timendres

Working provides a path to permanent residence. The path is very expensive, in my opinion, for its limited benefits. You have to be sure that your salary meets the minimum (I believe 60k per month), and you need that for three years. Then you will likely part with somewhere between 300k and 1M baht to complete the process, depending on how you do it. The one big benefit for permanent residence is the ability to purchase land, if I recall correctly. As for citizenship, I am not sure, as I have never looked into it.

Unless you have a real need to work, the retirement extension is vastly superior to a work permit extension. The work permit does provide some small advantages, for instance in terms of opening bank accounts or qualifying for a real credit card. But the cost and hassle is hardly worth those small perks.

The Amity treaty does not change the 1 WP = 4 Thai employees requirement. What it does allow is for an American to own 100% of their company (minus a tiny percentage for the other required shareholders). In the case of my company, I owned 99.5% of the company, and my brother and a friend (both American) owned 0.25% each.

I have hired 5 Silprakorn graduates, and all were excellent employees. All spoke English. Some better than others, but all sufficient for work. That said, universities here could all use some improvement.

US police have no "power of prosecution". None. SEC is a regulatory agency. Hence, it can negotiate fines for breaking regulations. But anything that is criminal must be handed to a court of law. And there is no "on the spot" fines that are not illegal. This is why I inform friends that in the US you shut up until you have an attorney, but in Thailand you want to avoid getting to the attorney stage. In the US, you want to pursue justice in a court. In Thailand, you want to avoid ever going to court.

Met several Aussies here, some clients of my company, others not. All of the Aussies I have met have been really cool people. But I met none of them in a bar.

I do not know of any "pay to the police" option in the US that is anything short of illegal.

Wow.

Pretty skewed statistical sample, don't you think? What do you think the percentage would be testing patrons at an event at the temple? [ actually, now that I think about it, maybe it would be 70%! 555 ]

I believe the reason he stated he can read DM's, but not reply, is because there is an information lockdown. Simple messages from a war zone can unintentionally reveal sensitive information.

If you can find someone who is willing to assist you, 500 THB per day is reasonable.

Oh thank God! I was starting to worry that @scottiejohn was about to ignite the Spanish Linkquisition.

"this is only done through an agent" answers the question. There is no such thing as a 15 month extension based on retirement. Does not exist. Hence, whatever your "agent" was doing can probably only be done with that agent. I suspect the "immigration shakeup" earlier this year (with the Chinese mafia fiasco), caused whatever "channel" the agent was using for this to disappear. It was never a proper extension.

As I have been told many times by my attorneys, "get the proper insurance". Insurance is the only solution for "what if...?" Price some insurance that will cover your worst nightmares. Then build the cost of that insurance into the rent.

Typical "western" mentality. I am sure that would make the entire situation so much better. Not. If she was out doing Yaba and hanging out with miscreants, then sure. But this is a working Thai woman trying to handle a desperate situation. What she needs is assistance, not incarceration.

I resemble that statement.

I live like I am going to die tomorrow. Unfortunately, that is working out to be a disaster.

Or, 3. The VPS running the platform is seriously humping to rebuild the site's metadata and such, which takes cycles away from feeding pages.

I'm a boomer. I love Songkran. The memories I have are priceless. This year my brother came for his first Songkran. It was fantastic! Still, three days is plenty of time.

And everyone wonders why my backpack is so cylindrical and heavy...

Blood donors are the "invisible" saints among us. It is difficult to imagine the modern medical establishment without them.

As I understand the OP, the "charge" is paid for by the recipients of the blood, not by the donors. As it should be. I would certainly not complain about 2,100 THB for life saving blood if I needed it.

Perception?!

About 8 years ago, companies like mine were all notified that the Business Software Alliance was "on the prowl", and we were informed to review all company computers for pirated software, and that we could expect some sort of "inspection" by that organization at some point. How, and under what authority, these inspections were to be conducted was not explained. The inspection never happened, and I believed the notice was the entire "attempt" by the BSA. In other words, "these notices will cause some XX% of compliance for the least possible expense". It was a 6 month phenomenon, and never heard of again.

Actually, in the AJ report (if I remember correctly), action was initiated to extradite the German back to Thailand to face the charges. Will have to see how that unfolds. But, if he is extradited, I doubt he will be getting a refund on the bribe.