ronnie50

"Be careful of false prophets. You will know these people because of what they do. Good things don't come from bad people.." Jesus - as recalled by Matthew - in verse 7:15-29

The language barrier has really put me off Grab. Let's see if their widget will really translate - often these things don't work very well from Thai to English (like on Messenger or FB, as a good example, which only works 10% of the time). The good English delivery sites have all disappeared it seems.

Guess who owns it - oh, okay, it's one of the oligarch families - no surprise.

Good idea, but he'd need to be really careful. It is really easy to damage your passport by bending it (like winding it through a typewriter). Can't he show his old DL to his Embassy/Consulate and ask them to write somethign thats says, they confirm Mr. whatsit, of 1234 Main Street, Yourtown, your country, was an officially issued DL lately of this country. It's stupid to ask for the address anyway, of course. Does he still have a credit card with his home country's address on the statements? That seems to be the only way for many country's banks to issue their local currency credit cards to those abroad.

Yes, they don't do that here do they. In any case, the bands now are all manufactured and marketed by media corporations on looks/dance routines. K-pop, J-pop, boy bands, girl bands.. While Taylor Swift gets criticised by some on here, at least she has talent and stamina to perform long concerts night after night for a year. A rare bread these days. Remember the scandal when the German pop-duo Milli Vanilli was outed by their own manager for singing NONE of the vocals on their own albums in the early 1990s? Apparently they'd sold 7 million in the US alone. Now lip sync seems to be no big deal among performers.

Just a hunch, but whomever came up with this (probably at the BOT), is thinking like a Thai - by that I mean they all have a 'tabien baan' (a family book) from where they are from. Doesn't matter whether they live there or not. Other countries in Asia have similar - like China. But in the west we don't have that.

Pretty sure a lot of this is reacting to the foreign mule thing..

I did same as you - and just got the same message. SCB still has me at 200k max (per account I think).

Try playing this for 3 hours - and never miss a beat. https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2020/01/11/gettyimages-134591594-e0523230e5c5778db6956ae52e61677a2eaadfa9.jpg?s=1100&c=50&f=jpeg

I think a lot of people never think about the stamina needed for a top performer to do what they do sometimes for up to 3 hours. Incredible stamina.

KISS, - Boston same era, though kind of poppish and rockish together. "Don't look back.." 🙃

Alice Copper, Suzi Quatro, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Ramones.. To me, most of the others are pop

Maybe, but not to rock purists. She is in there with Fleetwood Mac, Meatloaf, the Cars - I guess you could divide it into hard rock and soft rock - many do that. But I'd add Heart to hard rock, though marginal.

Tina Turner was an exceptional performer.

Rock: As I mentioned above, plus Bad Company, J Geils Band, Deep Purple, Stones, Black Sabbath, Lynurd Skynyrd, many others. Rock, not pop.

Hello? Tina Turner was not 'Rock'. She was a 'pop' idol.

The 70s/80s big name rock bands and stars are either trying to reuinite or are dying off or both. Ozzy Osborne just died. Neil Peart (RUSH's drummer and lyricist) died 8-10 years ago. Dan McCafferty of Nazareth died around 10 years back at least. Do we really want another Scorpions Goodbye Tour? AC/DC has stopped as far as I know. OASIS is touring again (but I don't place them in the same genre. Kids really).

Exactly. The other curious thing about this same news story re-appearing now, again with just the bureaucrat talking and again somewhat vague, is the timing. If the government fears a coup is coming closer (if not imminent), getting this published again (yet still without a firm timeline for passage of a legal amendment), could be tactical. While many will likely agree these guys aren't great at tactics, there is a self-preservation angle to this. Namely, that getting the wealthy Thais who tend NOT to be the government's supporters, to try and stall a putsch in order to get this law changed which would be hugely financially beneficial to many of them. A coup could upend that.

A lot of complexity in the rest of what you wrote. But in principle, are you saying that the 25% witholding tax your country would typically place on Canadian state pensions for a non-resident should only be taxed (or withheld) at 20% because of the Canada-Thailand dual tax treaty? I wonder if that could be argued with them even without filing a Canadian income tax return by simply proving Thailand residency? (I know, in your case you need to file in any case).

Gotta admit that tourists coming from the world's most populous countries tend to be stereotyped in different ways. Chinese (loud, no manners), Indians (smelly, cheap, mysoginist), Americans (loud, know-it-all), Russians (stoic, unfriendly), Japanese (inward, can be aloof). Dunno about Indonesians.. (quiet, respectful?) - anyway, those are the big countries. Smaller ones have stereotypes too of course. They all do.

...and once again, it is just the bureaucrat speaking, not the Minister. This is a re-hash. Until the Minister says it's going ahead. Maybe this was just click bait of an old story..

Isn't this just a re-write of the same news report from some months back? The only thing I noticed that's different is crypto currency mentioned, and the Taiger reference to possibility that it will be retroactive (to when?) once published in the Royal Gazette. Ont thing for sure, is that Thais and others resident for more than 180 days, would now be holding back and waiting to see the law enacted before making any more remittances - so in one sense, unless they move on this immediately, it will make things worse for the finance/revenue of the government.

Lest we forget, the same family that owns the Leicester City FC is the same family that owns King Power which was instrumental in helping the nationalist factions that ousted Thaksin by allowing their hotel to convene a power-broker meeting resulting in the unelected minority Democrats taking power (with the 'encouraged' defection of the TRT's Newin Faction into a newly cobbled minority).

Many Indians were using Canada's relatively easy access to education visas, then skipping 90% of their classes to work almost full-time (under the old visa they were allowed to work, but it was supposed to be secondary to the education). Bogus 'colleges' popped up over 10+ years or so to take advantage of this loophole - I know a teacher who worked in one of them and it had the title of 'university' - and as if to underline the scam, this friend was able teach at this 'university' with only a Master's degree, not a PhD, and knew full well the 'students' were there to work, not study. The rules have been changed now, and many of these bogus colleges are winding up because they can't survive without the foreign student tuition fees. Whenever there's a workaround or a loophole - like easy immigration or visa-free tourism for people from dodgy countries - millions will jump through it.

The Tourist Authority of Thailand, and the Government in general, can't make up their minds about what kind of tourists they want. Sure, there are some/many rich Indians, but the vast majority of that 2 million arrivals figure are your typical developing country lower class (spending) tourists. The same is probably true for many of the Russian tourists here - the rich ones stand out - but they sure aren't the majority. Both countries come here looking for a cheap holiday and, for some/many, cheap booze and cheap available sex. The same can be said for many Europeans, Brits, etc., - while some are rich, most aren't. You only need to read the weekly punch-ups in Pattaya and Phuket to see the reality of who comes here (in general). Thailand will never transition to a holiday destination for the rich and famous - because there aren't enough of them to make much money from. Thailand is a country of more than 70 million - it's not some little Caribbean island of 200,000 inhabitants that can survive off the spending of some 1 million well-healed tourists annually.