4MyEgo

Bring back Division 21, the Yellow Pages was their favorite knuckle duster, just ask my late brother.

So Mrs Smith doesn't want you to go, will you be taking her with you or just dumping her ? I think the problem you have here Bob, is your bored, I don't involve myself with Thai's unless it's required, never had an issue with them, only on the roads, but I expect that, so just anticipate and bit my bottom lip, i.e. go with the flow, it doesn't hurt, really. Racism is worldwide, Xenophobia boils down to education, I'm surprised you would stoop to their level, if in fact you believe that they are Xenophobes ? As for losing property, business and family, that will be your choice, won't it, do you care about anyone else except yourself Bob ? Don't get me wrong, there are times we all blow up and just want to FO, but when there is family involved, you have to calm down, and re-set. A normal country, m8, tell me where there is a normal country, you have it so good here that you can't see it. The sooner you realise you live in a Matrix, the better you will be, get a hobby, or two and if your going to fly the coop, take the Mrs with you, as for the family, can't comment on that, not sure if your talking extended family or what. Life's too short Bob open up the windows in the morning and suck in that fresh smoky air as you won't get it anywhere else.

I have never liked or agreed with Anutin on any matter, but on this one, put him in jail, let the son at him with a baseball bat, while suing the fkr for medical costs and compensation, that is, if he has anything to his name and then deport him after 5 years once monies have been received.

This is misleading and deceptive news, because the government every year around this season says it's from neighboring countries. Surely the government can't be wrong, can they ?

Strange looking Brit, oh well, guess he has assimilated as he sure does wing like a Pom 😂

Yep, I was also very average at school, you could say below average as I just wasn't interested, and home work, never got any of that, straight after school would go to the local Caltex petrol station were I would work from 4pm to 9pm 5 days a week, just so that I could buy me some nice clothes and go out with my friends on the weekends dancing as my parents were mostly workers and seldom home to make ends meet. The typical western life today, nothings changed. I left school at the end of year 10 at the age of 16 and did various jobs till I landed a (secure) government job were I stayed for 10 years as a relief, so I got to travel around the state a lot to cover positions where people were taking annual leave, long service leave etc. It was fun, but I needed something more, I then I entered into real estate when I was 28, and did 2 separate night time courses, 3 nights a week for 3 years each to get my Diploma's, it was a struggle, but had support from friends that I met along the way throughout the courses. I also drove taxi's on weekends for extra cash to help me service my investments that I purchased (real estate). So in the end, I achieved what I wanted to achieve, a 6 figure salary to help me service my investments which helped me retire at 55 and now earn a comfortable tax free income living here. To this day, my friends back home who are still working to survive are constantly complaining, they have all been here, but don't have the means to make it as they only worked to survive, sad really. Moral of the story, invest, invest, invest so as to reap the rewards. Never considered myself to be smart, albeit I do consider myself to be street smart and if there is one thing that I have learned from all the work & studying that I did, is that salaries are for survival only, i.e. unless you invest in either real estate and or shares, or both or some other form of other investment, you will end up on the age pension counting your pennies vs having more, to do the things you want in life. The above said, I have known people with different degree's, however they lacked experience at the coal face, and to me those people that I have met, I consider not to be smart at all when it comes to being able to do things outside the book, there personalities were also bland, they also didn't look for or wanted to know how to invest, suffice to say, if one is able to adapt to all sorts of environments, take the leap, while having a good time and a having a laugh along the way, while also having good social skills and wanting to learn other things, life can be easier in the long run. Would I do things differently if I had to do it over again, you can bet your left one on that, and would have retired earlier as life's too short.

So what do you do when someone refuses to serve you, you move on and give your money to someone worthy of it. Businesses that discriminate have their day coming, as they won't be in business for long. End of story.

Well done, rent is dead money, and makes it not feasible to return for the 2 years to have the Age Pension portable, it is the only country in the world that does this, and gets away with it, suffice to say, all options have to be considered, sadly for most, who have no other source of funds, if they return, it will be a $hitty existence for those 2 years. For those that don't have the funds like GregBow to purchase a unit to save on the loss of rent, which means they will hardly have anything left from the Age Pension to live on, forget renting in (Sydney/Melbourne) as the Age Pension won't make it for a one bedroom apartment. @GregBow you seem to have it sorted, as your Age Pension will be reduced minimally as having investments attracts a reduced Age Pension, e.g. if you have $450k in investments, they reduce your pension by $10,150 a year, about 40%, but with your $100k after applying for SAPTO you should have nothing reduced. Good luck with your new life and if you do decide to return here after 2 year, if you rent, remember, there goes your pension basically, and you won't be able to claim any outgoings on your property as you will be a resident of Thailand after 180 days, then you have the Capital Gains Tax to pay down the track. Ah the lucky country.

No insult GG, just stating the facts, you mentioned that you go to the gym, and you also box, and you have mentioned you saw some guys in a 7/11 store harassing someone in Pattaya if memory serves me, but a gun, now now GG, man up, duck and weave. Me jealous, oh come on m8, you can do better that that.

Why am I here. 1) Not having to work 14-16 hour days, if you can call that work (slave to the workforce). Whereas now I chose to wake up what time I want, usually 6.00am inbuild alarm, go for a walk for as long as I like before it gets to hot. 2) I don't have to pay the government taxes for the income that I earn from my own nest egg that I built up my entire life. 3) Living in a house that I can only dream of living in back home, just to think that it would cost me at least 70,000,000 baht for the same house, on the same land size, with the same frontage in an average area, but with neighbours at every boundary and across the road, makes me appreciate living here even more, on top of the fact that it only cost me about 3% of the above figure, or 2.2 million baht with the land. 4) Cost of living is much cheaper. 5) Women are more prettier, leaner and more friendlier. I could go on, but don't wish to drag this on, that said, there are some negatives as well, but when you weigh it all up, here I am, with no regrets.

Do you mean all of that gym work and boxing won't help you, hmmm, you must be a midget then.

Perhaps they should promote her to Tourism Minister.

I have worked in various government departments over the years and brought amalgamated staff in other departmental staff in similar roles to be intergrade into fast track systems with a little tweaking, not hard at all if you have a good look at what is waste. Flicking open one page and just stamping a book is not what I implied, what I implied is a doable upgrade of existing staff with slight training to bring them up to speed while eliminating a lot of unnecessary repetitive paperwork at immigration officers throughout the country. Once the repetitive paperwork is eliminated, and staff brought up to speed (retrained), you would have less immigration officers sitting on their rear ends paper shuffling which is a waste, by doing that, you would sent them on their very way to Swampy and other airports to reduce waiting times for those entering the country, while at the same time saving the government 800 new positions, therefore reducing wastage, time and more money to be allocated through bigger budgets. You believe what you want to believe.

But she wasn't Thai.

Lol, how hard can it be to stamp a passport, that's basically what they do all day, apart from shuffle paper IMO.

Good luck Bob

Sorry to be bearing bad news, but besides HK & GG there aren't many real friends here for you to choose from

Are you suggesting that these immigrations officers at domestic locations around the country cannot support queues at airports, if placed there permanently, thus reducing their paper shuffling/boring duties when reduced to a mere few pages ? A transfer of many would be a solution to the problem, as opposed to creating 800 new positions, e.g. training new staff etc etc. The whole system requires an overhaul and I feel that this would be a permanent solution to a waste of resources and time for many expats living here and tourists arriving here having to wait in long que's, not to mention saving countless trees in the process.

We keep leading him to water, but.......... Maybe he will find his own way and enter the water (deep end) unbeknown to him after taking one step ends up in deep and starts screaming help, help, help, with no one coming, until, just maybe until, he says "I was WRONG".......then maybe, just maybe someone will gives a rats a$$ and save him, but, easier to just turn a blind eye, as a dog doesn't change it's spots, does it ?

Imagine if they reduced the paperwork requirements for Retirement and Marriage extensions, i.e. reduced to a photo copy of passport page with photo and bank letter/statement, pay fee. I wonder what the immigration officers would have to do then, hey, relocated to Swampy (promotion) to tackle the crowds, genius, but that would mean work and less/zero split of any tea money previously had. Oh well, was worth a thought.

Sometimes it not the staffs fault, it's managements. Been there, done that. I remember being a contractor for the NAB, I was required to do no more than 30 requests per day, I was getting 250 per day at times, desktop phone wouldn't stop ringing, I soon learnt how to take it and leave it off the hook. National General Manager flew in one day to see what's going on as there were a few complaint's so to speak. He asked how things were going, trying to get a gist of things, I said, watch, as I put the desktop phone handle back onto the phone and showed him my daily screen of requests, his eyes lit up and said let's go for a coffee. Went for a coffee, he said, how many are you doing a day, I said, about double +, he said do you think you could ramp it up, I said, I am already ramping it up and doing 4 hours O/T a day, I'm burnt out as it is, he said our budget doesn't allow for more staff, with my reply being, well, I will keep doing what I am doing, but I'm not cutting any corners because if it hits the fan (risk factor), I will end up wearing it, so I can understand what the staff at HO Canberra are going through. I threw the towel in a month later, burnt myself out and the manager was up my rear end and everyone else's (permanent staffs), and then one day, he had a go at me in front of everyone, when I simply turned around and said, you don't talk to me like that, I am not staff, why don't you spend more time in the office helping out everyone instead of spending your time on the golf course with your mates higher up, every knows what's going on, besides, now you've got more reason to spend it in the office helping everyone out because I quit. Not long after, I heard 2 more staff left before the ship went under. I wonder if their budget went up to employ more people, not to mention how long it would take them to be trained to do the work competently.

Interesting, as I don't see this on my App or my laptop. That said, both show PayID fee which is zero, e.g. I transfer from my bank to Wise, however the drop down box allows me to choose a different payment method, and that is when there are charges, i.e. Debt Card and Credit Card, the latter is 2.5 X more expensive than the Debit Card. Just wondering why this is not on my App, but then again, I don't transfer from GBP, maybe that has something to do with it ?

Maybe the men don't go south ?

Looks like Velcro gloves will be back in fashion real soon as the humble Kiwi goes back to.......

I hope this doesn't spread and becomes to; returning former residents have a 2 year waiting period before they can receive the Age Pension.