Jonathan Swift

Look up how punitive damages are assessed based on the net worth of the defendant. Punitive means the punishment has to be severe enough to hurt and to deter further such actions.

Just a sec, I'll check everything. Oxygen, good. Airflow good, reasonably tight. Toilet and stink? Well I guess I'll have to call for professional help on that.

Ignoring reality seems to be a lot of people's favorite pastime.

Makkasan noon today, strong winds fixed it

Firework Incident on Pattaya Beach "Sparks" Legal Action Well, that's a pretty inflammatory headline

Confirmed by numerous credible experts that it is true and definitely not nonsense, but do as you will as far as your taxes are concerned. You should refrain from posting false information simply based on your interpretation.

As far as I'm concerned what I was told came from reliable and knowledgable experts who have stayed on top of this and have confirmed their information directly.

A Thai tax expert told me that exempt income need not be declared and no return needs to be filed

Remember folks, no legitimate authority or bank will ever ask for ANY personal information either by phone, text, or email. Hang up immediately, after you tell them to get eƒƒed

If you mean that the whole world is full of scams including Thailand, yes. But Thailand has no more than any other country, most of these scams are from other countries.

For what it's worth, I confirmed that immigration will not get involved in requiring a tax return for each visa extension. I also consulted with a local tax professional and was told that persons with exempt income such as US Social Security don't have to file.

It's not that big a stretch to assume that they have seen enough drownings to know what they look like. No bruises, obvious injuries, or struggle would tend to support that. OR, maybe they meant that it was a likely drowning, pending a thorough autopsy.

Sad when foreigners walk blindly into such things without remembering that this is Thailand, and almost anywhere else in the world has better and safer investment opportunities.

Well, 2 things. 1.) Airport prices are always astronomical. 2.) American franchises are already high priced even outside airports. Chances are that the price of the extras were on the menu but she failed to check and assumed they were cheap or free. Too bad people get caught unaware. I never buy food at American branded franchises. That’s not why I came here. Lastly, hearsay stories often get exaggerated with each retelling.

If I were naivé I might think that someone wants to try to unify the populace. Rather, these are the shiftings and ups and downs of the balances of power.

Yup. Jeez, am I actually starting to understand this stuff? I think I'm reading too much news

You get what you pay for. I had bad luck with an external drive that used a fake model brand and imitated a Samsung product. They are good about refunds, but why waste your time?

Any hardware can be configured to read fake specs, especially thumb drives. There's no way to lower the cost of basic processors or memory and still have high capacity. What I do is open a translation to English tab and copy/paste the Thai descriptions and reviews. Bear in mind that most customers are not tech savvy and may not even know they bought trash.

Sometimes even though I'm as cynical as the rest of you guys something is better than nothing. The theory is simple and sound. It's always about the money. If it costs the banks more to be recklessly greedy and place customers at risk than to implement effective security we know which way the wind will blow. And since it's always about the money, if Thailand gets a reputation for people losing money to their banks' incompetence the government may be inclined to actually do this. So through my rose colored glasses I see a win/win situation. The only things that might stand in the way are stubborn government stupidity and brown envelopes. We will be waiting with bated breath. Let me add, and I have no idea to what extent it's already been done, I think a massive public education campaign should accompany this. Cheers and happy new year.

No doubt at which time when heII freezes over we can all go skating

Brilliant comment. Maybe if you wore a shirt that said “I’m not Russian”, or maybe a tattoo across your forehead, you’d then be safe. Or, if you were nice and respectful to Thai people they might like you, you’d find out they don’t think the way you think they do, and you’d feel safer.

Poor guy. Going home to bed at midnight. Is Pattaya turning into America? Sounds like a bunch of cowardly predators had their eye on the old guy as a frail and easy target.

Sounds like you may have spent your share of nights sobering up in jail, so those of us who know our limits and how to behave in public are now looking down our prissy common sense noses at your comment. Common sense is something you seem to have confused with being unforgiving and puritanical. You should have asked Santa for a dictionary for xmas. Not all drunken behavior is bad behavior. We know that, do you even know the difference? Some people who drink actually know how to behave. Ponder that. Pattaya, and the world in general, can do without drunken fools whose behavior causes nothing but problems for responsible people having a harmlessly good time, who may or may not be drunk. Capisce?

Could be. Or just emotionally incapable of dealing with it. Lots of things