khunjeff

This was published in The Hill as an opinion piece, not a news article. In the end, contrary to the writer's wishes, the Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Administration, on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue.

Perhaps when AoT issues its constant stream of self-aggrandizing press releases it can first check to see whether they make sense? Because this one is incomprehensible.

1) He was certainly in violation of labor laws, but no, he wasn't taking jobs from anyone. If he was able to charge high prices for nine years, even surviving through the pandemic, I think it's clear that there was a demand for his specific talents. 2) The claims that he was "taunting" or "challenging" the police are not backed up anywhere in these articles - or are the "journalists" just implying that openly running an illegal enterprise constituted a challenge to authorities?

I'm all for promoting and preserving traditional handicrafts, but that will have exactly zero effect on economic growth.

Yes, but this is the headline: "HBO Picks Thailand as Location for Season 3 of "The White Lotus""

Seriously?? It's not the conflict that threatens the people's confidence - it's the police themselves.

Wasn't this announced months ago?

They are not going to monopolize the industry, and they're not trying to do so. Zero dollar and scam tours are only a niche market, albeit a profitable one. China has been fighting zero dollar tours for years because they exploit and cheat tourists who don't know what they're getting into. Thailand, on the other hand, doesn't appear to care about the effect on the exploited tourists at all, but only about national image, taxes, and lower profits for local businesses. Note that all ten scam companies had been licensed by the government. How would a tourist know that a properly licensed firm was not legitimate? How did these companies get licenses in the first place?

"In the initial five months of the year, more than 50 foreign tourists applied for compensation, with seven cases approved, including four fatalities and three injuries, resulting in payouts amounting to approximately 4 million baht. There remains about 45 million baht from the originally approved 50 million baht budget." https://aseannow.com/topic/1330015-tourism-ministry-seeks-1-billion-baht-for-new-routes/

Alternatively, BoI could recognize that the plain meaning of "unlimited" does indeed include the number "$50K". Just a thought 😁

I must pass this fascinating bit of information to my many Chinese-American friends who are married to non-Chinese 🙄

"The net growth of new factories has also slowed, with the number of new factories opening minus those closing dropping to 50 per month, a sharp decline from the previous average of 150 per month." So if these figures are accurate, the number of factories is actually increasing, not decreasing. https://www.thailand-business-news.com/corporate/146599-thai-industries-face-challenges-from-chinese-competition-and-minimum-wage-increase

I don't get it. The story below says that he was at Sunthorn's new house in Thailand, and even spoke to media there... https://aseannow.com/topic/1329354-former-deputy-interior-minister-vatana-returns-home-after-16-years-in-hiding/?utm_source=240610-11

Foreigners can already vote in an AGM and their vote is the same as Thai owners. The question was not about how things are now, but how they would be under the proposed amended law:

So, which is it? I had always heard 30 years, with no guaranteed extension.

Never...

So actually the number of factories is increasing, not decreasing, meaning this is a completely invented "crisis"...

The US Embassy did not spell "honoring" with a "u"... 😉

Actually, exchange rates are normally quite good. At this moment, the Visa rate (which I would get from using my foreign debit card at an ATM here) is 36.61 THB/USD, only marginally lower than the SuperRich cash rate of 36.67. And the fees and charges are dependent on your bank. If your card has no foreign exchange fee and refunds all ATM fees - as mine does - then the "service charges" are zero.

That's been part of the Suvarnabhumi master plan from the beginning - supposedly the two terminals will be linked by one or more rail lines.

I've never had to go as far as requesting a refund through Shopee itself. Each time I've had an issue - wrong item sent, item missing, counterfeit, item not as described - I've contacted the seller via the Shopee chat function to discuss it. More than 90% of the time, the seller has apologized and immediately either sent me a refund or sent out the correct item. On only a couple of occasions was the seller stubborn, arguing about the issue even when they were demonstrably wrong. Once I got tired of the argument, I would just say, "ok, forget it, I'm sending this to Shopee and letting them decide", and the seller would suddenly decide to return my payment. (And only once did the seller even want me to return the counterfeit item - I didn't feel like waiting for someone to come collect it, so I just walked over to Kerry myself with the prepaid address label.)

He's incorrectly conflating zero dollar tours with the economic concept of "dumping". In a dumping situation, an entity sells below cost and takes losses now with the intent to drive competitors out of business, so that the seller can enjoy monopoly profits later. Zero dollar tours may sell the airfare/hotel package below the actual cost, but they do so knowing that they will make back the loss through kickbacks from the stores where the suckers are forced to buy expensive garbage. Overall, they make money on every tour - that's the point. They have no need or desire to push legitimate travel companies into bankruptcy.

That's the constant claim by the Thai travel industry, and is obviously untrue. These tour groups are not shipping in their own food or bringing their own beds and hotels from China, they are buying goods and services in Thailand from local companies. If the businesses here happen to be illegally owned by foreigners through nominees, that's a separate matter from the zero dollar tours issue.

Or abstained. There were 18 abstentions, so my math was wrong - 152 participated by voting or abstaining, and 98 weren't there at all.

Since there are 250 senators, this seems to indicate that over 100 of them didn't even bother to show up for the vote.