Presnock

well I retired here after being assigned to the Embassy 4 different times (1st in1972-73, final 2003-2005) My first wife died of breast cancer, had no reason to get married again and me my wife who had a restaurant - we have a college girl now - If one has a child here, I recommend an international school ( daughter graduated knowing well 4 differen languages Chinese, Korean, Thai and English) that sends grads to the home country of whatever dual nationality. Our daughter had scholarships and accepance in the US but wife's visa was delayed so daughter opted for the #1 university in Thailand and is doing well. She was selected to participate in an exchange program with a top Korean University for her Junior year. She is very mature, spent term breaks from university here taking classes at top Korean universities for the same degree and plans on her masters in Korea. She is also a computer wizzard and is taking online courses from Korean universities while going to school here. My only real complaint about life here is the pollution but being very familiar witl life in S. Asia for most of my adult life, I know that Thailand alond can't solve this problem as it means a societal change among all the S. Asian countries. Just look at the NASA satellite showing fires and south Asia is mostly read with hardly any green! But with air purifiers, my daughter's school in CM also had them and we have them in every room of the house plus we wear masks. I have my own moniter - today at 4:30AM when I turned it on outside in less than 5 seconds it was flashing "red" reading over 150. I watched the morning news and saw where 63 of the provinces are experiencing above the safe WHO limit and expect summer storms in many places today! I used to exercise outside every day but thunderstorms prevent that so now I spend evenings doing walking aerobics for an hour/6 kilometers. Food availability at all health levels is another plus with every kind of fruit available and prices are fairly cheap. My wife and daughter seem very happy all the time (except when daughter wants to purchase a particular seat for an upcoming concert such as yesterday). But I retired here over 20 years ago and have no plans to leave except maybe as ash if that should occur too. I do wish only the best for all here, as they may not like my opinions but I do respect that they might have one different from mine as we have had different life experiences.

just like this forum, we alll have an opinion, that is based on our own life experiences and ages. I do not believe that Trump cares one iota for the US but only for himself. This is my opinion and I basically have stated it many times, even long before this latest election of Trump. You have you opinion, I respect that and we both will just have to sit back and see what happens. Good luck to you.

Just I do hope that continues but with the current leadership ignoring legal means to do things,anything goes, the same with medicaide for VETs and in many cases are for a particular state. If they go after medicaide then I wonder what the vets will do?

I could see that happening - sorta like the UK and their whatever the fund is called. Unless you live in a particular country, you get no COLA and possibly the NHS will greatly alter how they do business. We'll see...

Maybe Trump if he is a puppet of Putin is doing exactly what they want? I don't know but his language when talking about Putin and other autocrats seems to be enamored of that evil person.

Folks continued to be educated to graduate from college, go to a manufacturing job or computer startups but manufacturing moved overseas and the computer wizzards created machines that did their job much better, faster and cheaper so those folks are now out too competing for any job. House prices have skyrocketed while large cities have citizens packing up and moving to state tax free environments. Ugly situation and re-manufacturing ala Japan will not work in the US either IMHO.

Yes hat is what the DTA says so the Thai's agree that if taxed already by US law then they don't have to pay in Thailand but my questions if you read it says if no taxes are taken out by the US, then could Thailand tax it. I am not saying they will, as a matter of fact I sent a note for those in congress talking about cutting the tax on SS seniors or SS altogether. I asked if those writing the bill have even read the DTA agreements or will they advise ambassadors that SS still whether taxed in the US or not cannot be taxed by a foreign government.

Yeah whenever a negotiator gives up anything of importance just to get out of a situation i.e. Trump and the Taliban too as he must have learned from HENRY kISSINGER the art of negotiating just to get out of a situation and blame it on others. MHO anyway as a VN vet involved in that fiasco for 10 years.

Yeah, Japan tried the re-manufacturing, shut down all imports of products and it destroyed the Japanese economy totally! Now they have switched to the successes of the developed world - services and are moving ahead again! Trump and the US could look at Japan and give up that re-manufacturing plan. Though Trump is really too old to even see it to fruition nor does he care just so he can sit on the Throne!

Unfortunately for those generations after the boomers' the education of generations was for that type economy which deteriorated greatly and didn't prepare them for today's economies. Even those that were AI beginners, they created bots/machines that forced those educated out of a job! Japan died with Trump's re-manufacturing plan and now has switched to all the successful economies offering services!

Yessir, Clinton, Bush (Texas Air National Guard so he didn't have to go to the war), Obama, Biden (draft dodger too) and Trump - all useless bu all helped or assisted in destroying our economy as for me, 10 years doing the VN war bit with many years in VN)

Now there are BILLIONAIRES! over 500 were created in the US alone during the COVID pandemic! nowadays, in the UK it was reported (can google it for proof) that a rich family relocated from the UK to Dubai due to the taxes or lack thereof in the Middle East!

Where have you been,VN was fought 1964 to 1974 and that is the right age for baby boomers - yeah, the Korean war was over (on paper) by the time boomers were old enough to become soldiers.

education systems in much of the develped world did not educate those generations after the boomers for this economy and in the US anyway, politicians enticed students to take out loans that can never be repaid. A sad story for sure and I don't see it getting much better anytime soon. But good luck to all here

Some boomers and subsequent generations did fight in wars in different areas of course while most of the home countries of the expats here did not suffer as much.

If you had witnessed the news items about folks wearing blackface makeup in plays or in college in the US over the past decade you might understand the question. Not everything you learned growing up I guess helped you at all.

Yeah I wonder at times seeing the American Citizens Abroad notes about what Congress is doing that could affect living overseas, I note many times that they just might decide that any retirement benefits must be paid only within the US and not into any foregin country. I note that DTA's protect SS and civil service pensions but the congress is talking about stopping taxes on seniors and SS and was wondering if that would have any affect on the DTA since if one is not taxed by the US govt, then Thailand might interpret that as making it taxble in Thailand. But not even sure any of the proposals on taxes will ever see the light of day. with our congress.

fortunately for me, I went to work after 4 years in the AF flying in VN and a 6-month stint with Dupont - I worked with 20 others doing basically the same job but within a month or so I was doing about 40 % of our office work. I couldn't take more than a couple of days off in conjunction with a weekend and had to catch up when I returned, but I kept everyone else's work done until they returned, I also had no snow days at the rest did plus I had to work eithe Sat or Sun each week while most of them were not "qualified" though several had higher salaries. But, I couldn't get promoted as it was that time in our history that the govt decided to catch up on promotions for minorities and females so i kept losing out, did a remote assignment as a tech rep in the VN theater, but then all in my office got the same promo I did. However, I was offered a job in a new office - which enabled me to acquire managerial positions along with operational experience too and enabled me to retire making a really great salary. I am now of course an OLD man, but I know my family will be taken care of even if I die tomorrow. I retired here in Thailand knowing that my salary would enable me to do whatever I wanted and I still love it here. I have family of course in the US and based on what they write, I have no plans to ever move back there. My only foreign travel will be to visit my daughter going to college in Seoul on an exchange program with her university here in Bangkok. But US passport holders do not even need a visa for Korea if the visit is under I think 30 days. Easy in nd easy out. Now with the LTR here for 9 more years, same story here easy out and easy in. Fortunately 99% of the people that were selected for my organization had weeded out most of the bad but I did help some leave earlier than they planned, but they were not fired but they no longer worked for my organization. We of course had to do more every year but without any increase in numbers of employees nor budget and sometimes even those were cut. Having to do the budget and congressional oversight briefings were sometimes not very pleasant but at least I got my point across and never had any negative repercussions. I was able to work as hard as I did only with the support amd sacrifice of my family. Great job to have and great rewards too.

Have to blame it on several of our leaders including Trump the first time.

Started with the latest generations of educating them for the older economy and not the current one. Many of them also did AI jobs and created machines that cost less than them so they lost their jobs too. On top of that, O & Co. told all of them that they needed a college degree in order to get a good job so they got degrees in liberal arts or something along those lines but at the same time to go to the colleges, they got HUGE loans which they cannot begin repaying yet as they didn't find any worthwhile jobs. Houses which used to be the dream of all are now costing way beyond the salaries available. Houses are only owned by the baby boomers nowadays. Citizens in many of the large US cities are relocating to states without the high taxes so many places with high prices just remain unsold. If empty, squatters will move in as there are so many homeless now throughout many of the states, especially those run by democrats.

well in other words the tariff won't work and as the analysts are predicting, joe citizen will end up paying for Trump's tariffs. I don't think there will be too many manufacturers returning to the US anytime soon. Like the Brits, the new business owners are moving to the middle east where they don't have to pay taxes instead of building a business at home.

Yessir! I am not even close to being any kind of financial/economic analyst so listen to what I have been hearing from many of them. I also see ten of the largest US cities due to tax shortages have cut their police forces and can't find new policemen - this has resulted in more personal attacks so now those largest cities see hundreds of thousands of citizens fleeing to those states without high taxes. I also note that like in England nowadays, the younger generations can't find a job that pays enough so that they can afford to buy a house and raise their families as it used to be. Something has to be better as it can't get much worse.

yeah, it looks like the tariffs are really working - countries are now raising tariffs on US goods, boycotts of US products, cancellation of multibillion dollar contracts for US planes, switching to other countries by China and others for grains that our farmers need to sell. Now, no country will ever believe that the US has their back or would bail them out. Meanwhile Trump is talking about making Canada the next US state, then Greenland will belong to the US as will the Panama Canal. Those steel and aluminum from Canada are going elsewhere, and US won't be able to make airplanes and cars without metals from Canada. And, why would those billionaires care if Trump's policies drive the US and world into a recession - they have enough money to get through it but how will those living on SS or welfare get through it?

oh you mean like today in the US?

Yeah remember, 30 percent of govt workers who are being terminated too are military veterans! cut medicade and military vets suffering from agent orange and receiving medicade benefits aren't so in love with Trump anyway. The current military are watching how the vets are being treated too so when told to go in harms way, some may not do so IMHO. I too am a vet and I know how I feel about the number one draft dodger.