khunjeff

If you're talking about a neighborhood pub with local clientele, you're undoubtedly right. I'm not sure the calculation is the same for nightclubs catering to jet-lagged foreign tourists, who are possibly more interested in enjoying nightlife in an "exotic" country than simply consuming as much alcohol as possible. In reference to the concerns about drunk driving in the article, it's also certainly true that tourists are far, far less likely to be driving to bars than locals.

Good advice, but it's actually called Mobile Passport, and the version from Airside (a private company) was discontinued ten months ago. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) now has its own version, which functions in the same way. Global Entry is even better - with the new facial recognition kiosks, it literally takes less than 30 seconds to get through immigration - but costs $100 for five years, and takes a long time for approval. https://thepointsguy.com/news/mobile-passport-app-is-now-called-cbp-mpc/ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.dhs.cbp.pspd.mpc

Board of Investment - they manage the LTR program.

That's true, and in actuality they seem to be realizing that, sort of. From the beginning they kept talking only about "pension income over 80k", but the BoI person who was interviewed in Chris Parker's YouTube video stated that any kind of income is ok, except wages and tips (i.e., employment income). On the application website, there is a space for retirement income, and then another for "fixed income", which - from the examples provided - really seems to mean something more like "passive income". There have clearly been some misunderstandings regarding foreign retirees, such as the idea that all of them rely on pensions for the bulk of their income, and that they all have individual short term health insurance policies (the reality being that many, especially from the US and from international organizations, have long term group insurance through their former employers). Unlike many Thai bureaucracies, though, the BoI does seem to be learning and adjusting as they go. Let's hope that continues.

I assume they mean "all stakeholders except the foreigners at whom the proposal was aimed"... As many have learned to their detriment, "they" aren't buying property "through" their wives, they are using their money to pay for their wife's property - that distinction seems irrelevant as long as the relationship is going well, but suddenly becomes very important if it goes bad.

Just look in the back of the pickup. Empty? You're good to go ????

Well, you need to register even to see something as simple as arrival and departure information. It now provides wait times for check-in, security, and immigration, but look at these and ask yourself whether the times look realistic based on the numbers waiting...214 people through immigration in nine minutes? Not impossible, but a lot faster than I've typically seen.

- Problem: not enough applicants for the LTR program Solution: remove one of the benefits - Problem: Chinese illegally buying industrial property under false identifies Solution: ban foreigners from legally buying small residential plots - Problem: Thai teenagers drinking alcohol Solution: stop sixty-year-old foreigners from buying drinks in the afternoon The Thai Government continues to address societal issues with focused, almost laser-like precision ????

I personally have never been asked for either a TM-30 or a 90 day report slip when applying for my retirement extensions in Bangkok, but it's probably best to get a TM-30 from your hotel just in case. A lease definitely shouldn't be needed - that's only required for the Non-O application, not for subsequent extensions.

"He pointed out that last year 3% of all Emergency Room (ER) admissions to Thai hospitals were linked to cannabis or marijuana ingestion. That figure, so far, for this year, has risen to 17% or nearly 6 times what it was." Even the 3% figure is absurd, but a claim that 17% of emergency room admissions are linked to weed is utterly ridiculous. Studies in the US have indicated that only about 0.1% of hospital admissions there are caused by marijuana, and there's no reason to think that the situation here would be radically different. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/jul/06/patrick-kennedy/has-marijuana-caused-emergency-room-visits-skyrock/

Not just according to the police, but according to observable reality, as well! I lived there for a year without the police ever needing to inform me that my apartment building really existed.

"The eastern route of the Orange Line runs from the National Cultural Centre to Min Buri, covering a distance of 22.57 km with 17 stations, 10 of which are underground. It is expected to be operational in the next three years." The report fails to mention that construction is actually nearly completed, and the only reason it will take three more years to "be operational" is that this constant bickering over the spoils has pushed the project wildly behind schedule.

The fact that he finds it necessary to say this already speaks volumes.

I really enjoyed those, and they proved that the big players don't have to make cr@p.

It appears that the form is TM-95, but I don't see it on the Immigration or BoI websites - only at https://www.hlbthai.com/thailands-ltr-visa-process-explained/ , which I think may have gotten its info from the Royal Gazette. (Google locates the pertinent PDF on the Gazette website, but won't download it because - surprise - the site doesn't use correct protocols.)

"Easing of Thai Property Ownership Attracts Wealthy International Buyers" More accurately: no, it doesn't.

In over 30 years of traveling to Thailand, I have never seen all the immigration booths manned. In fact, I have very rarely seen more than half manned, even when crowds were flooding back into the duty free area. So if this is real, it would be a massive change. The last time they made this claim, I actually timed the processing for the people ahead of me in the queue. Some - presumably visa-exempt tourists - were indeed finished in 45 seconds. Many others, though (including me, with a reentry permit) took several minutes - so the idea that they can average under a minute per passenger is probably overly optimistic. My experience has been that this "help" consists of hiring pouty teenage interns to shout "passport!" and "boarding pass!" in heavily accented English at people entering the queue.

A quick note on math and statistics - 20% is not "most".

Oh, please - I'll be surprised if even 100 foreigners take them up on this "generous" land ownership scheme.

I guess Pareena thinks that if foreigners want land, they should just do like the local ruling class and take it from national parks?

I'm not worried, just overly eager ????

Absolutely grotesque - and this isn't the first time something like this has happened, either. In any other country there would be an uproar over this incredible waste, but here there's just stoic acceptance ☹️

I submitted my application on October 7, and haven't seen any change at all as of now. There were three holidays during that period, though, so technically only about 12 business days have elapsed.

Clearly, harsh action was taken against this undesirable foreigner ????

Agree totally - it's unbelievable that they would undertake a project of this cost and complexity without having figured out the pricing system in advance. Public transit systems around the world almost always have "prices that are not realistic", in the sense that fares would be unaffordable without a subsidy of some kind. Mass transit seeks to get cars off the street, provide a quick and safe way for millions of people to get to work and school, reduce pollution, etc - it's a public good, not just a business. That having been said, the way they've implemented the fare system on the BTS - where prices vary wildly depending on when and by whom the particular section of track you're riding on was built - makes zero sense. The plan that Chadchart proposed, to maintain lower fares on the extensions than on the legacy network, just continues this confusing and illogical system.