ramr

14 hours ago, thailand49 said:

 

HAVE I GOT YOU ATTENTION MR. CHAN O ( AKA MR. P.M. ) NEED YOUR ATTENTION IN THIS MATTER!

I'm sure he hears you, what with you posting *in English* on Thaivisa of all places and taking the additional surefire measure of using *all caps*. 

You can rest easy now.

23 hours ago, Ryan754326 said:

How is my first paragraph nonsense? I have clearly shown that any country with a small population has an automatic advantage if one is only considering per-capita testing numbers. The United States has the third largest population in the world. 
 

I just automatically discount the tiny countries as outliers when I look at the per-capita tables, so I get what you mean.  I think you explained it better just now than in the previous long-ass paragraph, that's all.   However, that "unfair" (?) advantage should be expected diminish over time--as more and more people get tested--which is why I mentioned that a couple months had already elapsed.  And the more time goes on, the less your "advantage" argument will hold water.

23 hours ago, Ryan754326 said:

If per-capita is the measurement we should use, then why is everyone so focused on the United States’ higher total death numbers, when per-capita, they have less deaths than four of the five largest European countries?

 

The slow response of Trump and his administration is a different argument. Currently, the USA leads the world in total tests. In order for them to take the per-capita lead away from Faroe Islands, they would need to have tested almost 60 million people; more than the top 20 countries’ total tests combined. 
 

It's not the *only* one we should use, and we need to make adjustments and look at data intelligently, but it's a better starting point than total number of tests.

I would have no problem if Trump were to mention both statistics, along with the pros and cons of each statistic, as we have done here.

What I mainly object to are the big <deleted> "Winning!  #1!  USA!!" banners and photo op nonsense when the data is--and I'm being charitable here-- ambiguous at best.

How can you not feel like your intelligence is being insulted when you see something like this?

11 hours ago, Ryan754326 said:

Faroe Islands leads the world in per-capita testing with 175,061 per-million inhabitants. They have performed 8554 total tests so far, out of a population of slightly under 50,000 people.
By definition, any country who tests their entire population, would have tested one million people per-million, even if their population was only 100 people. 
The USA has 330 million people to potentially be tested. No country in Europe, besides Russia, has more than 100 million. 
Does this metric seem like an honest way of measuring who “leads” the world in testing? 
 

The fact stands that the USA has tested almost twice as many people as Russia, and more than three times as many as Germany, who hold second and third place. If that’s not leading the world in testing, then I don’t know what is.

 

 

 

News flash: you don't know what is.  And your first paragraph is nonsense.

The large, diverse population of the US and the federal/state logistics are a handicap for testing in the US, and should be considered in addition to its per capita testing numbers.  But per capita testing numbers are where the conversation should begin.  And it's not like we haven't had time already; if we had been testing at anything approaching the rate of a S. Korea, we would have tested far, far more total in the past couple MONTHS.

Our testing performance can be up for debate, but it clearly doesn't merit printing up a Charlie Sheen-style "Winning!" banner and hanging it up at a presidential press conference.

Mirror-world NCC wants to boldly come where many have come before?  

Check him for a goatee.

3 hours ago, DavisH said:

If you get paid for 12 months, I would assume that you will be paid every month - we are going to need to teach in the weeks we normally get as holidays to make up the time. This would apply to continuing teachers, not new teachers. I highly doubt agency teachers would be paid if they are not teaching. 

Exactly this.  At least for continuing teachers with a 12-month contract.

My friend and I were just discussing this and reached the same conclusion.  We look at it this way: the current revised school year plan takes our October 2020 and April 2021 vacations (+ partial Mar & May for some) and moves that paid time off into into June and July 2020.  We're effectively borrowing vacation time from the future, BUT for a typical May 1 - April 30 contract (i.e. one that follows the "normal" school year), a teacher will still be getting the same total amount of paid vacation and teaching the same total number of weeks.

So based on all this, one would assume the pattern of pay should remain uninterrupted and unreduced, no?  Under normal circumstances, yes, but we're clearly not in Kansas anymore.  For one, this will delay tuition payments for most schools, hence little to no money for paying salaries.  For another, July 1 is a working date, but not a hard date; a lot could happen between now and then to change that, which makes financial planning for the schools even more uncertain.  Still, teaching English is a moneyspinner here and they know they have to do SOMETHING to keep the foreign teachers from wandering off, either because they can't afford to stay or because they're not allowed to without a teaching visa.

https://brslawyers.com/news/coronavirus-covid-19-update-for-employers-in-thailand/

Reading the helpful information on this webpage (especially point 4) points to most teachers getting 50% pay for May and June, but it's complicated and evolving, and looks like case-by-case and school-by-school.

Points that will make a difference:

1.  Whether the school has been participating/contributing to Social Security ... apparently this is optional for some types of schools. 
2.  12-month contracts that don't follow the school year, as e.g. my own contract that runs mid-Aug to mid-Aug.
3.  Teachers who knew they were returning (handshake deal with school) but haven't officially signed the 2020-2021 contract yet.
4.  New teachers who haven't officially signed a contract yet.

Strap in, it's going to get interesting, and not just for teachers.


 

2 minutes ago, justin case said:

they keep on repeating this mantra and waiting for weeks and the result is: more paperwork...

 

hope they include non-o 90 day runners...

Yeah, me too, though I was lucky enough to have done my last hop right before all this fustercluckery started.

On 8/10/2019 at 1:47 PM, alan grice said:

Just because Imegrants can shout their traps of in Ferangland i say good on yer Thailand for getting uperty with financial refugees, begpackers and the Go Fund Me lot. Try working a lifetime , having money and retiring . No problems at all.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

I tell ya, these people today with their fancy opinions of their own and determination to have some sort of say in their own future.  It makes my blood boil, it does!

Shouldn't you be standing on your porch in a bathrobe and black socks shaking your fist and shouting at those damn kids to get off your lawn?

P.S.  Seriously, though f#$k begpackers.

20 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Although it sounds like a big nothing sandwich, any flack that can be given to this horrendous, incompetent, heinous, greedy, callous, and incompetent administration, and the nothing army, is well deserved, and long overdue. 

Until fatigue and numbness sets in from the public from every little complaint and the process scatters and distracts opposition politicians...little boy who cried wolf syndrome, eventually.

I disagree.  F O C U S on the most important stuff only, the stuff in most radical need of a fundamental change, latch on like a pitbull, and go at it 1000%.  

In politics, everyone has limited public goodwill, limited political capital, and limited time/attention/resources.  

The opposition should ignore the nothing burgers and make it count...

Otherwise you're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

TV and in particular webfact:

Enough clickbait/Daily Sun/National Enquirer/tabloid/b.s. anecdotal/local interest/outrage crap.  Enough misleading and corny headlines.  ("Hold the presses!" Really?  Is it 1932?  Are you wearing a newspaper boy hat and hawking papers on the street?  What's next for you?  "Extra, extra, read all about it?")

Stop adding to the noise on this site so we can focus on the signal.  There's already precious little signal in Thai news as it is.

Ugh.  

P.S.  Waiting for the inevitable idiots to tell me to love it or leave it or that no one's forcing me to read TV news.  You're so missing the point.  Think again about signal and noise.

I'm with Fex Bluse on this: I just don't think the Thais have it in them.  Bangrak misses the point in worrying about Thanathorn's true character and motivations... He should be questioning those of the average Thai... Those who could leave a fledgling progressive movement to die in the vine out of fear.

While it's general human nature to not leave the comfort zone and make big changes in one's own attitudes and actions until backed into a corner or facing major trauma... This tendency is writ large for Thais, like we're talking 50m tall letters that spell in blinking neon "Don't rock the boat.  Ever.  For any reason.  Always back a sure winner.  Survive for today.  At ALL costs.  Even when the cost could well be the future."

I wish it were otherwise, but one other poster on another thread put it well--but grimly--when they said that the Thai people just haven't suffered enough to be mobilized to action.  Conditions will probably need to deal them an XXXXXL-sized slap upside the head to wake them up, and by the time that happens, the reaction may be--well, let's just say it's not pretty when a Thai finally snaps.

So imagine just 1% of their population snapping ...600,000 or so.  And then imagine the chain reaction, because let's go through the list again:

1.   Deeply repressed rage, often decades-old

2.  Desire to do things in a group

3.  Desire to back a likely/emerging winner

4.  Wealth equality gap and demographic spread of Thailand

French Revolution, anyone?  Violent, deranged mob rule?  Whatever it is, it doesn't sound at all like it will be a semi-civilized reform movement or even a normal revolution.  

I don't know if that tipping point trauma will come or not.  It actually does seem the government will try to make nice in some small and mostly meaningless ways... As little as they can get away with to bleed off some of the pressure building in Thai people... They'll be smart enough to give away some public power and control to avoid blowing their whole scheme.  I don't buy the common caricature of them being 100% out-of-touch and incompetent (at least vis a vis holding onto power).  And they'll be smart enough to throw a few highest-profile scapegoats from their own ranks to the public should they need to publicly "rehabilitate" their coalition's image to get on with the business of screwing and screwing up Thailand.  

Thus my depressing prognosis: more limping/bumbling along and half-assery for Thailand for the foreseeable.

Yet another reason why I sometimes feel like slapping the s%*t out of China.

He might well try to make an appearance of openness and compromise--under advice/instruction from others in his power structure and above him, mind you--but he is what he is.  A lifetime of habits, and accumulated entitlement mindset.  

And likely a future fall guy.

6 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

 

I think Asians in particular, with the high priority they place for societal harmony, are not well-suited to the conflict that Democracy necessitates. 

 

It's a high priority on SURFACE harmony, that's their dirty little secret.  

Passive aggression is still aggression.  And it can be just as destabilizing as the overt variety.

But all your points are well-taken.

36 minutes ago, usviphotography said:

The whole fetish over "Democracy" is silly and misplaced. What you need to focus on is good government. The two best led Asian nations over the past century have been Japan and Singapore. Japan was a one party state for most of that time and Singapore a quasi-dictatorship. Discussion of how much better Vietnam is than Thailand nowadays is rife on this forum. Nobody complains about Vietnam having no Democracy whatsoever. 

 

Whether it is a monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, military junta, republic, or democracy, the fundamental marker of a government is its effectiveness in creating a good country. Instead of the constant bickering over the form of government, more focus should be placed on working together to identify problems and promote solutions. 

I have to agree, and must admit I have been using the word "democracy" in this thread somewhat indiscriminately.  I do tend towards it due to my upbringing, and also because it seems to represent an improvement to the existing wildly kleptocratic, wasteful, incompetent, and cronyist system... But then again, what doesn't at this point?

But I'm not married to the idea that democracy is necessarily the most ideal form of government for the Thais, especially when considering that democracies seem to function best with a populace capable of analysis and critical thinking.  Otherwise you end up with a glorified form of mob rule.

I'm just thinking out loud here...as I've said previously, we'll need some exceptional Thais to really answer this question and find the solution.

Even if I believed the cheerleader media and the TAT re Indian tourism recently, how long do you think before they get a snoutful of typical Thai attitudes towards Indians, which are worse than towards Westerners and the Chinese?

Not long at all, methinks.

38 minutes ago, Searat7 said:

This stupid regulation along with mandatory health insurance (if implemented) might be the straws which broke the camel’s back.

Though you must admit this requirement is way more stupid and arbitrary than mandatory health insurance... What they have in common are that both are prone to abuse.

The TM30 is just another type of "security theater," as it's been rightly termed in the USA, post 9-11.  It's a public performance to score political points with certain people without actually increasing safety.  Much like 90% of the USA's TSA airport restrictions.

1 hour ago, DLock said:

I used to work with a guy named Roy.

 

Roy was a senior manager.

 

Roy's catch phrase was "paradigm shift" and he always delivered the same presentation every management meeting. Roy was very charismatic and people lapped it up and applauded. Roy had them fooled...for a while.

 

But Roy never actually did anything. He just rolled out the same words time after time.

 

Eventually they fired Roy. Roy was an idiot. 

 

Roy drives an Uber in Canberra, probably boring his clients with what could have been a paradigm shift.

 

Prayut is Roy.

Nonetheless, Roy still sounds like he could beat Prayut in a battle of wits.

10 hours ago, Pilotman said:

because the rich want to buy assets out of Thailand, the strong baht assists that.  I imagine that the elite are racking up a lot of property outside the country. 

Or as George Carlin would have more accurately termed them: "Rich business criminal a#@holes."

Screwing over their own countrymens'  exports and tourism for their own selfish gain.  And because we are talking about countrymen, any Thais involved are IMHO even worse than the Chinese or Chinese-Thais... I'd expect it (or half-expect it, if you get my drift) of them.

Getting off topic, but it really does make my blood boil... Sadly, selling out your own is a worldwide phenomenon.