ronnie50

A day or two ago, the Bangkok Post reported that new and used car sales would decline by 10% in the new year. Not luxury brands, but autos in general - same reason as above. BTW, in my area of central Bangkok, traffic was very busy during the entire New Year holiday (with Bangkok registration plates). Traditionally, or typically, at this stime of year the streets and supermarket parking lots are almost empty. Not this year. Both my local Villa and Big C supermarket parking lots were full and the main roads busy.

I think this is one of the main points, isn't it? For single guys, retired or receiving considerable earning on investments, pensions or whatever, it's a much simpler case. They can go wherever and whenever they want, provided they have the funds. But for those of us married and supporting a family here, the math doesn't work out (e.g. moving your whole family elsewhere for 6 months). Also many of us, like you, would not want the alternative of leaving them behind for 6 months every year - nor could most even afford to do that.

As someone already pointed out and something I mentioned, way back when, the plane isn't really skidding on its belly. It's clear that most of the plane is above the runway. The forward motion, and resistance to it, is from the massive engines skidding along the runway. Only the back of the plane near the tail is skidding along. So not enough of the plane (belly) was actually touching the runway to help slow it down. Anyway, just one more observation. Boeing changed the engine design on its newer 737 versions at least 10+ years ago, making them bigger, but more fuel efficient. I wonder how many previous examples of a belly landing with a 737-800 are similar and what were the outcomes.

Why are they still saying it 'veered' off the runway? It didn't veer in any direction. It ran out of runway, continued straight (at speed) across the grass for another 200 metres before colliding with a solid concrete structure in front of the airport's locator transmission assembly. Not a fence. Are these just poor translations from Korean reports, or deliberate misinformation?

The perimiter wall is just built from breezeblocks - not solid. The plane hit a solid concrete wall between the end of the runway and the (relatevely) flimsy perimeter wall. If it hit only the latter, the plane would gone right through it.

You can bet there are several people that work in the management of that airport (or who did when the ILS concrete wall was approved) that are planning a quick getaway before the police show up at their doors. Probably sub-contractor who recommended building the 'protective' ILS wall. This is east Asia, and there is a common approach by authorities in seeking out and quickly arresting anyone involved to show they are on top of the investigation.

No, not that wall. Immediately above in photo the small 30 metre wide solid concrete wall around 200 metres end of runway. That wall.Watch the video of the pilot - very good and explains about both walls.

There is a lot of good info and intelligent questions on this thread. There are people who know what they are talking about from industry experience and those that just speculate. So what. It's a web board. The video of the 737 800 pilot explaining many things is very worthwhile watching. And he also can't understand why they built a concrete wall at the end of the runway. He explains that too. End of the day, there could be many factors at play, but clearly the concrete wall is what ended the lives of nearly 200 people.

In the phone video above (with the apparent bird ingestion), doesn't it look like the plane is climbing (I admit it's a bit hard to tell)? One of the latest witness reports said the plane had already made one attempt at landing and aborted. Maybe it was during a go around that the bird strike happened?

Thing is with all these newer 737s, Boeing changed the engines - bigger and supposed to be more fuel efficient - but their size (and proximity to the runway/tarmac). MCAS (was to prevent unwanted pitch). When you see this video today, the engines are so big they dominate the belly landing, and make the nose/cockpit point up and the tail dragging behind. Not sure if that made a difference to the outcome (e.g. could the pilots see anything when they landed, or just sky).

Now who's speculating?

In 2021, with an income Gini coefficient of 43.3 percent, Thailand still had the highest level of income-based inequality in EAP, and it ranked as the 13th most unequal of the 63 countries for which income Gini coefficients are available Source: World Bank https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/publication/bridging-the-gap-inequality-and-jobs-in-thailand#:~:text=In 2021%2C with an income,income Gini coefficients are available.

Also, the plane did not 'veer' off the runway. It used up all 9,000+ feet of it and then contnued skidding across the grass at the end of the runway before colliding with the structure. Doesn't look like it veered on the grass either. So it wasn't able to slow down, and there doesn't appear to be any foam deployed on the runway - and hitting that structure appeared unavoidable.

The runway at Muan (01/19) is 9,186 feet long. Bangkok average runway length is 13,123 feet long and 197 feet wide (runway 2). Maybe thrust reversers on a 737-800 would be jammed during a belly landing if they are mounted to the engines?

It ran out of runway, onto the grass and hit that wall (is it a barrier or is it an actual building?). Why would there be a solid structure like that so close to the end of the runway? Also, isn't it SOP to foam the runway when a belly landing is unavoidable? Looks like the plane is skidding all along the hard surface of the runway and not slowing at all (no thrust reverse?).

We were in a hired van with driver, curb lane, returning from Hua Hin some years ago when I witnessed a similar thing in heavy traffic moving toward Bangkok out by the factories in the burbs. Woman with small baby riding on the shoulder hit something (not sure what) and cartwheeled through the air next to my window - so did the baby, and the motorcycle. I'll never forget seeing the baby in the air and the weird smile of sort of embarrassment on the woman's face as she cartwheeled next to me. Then they were gone, driver didn't stop, etc.

Having had hundreds of (legit) massages in Thailand through the years, I can tell almost immediately, if I'm going to get a massage from someone well-trained. As soon as the masseuse lays a hand on your feet at the beginning of a Thai massage or foot massage, she (or he) should bend your feet back and forth and then massage the lower legs one by one for a a few minutes. If they, instead, immediately reach for the lotion bottle, I know I'm not getting a foot massage - just an hour of someone slathering my legs with lotion. Once I find a good masseuse trained at Wat Po (or trained by someone who went through that training), I make a note of their name and become a repeat customer. On Thai massage, in a new place, I ask for a one hour massage - if it's good (again I can tell if the first few minutes) I might ask for 90-120 minutes. If not good, I put up with her thumbs digging into me for an hour - and never return.

Hmm, is Thaksin getting too big for his britches again? Maybe, probably (IMO) but depends who you ask. But, hmm, isn't Naew Na the official mouthpiece of the Democrat Party? (LOL: Democrat Party - with a headline 'Who are you?" - indeed).

My understanding is there are only a small handfull of families that control the retail and food/grocer industries in Thailand. The two biggest, the above CP family and the creators of the Central Patanna family are at the top of the heap. The latter (I recall) owns all the Central group of shopping centers and department stores, Robinson, Power Buy, Super Sports, Big-C, Tops, (maybe Villa), B2S, Office Mate, Centara Hotels Group, and many other subsidiairies including property development (office and residential), and many others. The other few of that small handful are Bill Heneke who owns Minor Foods (I think that is KFC, Pizza Company, DQ, others), the family behind the Mall Group (Paragom, Em Quartier, and all the other "M" malls). And a few other super-rich like the Chang liquor baron. At the end of the day, it's quite difficult in the major cities to find any real competition other than the above. There is a second tier that is still way up there, like the owners of hospitality chains (e.g. another hotel groups like Dusit, and food subsidiaries like Tim Hortons).

Interesting, didn't know that. Thanks. So then it's not so bad for most, provided their overseas employer is not paying the individual's salary from funds sourced in the US. Dual nationals would probably gain quite nicely from this if they prove they live and work in a 3rd country (other than Canada, which I think has some treaty with US making it harder to avoid US tax abroad).

As far as I understand it, yes. Curious if you (or others) are getting the UK State Pension and, if so, does UK tax it at source? I read somewhere they don't - but it means filing tax returns each year (and paying back the tax). You or anyone know for sure?

I'm not American, but that is indeed news to me. So you're saying Americans working abroad are exempt from taxation up to USD 99,000 per year? (provided they do some extra paperwork?). Wouldn't that be kind of common knowledge?

Maybe it's the word 'tax resident' - I know what you mean though, you must pay taxes at source if it was earned in your country of nationality. However, I'm not considered a tax resident of my country(ies) for example.. but if I earned money there, regardless of where I am resident, they'd tax it at source.

Thanks for sharing the PWC link. I've read through it before. Not clear if it's up to date though. Also, I still don't understand how the Thai tax authorities would be able to determine if I'm just transfering foreign currency from a passive savings account, or whether it's interest earned from such an account or otherwise. Do they ask to see all your overseas bank account statements? Anyway, we're getting off topic. My fault.

Interesting about capital gains. In my home country, if you are non-resident, interest earned on term bank deposits is not taxed at source there. It's by design - national legislation - because it's what they consider a benign 'armslength' transaction in which the non-resident had no activity. So Thailand shouldn't have any right to tax it either - or maybe they would - we'll find out at some point..