ronnie50

I usually like KhaoSod English, but its FB page looks increasingly like a propaganda mouthpiece. I support Thailand, but KhaoSodEnglish's more recent style and tone of reporting, often without citation, is disappointing. I can understand some of the other Thai media (Thai PBS, NBC, etc.) following that path. But come on.. https://www.facebook.com/KhaosodEnglish/

Yes, I posted about this before (USS Liberty). Good point about Johnson though.

You know, in the medical community there is a well-known saying: 'you can always just treat the symptoms, but in order to find a cure you need to identify the cause and treat that as a priority.' (sic) So these places (inner cities and some suburbs) that have fallen into decay - you can round up all the poor people, the drug addicts and their suppliers, and the others still there who have no place else to go. That's treating the symptoms. The cause of the decay is the absence of industry and employment. Shouldn't your buddy in the WH be treating the cause with one of his re-birthed factories in these places - you know to find a cure? I thought that's what he was elected to do...

Of course any President except Trump would immediately denounce and condemn Israel for the strike against a hospital and the resulting deaths of journalists from two of its top American newsgathering agencies - the Associated Press (AP) and NBC. Wanna bet Trump just shrugs it off?

What about AP and NBC? Professional American news outlets. Reuters?

Wow.

I'd agree with that. The only slight caveat I'd add is that category of Thai women will indeed hook-up/marry a farang if she is already divorced from the hi-so Thai guy - often due to him having one or several mia nois or some other issues. I can vouch for this, because I know several independent educated Thai women who are divorced (or permanently separated) and are with farang guys for years and have kids together with them. In other words, you are right in what you suggest above, but I'd add in the first go-around of marriage both family's parents (often, though not always, Thai-Chin), with substantial resources and businesses, need to preserve face and marry their daughter (or son) into another family of equal or higher status. In addition, I think the taboo of a youngish Thai woman and a farang guy is wearing thin. In Bangkok you see lots of younger mixed couples and the young Thai females have probably met the farang guy online - maybe along the lines you suggest - they don't appear to be prostitutes, many speak 'real' English (e.g. complete sentences) but are also hoping for something more than just sex.

So worse than I have seen advertised. Maybe only the bigger joints pay better. Lotus's was offering 12-15K a month (I think it was for cashiers who probably have only highschool or maybe some relevant technical diploma).

By 'scandalous' I was referring to the amount they pay locally-engaged staff at our Embassies, not in general.

Actually, mine says up to 2,000,000 per day to another' bank (not SCB) account. In the App Terms and Conditions (Section 3.3), or up to 5,000,000 per day to another SCB account. And I think it was 10-million per day between your own (more than one) SCB accounts. (I have moved more than 50k between my own SCB accounts - same branch via App - without any issues.) So maybe it's old, or maybe it still counts, but more than 50k sets a trip wire and you have to phone the bank's SCB Easy Line and make a request to lift the bar when making transfers to someone other than yourself? I'm guessing. I've never needed to phone them and only once had to transfer more than 50k (54k) in the last 6 months. Have you tried?

Good question. No idea. I don't have a pink card, no PR status, and don't own anything here other than an oldish car - I'm here just on O Visa Ret Ext.

I went to my own SCB branch last week to update my books and to ask for a face scan, so they'd have it for transfers. The teller told me they still can't do face scans for foreigners, only Thais, but they're hoping to be able to do so for foreigners within this year (tied to passport I guess).

I see that in my SCB account too. But are you sure that's a daily "transfer" limit or overall 'transaction' limit - which of course are two different things. In other words, my understanding is that we can transfer up to 50k for rent to the landlord (just example if you have expensive rent), but then you wouldn't be able to transfer any more to anyone else that day. Meantime, you could still pay your CC bill same day (not a transfer - a bill payment?. Still not really very clear to me.

Hmm. I have a very good financial history - 24 years with SCB - and a considerable amount in a couple of accounts for a few years without dropping more than 20% annually. Yet I was also restricted to 50k last month (some expensive dental treatment that needed to be paid up front). Luckily I had a second account to make up the small difference. So I'[m less sure longevity of accounts or 'good standing' will be a workaround of the 50k per day transfer limit.

Maybe you could rock up to Bangkok Bank and find out why they don't like farang residents...

as far as we are concerned, it seems the banks are doing it for them, if recent developments are any indication (demands of banks to prove residency in-person). And of course if we transfer money here they know that too.

I guess all the Revenue Dept would need to do is ask the Immigration Department to share all TM30s of more than 2 month durations (to ignore the tourists), then they'd approach the landlords that haven't been paying tax?

On this point, I agree with you. Both parties have continued the destruction of US jobs and stanard of living (of the masses).

An opinion piece by 'Business Insider" from 2017 (when your pal was in the WH first time around with his useful idiot Navarro) https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-to-american-jobs-in-the-80s-2017-7 "The White House is only telling you half of the sad story of what happened to American jobs"

The fact that manufacturing (in some industries) might have slowed or declined after WW2 means nothing. The US in the 1940s and even 50s was adjusting to the end of the windfall of WW2. This doesn't mean American firms were moving to Asia in those periods (1960-70s) - and that's what we're discussing here. What happened at that time was that Japanese and Korean companies started up their own brands to compete with American domestic brands - hence the arrival of Sony, Panesonic, etc. followed by the Korean brands 10 years or so later. The point about the 1970s is exactly what I'm referring to. Trade unions were strong, the lower middle class was empowered and was on the ups. It was Reagan that led the revearsal in the 1980s. And thus began the race to the bottom for wages, etc.

Exactly. And his 'useful academic idiot' was U of Chicago's Milton Friedman, who argued for much less government and advocated for the so-called 'trickle down effect' - where rich capitalists create a greater domestic economy (even though it was moving to Asia) and that wealth 'trickles down' to all workers. Which, as we know, is indeed bull <deleted>.

Some manufacturing might well have left the US in the '70s. I mean you could point to the US-Canadian Auto Pact as an example, but the real exit of manufacturing and globalization started in the early 1980s when Reagan was president and union decline was earmarked by his deliberate attack on unions, most notably firing all of the country's unionized air traffic controllers - something the country still hasn't fully recovered from some 40+ years later. Ironically, Reagan was a Union chief himself at one time (Actors' Guild I think it was called).

In principle that's right - but in my own view this decline has been going on slowly, sort of step by step for decades, since Reagan and maybe even before him. Reagan was the wrecking ball that ruined the lower middle class and their aspirations, killed the unions with their health care and pensions, and began the offshoring of American jobs that continues even now - 2 generations later. Thatcher did the same to the UK - the Brexiteers are the UK's MAGA really. And that decline is accelerating for all to see. But the real wake up call in USA was just before 9/11 and the neocons plan for a 21st century American 'revival'. Then came 9/11 - and that should have been when everyone opened their eyes. We can all debate whether the 9/11 Commission Report was accurate or full of half-truths and ignoring too many importing things (like building 7 as one example), but it doesn't matter who did it, who was in on it, if you think it was a bunch of Arabs, or a conspiracy with the Israelis, Cheney and Rumsfeld or whomever. The writing was on the crumbled walls of those buildings. To go to war with every country surrounding Israel that had no real beef with the USA was a trillion dollar madness that cost thousands - millions of lives. But it was not knee-jerk it was intentional as a proxy for Israel to fight whom it perceived as its foes. Look where we are now? Israel still has immense power over US politicians of all stripes, they are bulldozing and murdering the Palesinians out of existence with the support of Trump (and those that came before him), a current President elected by the majority, who is (as you say exacerbating the decline - morally - and most likely accelerating the decine economically). What the USA and this world will look like in three years from now is quite possibly what nightmares are made of. So yes, it's Trump, but IMO he's just a symptom of a two-party system that is really just two sides of the same coin when it comes to aiding and abetting this decline of Empire. Trump is the madness of the USA in general.

Maybe they shouldn't take folate either? And maybe they can start knocking back the booze too while pregnant? I guess you and your tinfoil hat friends know better than the scientists. Let us all know when you get your medical PhD.

Assume the rest of her Thai family have visas already? If new PP and visas have to be done here in Bangkok, BfS, UK global agent, has a new location is in Belle Tower behind Central Rama 9 Shopping Centre. Same drivway to parking garage.