Gecko123

Even setting aside the inequity of the Tory tax cuts, and the fact that trickle-down Reaganomics didn't really work, borrowing in order to stimulate the economy is immoral for two additional reasons. Not only does it shift the burden of repayment unto future generations, but it stimulates the consumption of goods and services which unfairly burdens future generations who will have to contend with the environmental degradation and climate change consequences largely driven by this excess consumption.

If pictures were to be forthcoming we would probably have seen them by now. I would be curious to know however what the OP's wife meant when she said the bride "looks 14 not 17". Was this meant as a compliment on her complexion, or catty speculation that her age may have been inflated to avoid scandal? The reason I ask is because Thai women are often keen estimators of age, particularly of other women.

I'm in the same boat, house is on a meter high dirt foundation. No real risk of flooding in my immediate vicinity, but other areas, not so far away, really got hit last year. There's pretty bad flooding in some areas : Ayutthaya, Si Saket, Khon Kaen. One thing's for sure: these heavy rains and flooding are doing a lot of crop damage, and delaying late rainy season planting. Cassava rots if the field floods for any length of time, and rice doesn't handle floods very well. Corn and sugar seem to do OK. Thing is, ground's already super saturated, so another big storm is probably going to cause a lot of flooding.

The lawsuit spells out in detail exactly why the children were named as defendants. This isn't a case where they were filling in for daddy and unwittingly signing documents which they had no way of knowing whether they were valid or not. There's hard evidence against them that they knew exactly what was going on. Because of DJT's history of overstating his wealth for vanity and political purposes, many people don't understand the real reason the overstatement of assets was done. In a nutshell, the more the assets were inflated, the stronger the Trump organization's financial strength appeared to be, and the more money Trump was able to borrow and at more favorable terms. The amount of money he was able to save hundreds of millions of dollars through these fraudulent manipulations. Most of the loans the Trump organization took out had requirements that the corporation maintain certain debt to asset ratios and make a Statement of financial condition on an annual basis. He met these loan terms by fraudulently manipulating asset values. When Trish James described the amount of fraudulent activity as "staggering" she wasn't exaggerating. They appear to have flagrantly misrepresented the balance sheet at practically every opportunity. Alan Weisselberg wasn't some accounting Svengali who found legal ways to maximize profits. He was the guy with the technical accounting skills that enabled Trump and his kids to defraud people left and right. It's all spelled out in the lawsuit in detail, and I encourage, everyone, especially die-hard Trump supporters, to read it. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/21/read-ag-tish-james-trump-organization-lawsuit-00058030

"I got a bad feeling on this one" This thing looks like it's heading straight for my house. I hear it's gonna dump 10 cm (4 inches) of rain in some areas. How you guys holding up?

I would argue that the expectation probably isn't particularly realistic, and it's not really a question of how many academic credentials your wife may or may not have. The fact is, the aspirational goal many Western men have of making their spouse their "soul mate" or "life partner" who they can discuss "anything" with really isn't shared by many Thai women. To understand why, you have to go back to the...farm. Thailand is an agrarian culture, and relationship models are shaped by that lifestyle. Labor is very much divided: men in the fields, women taking care of the house and looking after the children. Of course, women also do a lot of farm labor, but even that is somewhat gender segregated with men operating heavy machinery (tractors) and performing more strenuous activities, while women predominantly do less strenuous activities such as manual harvesting, planting, weeding and fertilizing. Thus, women work and socialize predominantly with other women, and men socialize predominantly with other men. I'm not saying there's an Islamic-style segregation of the sexes, but there's definitely an invisible line which people are aware of and tiptoe around to some extent. There are also taboos about married people getting too friendly with members of the opposite sex. When Thai men socialize they typically gather into alcohol drinking, card playing, cock fighting type circles, while women tend to gather together for meal preparation, processing agricultural products (like peppers, peanuts, and roselle) or to play cards, gamble, light drink, gossip, etc. The husband and wife are not expected to fulfill a day-in-day-out soul mate role for one another. They're expected to fulfill duties, be faithful to one another, be there for support when needed, but they're not really expected to be available 24/7 as a conversation partner. What I'm trying to convey to the OP and others is that a stay-at-home-hubby who wants to chat all day long (figuratively speaking) with his spouse is likely to drive her crazy simply because it is outside of the framework of how the vast majority of Thai marriages function. Thai marriages seem to be grounded in a pragmatic commitment to fulfilling functional roles rather than any kind of "soul mate" life partner model you might have aspired to or experienced back home. I simply do not see much engagement regarding intellectual, philosophical, religious, psychological, theoretical, touchy-feely, 'getting to know you' relationship building type interactions. Problem solving seems to be the predominant focus of most conversations. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it might be a good thing, maybe even the smart way to go. You can find intellectual stimulation all over the place. I'd encourage people to try to find a variety of avenues to fulfill needs like these, because, again, I don't think the average Thai woman is wired or typically expected to fulfill that role, and trying to force the issue is likely to be a recipe for marital discord.

Can’t hack life in... as in 'was smart enough to look for greener pastures', and 'isn't financially forced to live there in order to scratch out a living', right? the best city in the world ... yeah, like that's a widely held opinion. Maybe if you took an opinion poll of sewer rats. There’s Chiang Mai’s wonderful mountains - if you don’t mind coughing your guts up for half a year... As opposed to what? Coughing your lungs up year round in BKK? When I get off the bus in Mo Chit I immediately taste diesel fumes in my mouth. Sukhumvit? Give me a break. Out here in bumpkin land no need for air conditioning, great 4 way cross ventilation, no urban heat, super quiet at night, no noisy neighbors, no barking dogs, tons of privacy, clean air, burning has been greatly reduced in past couple of years. and the beautiful beaches of the eastern seaboard - covered in layers of trash and discarded syringes... Ahhh, the pristine klongs and waterways of Bangkok are calling Then there’s the oh so friendly villages where there is less than nothing to do except wait for death... Excuse me? I know virtually every single person in my moo ban and am an accepted member of the community. How many people do you know in your condominium? If you need constant entertainment to distract and stimulate yourself, that's your problem, buddy. Mastering French, reading, writing, accomplished cook, great gardener, getting regular exercise here in the countryside. mostly seem to be retirees without any money... Do you really want to go there? This from a quote 'celebrity wannabee' unquote? Financially comfortable, and can still afford to comfortably repatriate to my home country. Can you? They have no alternative but to pretend that living in the sticks is the way to go... Not pretending, buddy. Have done ongoing comprehensive comparisons between numerous other locations both in Thailand and abroad, and where I'm at now steadily maintains its favorable standing. with us sophisticated city slickers... Again, who do you think you're kidding? I visit once or twice a year to repair things and collect the trash that builds up.. I can usually stand it for about 4 days before I’m bored out of my skull and head back to the peace and quiet of northern Bangkok... I shall be taking all my own food.... They live on insects and gristly chicken’s feet... I prefer choice cuts... And tins of Campbell’s soup that can be heated up in a microwave... it’ll be a relief to head back south.... Something tells me the in-laws count the hours before you go back to Bangkok too. They seem to live by the hours of light... That's right, early to bed, early to rise, keeps a man healthy, wealthy and wise. It's a great lifestyle. Try it some time. In Bangkok one can live 24/7... You mean sleep until noon, right? Last time I checked there are 24 hours in the day and 7 days in a week out in the country too.

Bewilderingly offensive and obnoxious.

"I declassified EVERYTHING" - DJT

Barr's main reason for criticizing the lawsuit was because he felt it unfairly dragged Trump's kids into the lawsuit. This criticism ignores their roles in the management of the company and their likely awareness that the books were being cooked. If his adult children are innocent, I am sure that will come out in due course. In the meantime, you don't have to rely on Bill Barr's off-hand remarks to form an opinion about the validity of the lawsuit. You can read it here for yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/21/nyregion/read-trump-suit-james.html From my reading of the lawsuit, it's alleged that Trump systematically overvalued not only his real estate holdings but other assets such as cash and cash equivalents in order to inflate his net worth. This was done: 1) to secure loans and secure them at a more favorable interest rate; 2) to overstate his financial strength in order to win bids on property development projects such as the Postal Dept hotel in DC; 3) to fraudulently satisfy loan covenants regarding financial strength and, 4) to secure surety and Director's and Officer's insurance coverage on more favorable terms. The examples listed in the lawsuit show that Trump played egregiously fast and loose with his financial statements. Maybe it wasn't Enron-level in terms of the dollar amounts involved, but the systematic and long-term nature of the wildly fraudulent misrepresentations that are alleged and disregard for GAAP accounting standards do appear to clearly be willful. In addition, the NY Attorney General made criminal referrals to both the NY Southern District and the IRS. These criminal referrals are related to additional potential banking and tax fraud charges, over and above the civil damages this lawsuit is attempting to recover.

In my opinion that is really twisted reasoning and shows a very poor understanding of why statutory rape and sex with minors is against the law.

An older person taking advantage of a younger person's naïveté, immaturity, or lack of life experience should raise moral issues. Not everyone over the age of consent has the legal capacity to enter into a marital agreement. For example, someone who is intellectually disabled may not have the legal capacity to enter into a marital agreement. While the age of consent is 15, from the ages of 15 up until 18th birthday, the parents of the child can file criminal charges in the event that they disapprove of the sexual relationship. In addition, the child can file charges against the other party if they later regret their own action. That is why parents sometimes demand money or go to the police when they discover sexual activity of their child in their late teens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia#Thailand I had to chuckle imagining the sin sot negotiation. The guy will no doubt want the 10K hush money payment to be considered part of the sin sot, while the girl's parents will want to insist that the hush money payment is separate and not part of the sin sot. 'mai giaw, mai giaw. khit yang nan yom rap mai dai' (ไม่เกี่ยวๆ คิดอย่างนั้นยอมรับไม่ได้) ????

In his Youngstown, OH campaign speech, Trump referred to the investigations of him by the NY State Attorney General Letitia James and the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia Fani Willis as "racist" investigations, an obvious reference to the fact that these two women are African-American. I cannot express in words how despicable I think Trump is for doing this. I watched Trump's Youngstown speech after seeing this Lincoln Project anti-Trump ad. I was so struck by Trump's dark language in the Lincoln Project ad that I wanted to double check to see if he really used such dark language in his speech. He did in fact use this language. Here is a link to the full text of the NY State Attorney's lawsuit against Trump. Does this sound like the lawsuit was racially motivated to you? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/21/nyregion/read-trump-suit-james.html

Never been prouder to have been born in NYC. First time hearing Letitia James speak. Wow! Double wow! Anybody who thinks this is a political hit-job needs to simply listen to the press conference, most of which is devoted to detailing all of the crimes alleged to have been committed. This sounds like a rock solid paper trail case. These are absolutely shocking allegations. Civil case with criminal referrals to NY Southern District and IRS.

Improbabie that: 1) 17 y/o girl would by-pass other younger suitors in favor of 58 y/o man 2) girl would not be under social pressure from extended family, friends in village to break off age-inappropriate relationship. 3) 17 y/o girl would perceive a 58 year old guy catching fish as providing financial security 4) It's also improbable in my opinion that a typical 48 year old village guy would actually want to marry such a young girl. Have sex with her? Sure, of course. But a lot of guys would be leary of the headaches and heartaches such a relationship would likely bring as well. This is all taking place up north while you're down south, right? So, you're hearing all this through wife and other family members. If he's telling everybody he's going to marry the girl and soliciting money for help paying for the wedding, can you really be sure the wedding's actually going to take place? I wasn't suggesting you concocted the story. I was more suggesting that the marriage might be a ruse to get family members to shell out money for a wedding that might never happen. There's a woman who was in maybe 6th grade 20 years ago in my village. I happened to have briefly taught her. She was developmentally mentally slow, but functional. She ended up getting pregnant with a guy who lived in the same cluster of houses, and I suspect he was related to her. That's the only instance of a very young girl marrying someone 30 years her senior I've seen in the time I've been living in rural Thailand. In my opinion, these "keep hope alive" threads about older men marrying teenage brides may fuel relatively harmless lecherous fantasies but they're simply not grounded in reality. As a rule, teenage girls are not marrying 50 year old men in rural Thailand. If you scour the countryside looking for exceptions ,can you find them? Yeah, I suppose, if you make it your life's work. The only explanation I can come up with for this girl's behavior is some type of mental or psychological impairment.

Her parents aren't farmers or counting on her and her new husband to take over the family farm when they're too old. If they were, his age would be a much more serious issue. Would be curious to know how far she got in school. Girl sounds more than a little dingy. Story sounds somewhat concocted, not true to village life. Wouldn't be sending money to help finance the wedding.

Do the pit bull owners on this thread live in Thailand and have homeowner's insurance which covers the dog? I don't care how great a relationship the owner has with his pit bull, I doubt you can ever be 100% certain how it will behave around other people. I'd never own this breed, especially in Thailand, simply because of the potential legal liabilities. Even if you have insurance or can afford to pay a large out-of-pocket settlement, there'd still be lasting resentment and anger towards you about what your dog had done. Why anyone would want to take this risk is beyond me.

baht depreciation + climate change + rising fuel and shipping costs + rising labor costs + price increases just to keep up with all the cost increases going on around you + possibly a "farang food" surcharge = big price increase. If the OP dares to complain, I'll bet they just stop carrying the item. It's meat and dairy that I predict are going to be prohibitively expensive in the very near future because of how much water is needed to produce these products.

These after-the-fact news accounts never do justice to how sophisticated these cons can be, and always make the victim sound like an idiot. I was conned back in college by a very sophisticated team who appeared to be completely random strangers on the street but who were actually working in concert with one another. The school newspaper got a hold of the police report I made and turned me into the campus laughing stock. The reason this "sideline girl" scam works is because the fact that the "Line Group administrator" and the "sideline girl" are working in concert with one another is hidden from the victim, and it doesn't occur to the victim until it's too late that they are working together. The girl putting pressure on the guy to transfer money appeals to his desire to get laid and to not let the girl down. The "Line Group administrator" facade provides the legitimacy of an established entity in order to get the victim to transfer the money. Everybody thinks they're too smart to fall for these type of scams until the day that they do.

Top photo is maak luang (หมากเหลือง) yellow palm. Yellow color in older growth fairly normal, may yellow more than usual in rainy season or in strong sunlight. Middle tree looks pretty normal and healthy. Bottom tree does not look healthy to my eye. The collapsed spines and browning of lower fronds and the splayed and uneven height of top fronds make me think it may have a beetle infestation that may be in the process of killing the tree, but that's just a guess.

That's a li lao di tree (ต้นลีลาวดี). Totally normal for it to drop its leaves. Leaves drop here and there around the year but around once a year it loses all of its leaves before new growth starts again. Absolutely no reason to panic or be alarmed.

Feed truck: Inattentive driving, grossly negligent failure to slow down to avoid hitting motorcycle. Excessive speed for road conditions, note construction activity. 100% legal liability for accident. Pickup truck: Poor defensive driving skills. Feed truck approaching 3 wheel motorcycle at excessive speed should have caused pickup driver to brake sharply in anticipation that truck might be forced to move into oncoming traffic. Especially given number of passengers in vehicle, pickup driver should have erred on side of caution in order to protect safety of passengers. Motorcycle: Legally on the road, appears to be completely not at fault.

India has great geopolitical importance to the West. Something Indian bashers on this forum might want to reflect upon.

My deathbed message to the world would be: "Don't ever let anyone inhibit your intellectual curiosity."

Below article does a good job of explaining BOT's thinking on interest rates and currency valuation. They seem to be doing a juggling act between: (1) making sure capital outflows (due to low interest rates compared to US) don't start cascading; (2) keeping interest rates low to keep the economy's recovery on course, and (3) the need to raise interest rates in order to tackle inflation. The reason why the baht is depreciating is almost entirely due to the growing interest rate differential between Thailand and the US. The US is aggressively raising rates while Thailand is totally dragging its feet. Obviously, tackling inflation is not the highest priority and I worry that the BOT may not be paying sufficient attention to this problem which is really hitting the lower classes hard. On the other hand it should be pointed out that the weakening baht provides a big boost to Thailand's important tourism sector. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/12/thailand-says-it-can-slow-rate-hikes-one-economist-says-its-a-gamble.html