are dearly needed in Sydney and Melbourne ...

http://www.news.com.au/business/china-building-mega-cities-but-they-remain-empty-sparking-fears-of-housing-bubble-burst/story-e6frfm1i-1226611169281

I just find it a little hard to believe that Chinese investors honestly thought there would be a rush of folks to Ordost, Mongolia, to live in these 'brave new worlds'. Weird.

Gah - duplicate post - I think I broke the internet.

easy visa, no visaruns for 2 years if you are smart, pretty girls, housing cheaper, everything cheaper in price but also less quality , like infrastucture, airports, food, about guns everywhere get a glock with two spare mags like in the us, guns are everywhere even in los, best beaches, much much better than in los, english gets you everywhere, great potential for the future much more potential as los, thats why i am there for 6 out of 12, btw davao rocks, not many beautyful hookers, just fly them in just being funny!

Less quality than in Thailand? You've got to be kidding. I'm still looking for one extension cord that lasts longer than the trip from the store, to my house!

That's OK - if your Filipino captors use those dodgy cords to tie you to the bed while they phone in their ransom demands, you stand a much better chance of getting free and leaping out the window, Jack Bauer style.

phnom penh, has thee largest number of sleaze bag, junkie and freak residents i have ever encountered. I was worse 10 years ago, but it is most certainly still there.

As for Lao expats, every one i know has lived as an expat in Thailand at sometime prior to their Lao experience.

'I was worse 10 years ago', eh ? I think it's great that a sleaze bag, junkie and freak like yourself can turn his life around, but do the nurses know you have internet access ?

Hmm, doesn't seem to be a whole lot of discussion re Cambodia in the last couple of pages of this thread ..... somehow we seem to be discussing Thai people and Thailand. Weird.

Think about the best times you've had in a bar, and I'm confident that none of them involved some old tosspot telling you his life story. .Besides,mine is classified.

(or certified - I always get those two mixed up. Nurse !)

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/615331-leaving-los-for-phillipines/page-4

I'm a 7-11 trader - I buy gold for bargirls and give them the change to spend at 7-11.

Right, this guy is sure a fool. Made millions here in Thailand:

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

-

Exception proving the rule, growing up here with good connections is you must admit a pretty exceptional way to start off. Not to mention he's an extraordinary fellow. . .

-

-

>Still, those of us who pay taxes here and have investments should, and do, have a right to voice our opinion. The laws do not preclude

that.

-

Sure you make excellent points for a tiny fraction of those here, and I never said it isn't a "right".

But IMO 99.99% of the time here, just as on the barstools, it's just jaws flapping in the wind, repeating the same pointless complaints ad infinitum to no useful purpose.

Which of course is rich coming from me the pot calling y'all black so I'll stop now

Yes, Bill is an exception to the rule. As are the top wealthy people here in Thailand. But as with Thais, there are lots of successful farangs here. You just won't meet them in the various bars around town. Usually. Unless you are in Thong Lor, etc. Especially the Asian ones. Who are here in very large numbers dealing with their various investments and manufacturing facilities.

Most farangs here are tourists or retirees. But many work here and pay taxes. I know many. And some are quite successful.

An incredibly generic response.

Other than Burmese and Cambodian refugees, I think you've just mentioned every lifeform in Thailand, and wrapped each of them in 'get out of jail' clauses.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - if TVers who can read Thai stumbled on a Thai board dedicated almost entirely to bitching about foreigners, there would be a huge outcry. Kicking, screaming and gnashing of teeth. Cries of 'they dont want us !'.

News flash - they dont HAVE to want anyone - it's their country. Might be different if you have a Thai passport, but how many here have such a passport ? Oz doesnt recognise 'dual citizenship', so it would mean handing over my blue passport for a green one - how many of us have the balls to make that committment ?

Time to harden up, Princesses.

As of 4 April 2002, there are no restrictions (under Australian law) on Australians holding the citizenship of another country. My wife & stepson have Thai & Oz citizenship with passports & perfectly legal in Oz and Thailand. I hold citizenship for three countries, including Australia. It's the "other" country that may have restrictions for holding dual citizenship

http://www.citizenship.gov.au/current/dual_citizenship/

You'd think that a person who is truly worldwide with business interests across the globe would know something so fundamental like that...

And you would think that someone who spends as much time on a board as you do would grasp that a board name is a board name. If I had registered as 'Superman, would I be expected to fly ? No, but register with the alias of a Cuban rapper and suddenly I'm an international businessman - right ....

I've said it before and I'll say it again - if TVers who can read Thai stumbled on a Thai board dedicated almost entirely to bitching about foreigners, there would be a huge outcry. Kicking, screaming and gnashing of teeth. Cries of 'they dont want us !'.

News flash - they dont HAVE to want anyone - it's their country. Might be different if you have a Thai passport, but how many here have such a passport ? Oz doesnt recognise 'dual citizenship', so it would mean handing over my blue passport for a green one - how many of us have the balls to make that committment ?

Time to harden up, Princesses.

Alcohol has become more expensive over the years in various parts of Asia, but tobacco remains incredibly cheap. I believe the countries involved, particularly China, will face an increasing health burden over the coming century, but I've long seen nicotine as the 'cheap narcotic for the masses'. We have some famous war photos in Oz that show that no matter how low they were on food, water and ammunition, the men somehow still had tobacco. I hated it with a passion almost from birth, but I can see why Big Tobacco must see Asia (and Russia ..) as their saviours.

Nothing new here - GT murders any attempt at translating Thai to English - but I'm wondering if perhaps the Thai fellow (?) who put this description together on the Pioneer Thailand site may have had more on his mind than passive crossovers and cabinet resonance ...

Pioneer. Leader in the design and innovation for more than 70 years, and the sound design by Andrew Jones, chief engineer of the speakers. Creative speakers are speakers that are superior in Hi-end solution to make love to the sound. While most listeners are willing to pay for the product under design by Andrew Price up to $ 80,000 dollars, but the SP-BS22-LR speakers are supplied by salons that do not close within reach.The SP-BS22-LR Pioneer has used a computer statistics Pigeon breasts in the design and use of high quality equipment for up to six components in the Cross Over Network, the result is high quality audio with an accuracy as high as. that would be possible.

Can't say that 'pigeon breasts' evoke any particular stirrings in my loins, but perhaps the prospect of Andrew Jones (or is it Andrew Price ? No, it's Jones - trust me ..) making love to the sound of Pioneer speakers was all it took for our intrepid copy writer to take an early mark from work. FWIW, I don't find GT any better with German or any of the other Latin languages either - it just seems to have a particularly comical way with Thai.

This is one area where machines need to get a whole lot smarter - I expect that even the cutting-edge AI guys would agree that it's not easy to write translation software, but GT has to be the bare minimum. Hopefully

To the poster who questioned what gold's value was beyond 'glitter' - ever hear of a little thing like the semiconductor industry that pretty much underpins the backbone of our modern economy (such as it is ..)? Not a fan of the circuit board or expensive dental procedures ? Fine - just start reading from 'Medicine' down ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Medicine

We have a 10% GST on everything except (some) food here in Oz, and the income tax rates arent as nasty as they were in the 90s:

Taxable income

Tax on this income

0 - $18,200

Nil

$18,201 - $37,000

19c for each $1 over $18,200

$37,001 - $80,000

$3,572 plus 32.5c for each $1 over $37,000

$80,001 - $180,000

$17,547 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000

$180,001 and over

$54,547 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000

'Average' income is supposed to be up around the 70K mark, but many Australians have to make do on a lot less. Price-wise, I defy anyone to fill a shopping trolley full of food staples in Oz for the same money they would spend in Thailand. Our cars are cheaper - no surprises given the levy slapped on every new car in Thailand - but so much of our food is imported (a lot of it from Thailand) and trucked all over this massive country that the price paid by the consumer rarely bears any relationship to the 'farm gate' price. The two supermarket monopolies have pushed Australian farmers to the wall - the dairy industry being the saddest example - and everyone one I know who works at the local Coles claims they are rarely given enough hours to pay their bills each week. Oz might look like Utopia from the outside, but it's not all 3-day drunken orgies.

The only people paying 1/2 a million USD for a condo are either:

- unwilling to live anywhere beyond upper Suk

- too late to the party (we all remember when condos were 4-5mill baht on upper Suk, and it's not that long ago ..)

- in the financial position where parting with that kind of cash isn't an issue - they prefer to have a condo than pay for a hotel room when they fly into BKK

Can anyone here honestly tell me that that would pay that sort of money for a condo in Ratchada or Pattaya ? That simply isn't an accurate figure for a 'condo in Thailand'. Per xe.com this afternoon:

500,000.00 USD = 14,635,000.23 THB

JLCrab, I admire your efforts, but I suspect that the folk concerned will simply continue to type up 3,000 word posts until someone is silly enough to agree with them. It's a war of attrition.

Compared to virtually every first world country, the cost of living in Thailand is still relatively inexpensive.

Only imported items are pricey due to high tariffs, yet local food, drinks, Internet, mobile phone service, healthcare, and domestically manufactured items including electronics, cars, furniture, etc are all much less than in Europe, Australia and North America. The main reasons are that the climate is ideal for agriculture with huge amounts of farm land, along with the fact that the minimum wage and cost of labor (despite recent increases) is still significantly lower than in those other regions of the world.

I have been here 12 years and when I first came here, I thought Thailand was very cheap...but today its not...I have noticed the steady increase in the cost of everything

I wonder if there is a country anywhere in the world where prices remain low over a 12-year period ? Can I ask if you are in BKK or out in the sticks ?

In addition to a bunch of Stax headphones, I'm keen to hear this in Tokyo:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/bakoon/1.html

The Koreans build the amps, but the designer is a Japanese guy with something beyond an eye for industrial design - interesting that they claim they designed their casework *before* the Mac Mini was released. I would be far too wary of Apple's legal department to make such a claim in print.

maxme, for some reason I am unable to quote your post, but the gist of it seemed to be 'how do you know other BMs havent been to the countries they are recommending as alternatives to Thailand'. That was never my assertion - what I said was I dont believe that any of them have lived in said country for 12 months or more. I've lived in BKK for 3 months at a time over the years (and Pattaya for similar stints), but I doubt that any of the longtime expats here would be willing to accept that such short stays make me an authority on the city or it's people - particularly when I spend the vast majority of my time in Farang ghettoes, speak little Thai and neither ride nor drive in the city. In short, I'm a tourist.

The best advice given in ANY of these interminable 'where to next' threads is 'get on a plane and check the place out for yourself'. No biggie for someone living in North America - considerably more so for those of us who would have to fly halfway around the world to land in a country like Brazil. Still, I would like to see Argentina one day, so who knows where that might lead - I just know that I wont be relying on advice from anyone whose memories of the country revolve around the view from their hotel balcony.

After a good deal of soul searching, I decided that it was time to weigh up the pros and cons of living here in Thailand or returning to Europe. For me it would be best to live here, for my wife and children however returning to Europe won hands down. So sadly we will be leaving next month and my children will start a new English school this September. We will then take holidays here and enjoy our selves for a few weeks every year, comfortable in the knowledge that our children will have a good education and the family will receive excellent health care even if I drop dead. Top priority for me, the children.

Sir, I salute you - instead of just banging on about how great it would be to leave, you are actually doing something about it. I wish you every success.

As dramas go, this one seems to be up there with last night's episode of 'Neighbours' - other than the cast, no-one seems to care.

I raised this several years ago on another board, and the consensus was that BKK simply isnt sustainable. It will reach a point where you spend more time in gridlock than doing anything else in a 24-hour period : for some folk, that is already reality in cities like Manila and Jakarta. I dread my first day back in Jakarta, however good the nightlife may be.

Welcome to the future.