newnative

Which prompted Donald Trump to make his infamous statement regarding proposals to make voting easier: 'They had things, levels of voting that if you'd ever agree to it you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again.'. Republicans are still trying to suppress the vote with over 60 tactics that have been identified by the Voting Rights Alliance, an organization founded to protect voter rights.

Yes.

I missed that one. I'll have to check it out! Thanks!

One of my favorite authors with his Travis McGee series. I do remember reading Condominium when it came out all those years ago. And, here we go again.

The wait is due to American voting these days. What's taking so long is counting the large numbers of mailed-in ballots. You remember that dunce Trump thought he had won election night because he was ahead, in some cases, with election day voting. That was especially evident in Pennsylvania, which hadn't even started to count mailed-in votes, which heavily-favored Biden. Trump still lies that Pennsylvania was 'stolen' from him. The vote also takes longer because votes mailed-in on election day must also be counted in many places--so there is a wait for them to even be delivered. If a race is a blow-out a winner can be projected, knowing that the mailed-in ballots won't make a difference. This is not the case with races like the Nevada and Arizona Senate and a number of the House races. I've looked at a number of the undeclared House races and found leads of only a few thousand votes, sometimes only a few hundred. In those races, every absentee and mail-in vote does, indeed, need to be counted, which takes time.

SOP for the biggest grifter in the world.

And may it grow and fester.

Traditionally, the party with the sitting President loses big in the mid-terms. Trump lost 40 House seats in 2018, for example. At one point McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, was predicting a pick-up of 60 Republicans in the House--that's how confident the Republicans were of a huge red wave. And, who could blame them for their confidence. Unpopular President with low approval ratings. High inflation. Rising interest rates impacting mortgages. Economy worries. Stock market down. Crime worries. All issues that should have been tailor-made for the Republicans to go to town with and give Biden the same 'shellacking' they gave Obama in his first mid-term election in 2010. Losing the House and possibly the Senate certainly can't be seen as a victory. I think for many Democrats it's more a case of breathing a huge sigh of relief that it was not nearly as bad as it could have been, and should have been given mid-term history. They can take some cheer that some of Trump's hand-picked candidates did not deliver; that candidate quality still means something to many voters. They can be buoyed that the electorate showed some signs that it might be starting to tire of all the destructive divisiveness in politics today; nice to see that whack job Lauren Boebert not having an easy go in her re-election effort and Madison Cawthorn not even making it to the general election. A few rays of hope. While breathing that sigh of relief, Democrats need to be taking a hard look at Florida and asking themselves what they have done--or not done--that has caused this highly important state to move from one classified as a battleground state to the red column. Florida population demographics should be at least keeping the state competitive; that it's turned red is a clear sign the Democratic party has been failing, and is still failing, to win over enough Floridians to keep it competitive.

Total much ado about absolutely nothing. Had it passed, you likely would have been able to count the number of takers using just your fingers and not your toes. Huge investment required, only tiny areas of the country allowed to buy in, and only tiny amount of land allowed to buy. Laughable.

Put him in jail and assign him to be the prison doctor.

And so the cycle comes to its predictable end.

The perception for some is that Pattaya consists of Walking Street, Soi 6, some other bar areas, and that's it. If you actually live here year-round you'll know that is not the case at all. You'll also know that the 'tourist parts' are scattered all over Greater Pattaya, not just one area. Some tourist spots we spend no time at, others we do. We've so far skipped the water parks but we've been to Nong Nooch Gardens at least 4 times and will likely go again sometime. No to all the golf courses but we've had some great boat trips, snorkeling, and island visits. In our 12 years here we've walked on Walking Street I think just once, when we first moved here. We've cut through Soi 6 a few times by car to get to Beach Road when we lived at Centric Sea. Nothing against WS, Soi 6, or the other bar areas, it's just not how we spend our time. As scubascuba3 has said, there's lots of other things to do. We didn't transform into different people when we moved to Pattaya--just as we don't when we spend part of the month in Bangkok. In reality, our lives here are not that different from what they were in the US--except we live better here and the weather is great year-round.

Yes

As a previous poster stated, people are more likely to complain about something than to take the time to say things are good. And, things are good, at least for this Pattaya resident and my Thai partner. Usually one of the biggest monthly living expenses is keeping a roof over your head. That hasn't changed much. If you own, your condo or house is likely paid for and fees and taxes are a bargain compared to many places in the West. Rents decreased a lot during covid and while they have started to rise, there are still lots of bargains available, too. Certainly, prices on some consumer goods have gone up--true not just in Pattaya--but living in this great city with all it offers remains very reasonable.

So, proposal...political opposition scorn...bad publicity...proposal adjusted...more political opposition scorn... more bad publicity...proposal walked back with more possible adjustments. Next stop...cancellation. Don't you just love it, though. Likely very few takers at 40 million baht but let's make it even more onerous by possibly changing the proposal and more than doubling it to 100MB. Clueless that the amount invested requirement isn't the issue. The political opposition is making hay on the idea of selling Thailand to foreigners, not the price.

I agree. They use the same counting methodology year after year for international visitor arrivals so you get an accurate snapshot of how one year is doing vs. previous years. 2019 was almost 40 million. 2021 was less than 500,000. It's true that 'visitors' can be tourists, business people, workers, short and long term foreign residents, etc.--but that's the case for the statistics for every year. It's pretty easy to see that 2019 was great and 2021 was dismal. 2022 will fall somewhere between the two. Other statistics break the numbers down by regions and countries. It's often posted on the Forum that western visitors to Thailand were way down even before covid. That's a perception that's simply not true. Of the countries with visitor numbers large enough to be tracked, only Australia and Singapore had very slight drops in numbers, pre-covid. I don't put any stock in this or that tourism bureaucrat making predictions on tourist numbers but I think the official published statistics by TAT are the best data we have regarding visitor numbers. I always use the example that I don't think they 'cook the books' because they show an embarrassing drop in visitor numbers in 2014, the year of the military coup. They could have easily fudged the numbers that year to curry favor, but they didn't. Ditto for the tiny 430,000 visitors in 2021, which doesn't exactly make TAT look good in their efforts to attract international visitors.

I think for lots of people things are not 'as drastic in the West as the media would have you believe...'. That doesn't mean there aren't people who are hurting--lots of those, too, of course. But, there are a sizeable number of people in the US who have reasonable retirement incomes and have mostly been stuck at home for two years. The median 2021 income for US households aged 65 to 74 is over $50,000 and the mean income is over $73,000. Most of the huge 'baby boomer' population has hit retirement age and many have had a good income during their careers and some have also inherited money from their parents. That's the situation with my five siblings in the US, assorted relatives, and all the friends I know that are also around my same age. They're all doing ok financially. I know for me, I like to travel and I feel like I lost two years of international travel; I'm looking to make up for lost time. I doubt I am alone in wanting to get out and see some more of the world while I am still able to.

So, foreigners were managing to spend 50 billion baht pre-covid on property purchases without the supposed 'easing' of thai property ownership. In reality, there's little in the way of 'easing' at all, certainly nothing new that the average Joe could take advantage of. I suspect the vast majority of foreigners wanting to buy property--either condos or houses--will continue to use the mechanisms that have already been available for their purchases.

Phase 2 of using this non-issue as a vote-getter--add more ridiculous and scary but untrue claims that the average voter will not verify. Meanwhile, it looks like the terms of the proposal are getting even more onerous, resulting in the number of people actually taking advantage of it going from tiny to teeny tiny. Much ado about nothing.

Dogs and condos. . . no.

Deport him, he gives all us Farangs a bad name.

Perhaps, but I think foreign property developers are already here. The housing project where I live has recently been bought out by a Chinese developer who has started to build new houses on the remaining undeveloped land in the project. At one of the condos I lived at, a hotel was built next door by developers from India. I suppose they both have some paper Thai partners in the background somewhere. I think with all the restrictions, especially in land size and restricted, specified locations, foreign developers will continue to use other means. But, we'll see.

Exactly true. He was only interested in passing one piece of legislation--a tax cut for himself--which he did. After that he lost interest and it was endless rounds of golf and countless lying tweets. His repeatedly promised health care reform? Never happened. Just a term of lies and disruption.

This is so laughable. One political party has proposed this land policy and another political party has decided it can make a big political issue out of it--and win lots of votes. Likely true. The fact that very few people will actually take advantage of this ridiculous one rai land policy with far too many very expensive strings attached to it is beside the point--that will all get lost in the shouting back and forth. The typical Thai voter will not know or care about all the deal-breaker, onerous details of the policy or that it only allows one rai per person. Rather, it will end up being boiled down to this political party wants to sell Thailand to foreigners while that political party is against it. A lot of fighting over something really so unimportant.

Two key points in your post: '...in compliance with the regulations...'. And: 'An owner of a condo in possession of a hotel licence...'. Certainly, if they have a hotel license they can rent for less than 30 days. How many condo owners illegally doing daily rentals have a valid hotel license? If they own in a project legally registered at the Land Office as a condominium, I think the answer is likely zero. So, no hotel license means they are not 'in compliance with the regulations'. Batting 0 for 2 with your points. Many condominium projects also have condo by-laws that prohibit short-term rentals.