kdvsn

I am not being facetious but please I am most intrigued to know what your first language is ? I am starting to wonder if you may be of Indian descent.

Anyway, the point I am making is the same inflation impact can occur in any country and the link I posted was meant to show Thailand is adopting the same policies of control as UK USA and other developed countries.

Over the last 30 years these effective controls did not exist. What I don't understand is how the outlook for someone on a fixed income in the e.g. Uk is any different to their outlook in Thailand. Perhaps, I am just being thick but please enlighten me.

Cheers BB

It depends what you mean by "fixed income". When I used that term I was referring funding a retirement by investing in bonds and other debt instuments as opposed to investing in equities. When funding a retirement with your own money (as opposed to receiving an inflation adjusted income from a pension), the less your returns exceed the rate of inflation the faster your money will run out. Also, if your returns beat inflation by a constant x% and inflation is high, you will run out of money faster than if inflation is low. Therefore if you retire to a country where inflation rates are consistently higher than in your home country, your nest egg would need to be a greater multiple of your annual expenses than if you stayed in your home country. If the cost of living in the country you retire to is low enough you will come out ahead anyway, but the retirement plan may fail if the cheap country does not stay cheap for long enough.

i LOVE THIS THREAD.

Lots of people who have made masses of money.

My only question is , if you have all made so much money trading in gold,

What are you doing online in a (relatively) small forum telling everyone how to trade.

If I had made huge amounts on gold, I wouldnt tell anyone here, I would be sitting back in my 75 Mill condo

having my cappucino brought to me by one of my 12 beautiful thai maids !!!!!

Freddie

You must be new here. Thaivisa might be small forum but attacts the most successful investors in the world. Scarely anyone here has ever lost money on a trade nor failed to optimally time a market trend.

Thats right, thaivisa members always buy at the bottom and sell at the top and when a company is in trouble or closing in on bankruptcy, a post magically appears how a particular thaivisa member or members shorted said stock at the exact 52 week high OK back to reality now As far as gold goes it is heading for a blow off top. I have never seen so many regular investors (non gold bugs) buying gold, even hedge funds newly set up for gold, all the while the underlying fundementals for gold haven't changed or have slightly worsened, gold just might be the perfect contrarian play. Industrial demand for the precious metal has actually declined slightly and the extraction price (around $250/ounce, thats without figuring the ancilary benefit of the copper that is extracted at the same time) has remained fairly constant for many years now. So why is gold at $900/ounce? Basically it is the same reason that Enron once sold for $100/sh or that Mickey Mantle baseball cards once sold for $1000/ea, it is a type of mass hysteria better known as the greater fool theory! When you have slowing economies like we currently have in Europe and America, discresionary income is rarely used to buy gold jewelry, and when the Chinese equity markets make their major correction (or crash) this year and those paper profits dissapear all of a sudden for millions of investors, then a good deal of that gold that has been horded by by the chinese and other asians will start hitting the market. It appears that many thais have already started to sell their horde, as one of the previous posts here indicate (a good move on their part) , this is just the begining as gold in other SE asian countries will find their way to market and then later this year in China. Some here will remember that in august of 2007 I was negative on an investment in gold for the long term (as I am currently) and I freely admit that a gold trade between then and now has been a great trade (if indeed you sold and are not still holding), but I did say back then if you must get some exposure to gold then buy Yamana Gold (AUY), then at about $9.50/sh and currently at around $16/sh, this stock has far outpreformed the metal itself. If anyone did buy Yamana back then then I would certainly advise to take a nice chunk off the table now (at least get your original investment back and ride the free shares for a little longer). I would liken my call in august to those few that had warned people about Enron at $70/sh, it didn't look like a good call when Enron proceeded to $100, but it sure looked good when Enron went sub dollar! No I am not saying that gold is going to zero, it will always have some commercial-industrial use and some intrinsic aesthetic value, but worldwide currencies are not going to go back to a gold backing and sometime this year the fundementals will prevail over the hysteria, just as it always does. Good luck to all of you out there, I sincerely hope that you all sell at the top

Vic,

Yamana was one of Cramer's picks. Almost every night on "Mad Money" he emphasized that you should buy it unless you wanted to spend your golden years "drinking cheap Scotch on a cold linoleum floor". I'm going to assume that one can substitute Sang Som for the Scotch.

KD, I have heard Cramer mention Yamana recently (and obviously I disagree with him on where gold is going from here) now that it is a high flyer, however I am not so sure that Cramer was talking about Yamana when I mentioned it on one of the thaivisa gold threads back in the middle of August, when it was at $9 and change. I have to admitt that I am not much of a cramer fan, but if he was talking about Yamana back then I give him kudos (it just goes to show that even Cramer is right once in a while). There may very well still be a trade in gold left, but given the rapid rise, the weak fundamentals and the overall euphoria and hysteria in the gold markets I see the downside risk (and gold has a very substantial downside risk once it is out of favor again) outweighing any possible upside potential from its current level. The one negative long term thing about gold that I failed to mention in my previous post is that one of the reasons that gold has been so sought after over the milenia is that gold does not corrode or decay in any way, so every ounce of gold ever mined in the history of the world is still with us and there are millions of new ounces of gold mined every year hitting the market and with the price at current levels there are hundreds of both old and new mines that are being opened and reoped. This market has been driven up on pure speculation with no regard to underlying fundamentals, and as history tells us situations like this have a very bad endings. The gold bugs will likely hold on and watch as gold moves back to the $400/ounce range, but its the people that have been roped in during the recent frenzy in the gold market thinking that gold is actually a good investment that will get hurt, I just hope some of them get out in time when gold begins its downturn.

Vic, Cramer was definitely pushing Yamana back in that timeframe but there were an awful lot of other stocks that he had/has equally bombastic opinions about. He's not exactly a goldbug though, despite his strongly worded opinions about the merits of the gold stock that he picked (Yamana, at the moment) he never recommended gold stocks for more than a small portion of one's portfolio. Despite all his bluster and his self-confidence in his ability to pick winning horses, he also trumpets the benefits of diversification. Cramer manages a portofolio of about 20 stocks online by subscription (he emails out "buy" and "sell" signals to subscibers each day on each of the stocks in the portfolio and he buy/sells using his money at the same time). For at least the past 4 years he's had one or two metals stocks in that portfolio. I know that around 2004 he had Newmont and Phelps Dodge in his portforio; at some point he jetissoned Newmont for Yamana; not sure what he did with Phelps Dodge or whether he added any other metals since then.

BTW, I'm not exactly a Cramer fan either, it's just that he's on TV so much and is so flamboyant that it's hard not to notice him. I do think that he really believes in the advice that he gives and don't doubt that he was a very successful trader when was a hedge fund manager, but I think that most people would be better off just putting thier money in an index fund rather than to ape his stratedgy of making 2 or 3 trades per day on 20 or more stocks. Maybe his subscribers are able to turn a buck by doing exactly the trades he says to do when he says to do them, but anyone watching his TV show and buying/selling based upon what he says on the air when he's in Crazy Eddie mode seems sure to get hurt.

Aside from that, it also that occurs to me that in presently cheap developing countries like Thailand that the inflation rates (in dollar terms) over the long term may be higher than in developed countries. If one could trust the CPI figures as being an accurate barometer, then the 4% rule would come pretty close to working out (on paper) just by putting 100% of your money in TIPS. It can't be that easy though.

Indeed I agree and often post on this particular aspect of inflation.

An example, and an important issue, is health care costs, which in Thailand have shot up for foreigners (dual pricing and milking Health Tourism being the chief causes of that extremely high inflation rate).

I couldn't help but chuckle when watching CNBC this morning they reported that the Saudi inflation rate was running over 5% and was a major concern. Must be to expats there also.

I recall reading yesterday an FX strategist saying that he felt measures in the UK were not an accurate measure of UK citizens living costs. Personally, here in Thailand I have more faith in CPI figures than I do of some punters missus experiences at the supermarket - I recall often hearing similar arguments about pricing in the UK.

From my library I give you a copy of the opening words of the Governor of the Bank of Thailand to a conference a year or so ago. http://www.bis.org/review/r061122d.pdf

I also recall reading the minutes of the MPC's for Thailand and the UK last year - the simple conclusion was that the UK economy had major major problems but my concern with Thailand was did the MPC members have time to finish their coffees.

Thanks for reminding me I must get round to looking at health insurance. I recall an old Economics lecturer of mine repeatedly warning people not to listen to public house economics and politics. I hear what you are saying about health care costs but reason that it is a simple law of supply and demand that with the extra popularity for medical services from overseas increased costs were inevitable. I also believe that some hospitals were taken over by a Singaporean group who imposed new tariffs.

I have restrained myself considerably with this reply - I don't want to prompt more spite and envy arguments - all I can say is I feel duty bound to give a balanced view so others aren't misled.

Cheers BB

I'm not really getting your point. Are you agreeing with the premise that over the long term inflation with be higher in developing countries than in developed countries or are you disputing it?

i LOVE THIS THREAD.

Lots of people who have made masses of money.

My only question is , if you have all made so much money trading in gold,

What are you doing online in a (relatively) small forum telling everyone how to trade.

If I had made huge amounts on gold, I wouldnt tell anyone here, I would be sitting back in my 75 Mill condo

having my cappucino brought to me by one of my 12 beautiful thai maids !!!!!

Freddie

You must be new here. Thaivisa might be small forum but attacts the most successful investors in the world. Scarely anyone here has ever lost money on a trade nor failed to optimally time a market trend.

Thats right, thaivisa members always buy at the bottom and sell at the top and when a company is in trouble or closing in on bankruptcy, a post magically appears how a particular thaivisa member or members shorted said stock at the exact 52 week high OK back to reality now As far as gold goes it is heading for a blow off top. I have never seen so many regular investors (non gold bugs) buying gold, even hedge funds newly set up for gold, all the while the underlying fundementals for gold haven't changed or have slightly worsened, gold just might be the perfect contrarian play. Industrial demand for the precious metal has actually declined slightly and the extraction price (around $250/ounce, thats without figuring the ancilary benefit of the copper that is extracted at the same time) has remained fairly constant for many years now. So why is gold at $900/ounce? Basically it is the same reason that Enron once sold for $100/sh or that Mickey Mantle baseball cards once sold for $1000/ea, it is a type of mass hysteria better known as the greater fool theory! When you have slowing economies like we currently have in Europe and America, discresionary income is rarely used to buy gold jewelry, and when the Chinese equity markets make their major correction (or crash) this year and those paper profits dissapear all of a sudden for millions of investors, then a good deal of that gold that has been horded by by the chinese and other asians will start hitting the market. It appears that many thais have already started to sell their horde, as one of the previous posts here indicate (a good move on their part) , this is just the begining as gold in other SE asian countries will find their way to market and then later this year in China. Some here will remember that in august of 2007 I was negative on an investment in gold for the long term (as I am currently) and I freely admit that a gold trade between then and now has been a great trade (if indeed you sold and are not still holding), but I did say back then if you must get some exposure to gold then buy Yamana Gold (AUY), then at about $9.50/sh and currently at around $16/sh, this stock has far outpreformed the metal itself. If anyone did buy Yamana back then then I would certainly advise to take a nice chunk off the table now (at least get your original investment back and ride the free shares for a little longer). I would liken my call in august to those few that had warned people about Enron at $70/sh, it didn't look like a good call when Enron proceeded to $100, but it sure looked good when Enron went sub dollar! No I am not saying that gold is going to zero, it will always have some commercial-industrial use and some intrinsic aesthetic value, but worldwide currencies are not going to go back to a gold backing and sometime this year the fundementals will prevail over the hysteria, just as it always does. Good luck to all of you out there, I sincerely hope that you all sell at the top

Vic,

Yamana was one of Cramer's picks. Almost every night on "Mad Money" he emphasized that you should buy it unless you wanted to spend your golden years "drinking cheap Scotch on a cold linoleum floor". I'm going to assume that one can substitute Sang Som for the Scotch.

OK, whatever..., hurray to the "home of the brave and free". Is it?

The US economy is also now heading/leading the world with a home cooked recession, soley due to their irresponsible housing boom/bust. Yet, another bust. The 4th in the past few years, and all coming out of the US. As the US economy slows down to recessionary levels, the price of Oil will likely drop as well. This will be very good for corporate Thailand. Many growing Thai companies here trade at half or less the p/e ratio then in the US, pay 3 times the dividends as compared to the US, and have 3-4 times the expected earnings growth rate then the US. Thailand is benefiting from the continued boom in the north by China and in the West by India.

AS for low regulations in the US, nonsense..that place is about as regulated and taxed as they come. For example in the US only foreign investors don't pay taxes on stock gains, go figure that.

And don't forget some of the largest financial scandals have also originated there in the past few years. The biggest bankcruptie in history and the biggest corporate bond default in history all orginiate from the US! The continued falling US currency is another embarasement, who wants to invest in a dropping currency on top of a dropping stock market?

I can continue but will stop here, as I got work to do. Investment work that is, and its not in the US.

But at some point later in 2008, as home prices there collapse even more..yes at some point a US residence might be a good grab from one of the millions of bailing out overstretched US consumers, holding the bag.

What brought on that tirade?

i LOVE THIS THREAD.

Lots of people who have made masses of money.

My only question is , if you have all made so much money trading in gold,

What are you doing online in a (relatively) small forum telling everyone how to trade.

If I had made huge amounts on gold, I wouldnt tell anyone here, I would be sitting back in my 75 Mill condo

having my cappucino brought to me by one of my 12 beautiful thai maids !!!!!

Freddie

You must be new here. Thaivisa might be small forum but attacts the most successful investors in the world. Scarely anyone here has ever lost money on a trade nor failed to optimally time a market trend.

I don't think there is a single answer to any of that. Pension schemes are one answer in that they often (but not always) offer long term security for pensioner and spouse. Investing in growth funds is another - but then if you are investing (earning money) then you are putting capital you can't afford to loose at risk.

My personal view is that 50 is too young to retire, being as it is for many of us a time when we are in our maximum earning years with falling outlay.

Yes but pension schemes offer spectacularly bad returns for the investment in them, unless they are final salary schemes for somebody who has worked for the same company for years. and then thats only sometimes. The Annuities in the current climate offer a very poor return on the capital.

My view on the 50 age is the same. It would be very very tempting for me to retire right now, I could afford to, just about. But what happens when there is a downturn in markets and I am just too old to get back into work?. I would rather build the buffer against that right now, and suffer another 5 years or so working.

My own case is that I'm almost 50 and the odds are high that my company will involuntarily "retire" me before long. My nest egg is slightly larger than that 25x current annual expenditures figure so it occurred to me that when/if my company retires me that maybe I should just stay retired. Those current expenses are what it costs me to live in a area in the US where cost of living is roughly in-line with the US national average and includes a couple of vacation trips to SE Asia each year. Upon retiring, I would likely move to SE Asia, most likely to Thailand.

The 25x figure, or "4% rule" accounts for inflation by assuming that one's annual expenses will increase by an amount equal to the US government's published CPI inflation rates. I think that's the fatal flaw in the 4% theory because even if we accept the premise that CPI does not systemically understate inflation, any individual's personal inflation rate is going to be different depending up what types of things he spends his money on. Aside from that, it also that occurs to me that in presently cheap developing countries like Thailand that the inflation rates (in dollar terms) over the long term may be higher than in developed countries. If one could trust the CPI figures as being an accurate barometer, then the 4% rule would come pretty close to working out (on paper) just by putting 100% of your money in TIPS. It can't be that easy though.

Curious as to what was stolen? Was it valuable, or alot of cash?

I am also curious as to whether or not there is a sign in the room as to the resort not being responsible for things left in the room? Most places do put a sign like that in the room and if there were such a sign then your friends wouldn't have a leg to stand on with the police.

With or without such a sign, hotels are not legally responsible for thefts from guests' rooms unless they were somehow involved with the theft or they can be proven to been grossly negligent. In practical terms, unless the police arrest someone who works for the hotel you don't stand too much chance of getting a hotel to take responsibility for a theft.

Let the Americans sort out their own problems.

If your retirement plan is based on maintaining growth on your capital in the stock market then you are in truth suffering from that all to common failing of retirees to Thailand - ' You are under capitalized'.

seconded! i never understood how somebody could rely on (YIKES!) stock markets to finance the most precious years in life. somehow i picture them as gamblers (no offence meant! who put their money on red or white in Vegas, Macau or Monte Carlo. but my lack of understanding is most probably based on the fact that i have no idea as far as finances are concerned.

when i need money i ask my wife to give me some. when she runs out of money she goes to SCB and withdraws some. when the SCB account is running low she asks me to call our bank in Singapore to transfer some money. then when i need money i ask my wife...........

I know that there's probably not just one answer for this, but to be properly "capitalized" for retirement how much money would one need? The "buy mutual funds and hold them forever crowd" seems to gravitate toward concluding that if you have a nest egg that is equal to 25x your current annual expenditures that you are financially ready to reture. That "4% rule" arises from various data minining studies that analyze historical stock price data. Let's say that instead of stocks that the retiree invested wholly in fixed income investments, do you think that 25x current annual expenses would be sufficient savings for a person to go into retiremement at age 50 or would he be "under capiltized"?

Thai jewelry is one of the world's best.

yeah well - perhaps a bit off subject here (since jewelry is not a commodity as gold or buck), but worth of considering.

Wrong. When they're talking about Thai jewelry, they're talking about gold jewelry which is 96.5% gold (23k). It's tradable gold just as bullion, coins and bars.

Gold trading in Thailand is particularly good because of the very narrow margins and the ease of purchasing it for cash with no disclosure necessary.

Do you know anyplace in Thailand where I'd be able to sell a couple of 10 ounce Pamp S.A. "Fortuna" gold bars that were originally purchased from Kitco in the US at a price reasonably close to the prices that large a gold dealer in the west would pay?

Let the Americans sort out their own problems.

Well while the temptation to blame to Americans is strong the fault lies elsewhere... and a little closer to home.

If your retirement plan is based on maintaining growth on your capital in the stock market then you are in truth suffering from that all to common failing of retirees to Thailand - ' You are under capitalized'.

Its a bitter pill, so yes blame the Americans if it makes things seem better.

I seem to remember this latest round of financial falls started with the missmanagement of the US Prime Mortgage market and now this:

Market skids on signs of weakening sentiment

Posted 6 hours 14 minutes ago

US stocks tumbled overnight, with both the Dow and Nasdaq losing more than 2 per cent after a warning by American Express Co of mounting credit card defaults and a slowdown in consumer spending sounded the latest recession alarm.

Evidence that individuals reined in their usual holiday spending last year came from SpendingPulse, a private retail data service, which said spending - excluding sales of gasoline and autos - fell 0.7 per cent in December.

New York's Dow Jones index closed down 220 points at 12,634 and the high-tech Nasdaq composite was 39 points lower at 2,449.

The Australian dollar was being quoted at around 89.1 US cents.

Meanwhile London's FT 100 index finished at 6,202, a drop of 21 points.

Your saying the problem is not initiated in the US???

My investments are very wide spread over some 25 different funds etc and I use advisers. Only about 10% directly related to stocks all "Blue Chip". But I also have some in property managers - opps!

Though it might be a bit early to start panicking, maybe some of the blame should be put on your advisers. That might not be as politically correct as whining about being victimized by Americans but it is more likely to benefit your portfolio in the long run.

Do you remember the Somchai Wisetsingh case in Kanjanaburi. Part of the appalling disinformation coming from the Kanjanaburi police was that the female victim had slept with the policeman killer. This utterly untrue and nauseating attempt to smear the victims may be repeating itself here. It is important to question all the information issued by the police in these cases.

What was the end result in the Kanjanaburi case, was the cop found quilty and sent to jail?

Call me what you like, but if the story is true that the Canadian got drunk and started pushing people around, then serves him right....

hmmmm

are you too naive to accept one side of story?

here is what Non-Thai media reports :

Families demand answers on Thailand shooting death

Sean Myers, CanWest News Service

Published: Monday, January 07, 2008

Reisig said a Thai man punched her as she and Delpinto were returning home from a bar.

When Delpinto defended her, Reisig said the man pulled out a gun and shot Delpinto in the head and chest.

"There was no reason for it," she said.....

There are conflicting reports about what took place Sunday....

An interview with Carly Reisig in the Thai newspaper The Nation quoted her as saying there was no fight and that they had not seen the man before he hit her for no apparent reason.

Reisig also told the paper that Delpinto was her ex-boyfriend from Canada and was still her best friend. She also said that she had never been pregnant, as some news sources had earlier reported.

Thai police officer charged in shooting death of Calgary man

Calgary Herald

Published: Monday, January 07, 2008

Reisig told the Herald today that a Thai man punched her as the pair were returning home from a bar. When Delpinto defended her, she said the man pulled out a gun and shot Delpinto in the head and chest.

Carly Reisig, 24, from Chilliwack B.C. Canada shows her bullet wound. Her best friend John Leo Del Pinto, 24, from Calgary was shot dead by a drunk off-duty Thai policeman in Pai, Northern Thailand. She was shot once in the chest.

Photograph by : Photo by Chiang Mai.

Woman says slain Calgary man saved her life

Jan 07, 2008 03:52 PM

The Canadian Press

A Canadian woman wounded in Thailand says she feels her life was saved by her Calgary friend who was shot to death in front of her. A Thai police officer has been charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of John Leo Del Pinto and the wounding of Carly Reisig.

Reisig spoke today in an exclusive interview with The Canadian Press from her hospital bed in northern Thailand.

She said she was struck by a bullet that came within an inch of her heart and that she was near death last night.

“It punctured my lung and last night to save my life they inserted a plastic tube through my ribs and into my lungs and it’s still in there and the blood is getting taken out of there ... there’s constantly blood coming out of there.”

Reisig, 24, of Chilliwack, B.C., denied an earlier report that she was pregnant.

She also denied a report that she and Del Pinto had been in a fight near the restaurant in Pai, Thailand, where the shooting took place.

She says she was talking to Del Pinto when a man punched her in the forehead.

“And John, he just said, ’Nobody hits her,’ and he pushed the guy down on the ground and when the guy got up, he had a pistol in his hand.”

She said Del Pinto, 24, tried unsuccessfully to take the gun from the man, who then shot Del Pinto in the face and the stomach before turning the gun on her.

now, here is an article from local Thai newspaper The Nation, perhaps the most detailed so far :

SURVIVOR'S CLAIM

Cop 'executed my best friend'

Officer 'hit me, shot Leo twice, then fired at me'

Published on January 8, 2008

A young Canadian woman told yesterday how a Thai policeman shot dead her best friend in Pai in the North, then shot another bullet into his heart as he lay on the ground. {to make sure he stays down? }

Carly Reisig, 24, said the policeman had no grounds at all for the attack - and that after he shot fellow Canadian John Leo del Pinto, the officer turned his gun on her and shot her in the chest.

Speaking from her bed in hospital in Chiang Mai, Reisig, from Chilliwack, British Columbia, rejected a police statement that suggested Sgt-Major Uthai Dechawiwat, 37, had intervened to break up a fight and his gun had discharged in a struggle.

She pointed to her chest where the bullet was lodged close to her own heart.

"There never was a fight. That is not true," she said. "John was my ex-boyfriend, but still my best friend. We had nothing to argue about. We had been drinking in the Be-Bop Bar in Pai and were heading for a last drink at the Bamboo Bar near the bridge.

"We were walking together. My Thai boyfriend Fuen was walking slightly behind. {oops! here comes up Fuen's part ?}

"A man came up to me on the road near Pee Dang's Restaurant and hit me for no reason.

"My face was painted with face paint, for fun, but I don't know why he hit me. We had never met him before, never seen him before. We were unarmed and walking down the road after a good night out.

"He was dressed in plain clothes, a white T-shirt. Leo shouted at him, 'You can't hit her!' and pushed him away from us. Then the man went to his motorbike and got his gun, and Leo tried to get it away from him.

"They had a struggle for the gun, then the man got control of the gun and stepped back and shot Leo directly in the face.

"Leo fell to the ground and the man pointed the gun at his heart and fired a second shot. Then he turned around to me and aimed for my heart and shot me in the chest.

"I blacked out and when I came to I saw Leo lying dead on the road beside me. My lungs filled up with blood and I couldn't breathe.

"I went to Pai Hospital and then to a hospital in Chiang Mai. They had to put a tube into my lungs to drain the blood so that I could breathe again.

"I can't believe that my best friend is dead and I've got a bullet right beside my heart.

"I have never been married, I am not pregnant. Leo was my ex-boyfriend from Canada. He had arrived in Pai a few days before to see me."

Sitting by her bed was her boyfriend Rattaporn Vara-wadee, an artist nicknamed Fuen. {wow ! Fuen is talking too? }

He said: "Nothing we did gave this man the right to take lives. We are angry now and we need help and a good lawyer. We are shocked to hear that the policeman is already out on bail."

Asked again if they had been fighting, she replied: "Not at all, he was my best friend." She had spoken to del Pinto's family and said: "They are not doing well."

Suchart Pantai, the owner of Be-Bop Bar, said he saw the couple and Fuen leave his bar at about 1am. "There was no fighting. But I heard from other sources that they were play-fighting as they walked."

Reisig has been in Thailand for a year, leaving occasionally on visa runs. She has worked in Canada with physically and mentally handicapped people.

John Leo del Pinto, also 24, from Calgary in Alberta in west Canada, was a former music student who earned a living as a promoter and concert organiser.

Uthai Dechawiwat has been charged with murder, manslaughter and attempted murder, but the version of events issued by police in Pai is at total variance with Miss Reisig's story.

Case investigator Pol Lt-Colonel Sombat Panya said the couple had been drinking in a local pub and had become involved in a drunken brawl after del Pinto, who recently arrived in Thailand, found that Reisig was pregnant to a Thai man known as Fuen.

The couple continued arguing after they left the pub when Uthai arrived at the scene, near a bridge, on personal business. Uthai approached them and asked them to be calm but both foreigners turned to attack him.

The officer said Uthai was beaten to the ground by the couple. After managing to get up, Uthai pointed his service pistol to threaten away both foreigners, but del Pinto tried to snatch the pistol from him. After a scuffle, shots were fired and the couple went down.

Last night Graham Arscott, the father of Vanessa Arscott, 23, who was gunned down in Kanchanaburi with her boyfriend Adam Lloyd, 24, by Police Sgt-Major Wisetsingh said: "So sad. I feel so terribly sorry for this young man's family."

In the River Kwai case, Wisetsingh shot the couple dead in a fit of rage after being beaten to the ground by Lloyd, who it is believed thought the policeman was trying to hit on his girlfriend.

Like the Kanchanaburi case, the killing in the idyllic tourist village of Pai has the semblance of another police "loss of face" execution.

Andrew Drummond

Special to The Nation

so, as you see, thaiexp (and others advocating "poor thai cop") - there are enough witnesses quoted by Thai newspaper too, who deny police's version of this story !

my opinion - Fuen must speak up and provide ALL evidence against culprit.

unless of course it was him who's arrange all this - Thai men / b/fs can be extremely jealous !

The Pai police must have thought that the evidence was pretty stong too for them to have immediately charged one of their own with murder and attempted murder. If they had any doubt about whether the shooting was justifiable self-defense they could have investagted the case for a while before making the decision to file charges. It's strange that they let him out on bail though. Who determines whether bail will be granted in Thailand, is it the police or is it a judges decision?

check out the guardian story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...2236672,00.html

And my favorite quote from that, "The policeman, who is about 1.6m tall, was beaten to the ground by the man, a bodybuilder, and the hippy woman," said the local police chief, Wanchai Suwanririkate.

So Thai sympathizers, it seems like the 'other side' is just as racist as we are... at least that's the way I read it. Poor little innocent Thai man was defending himself against bodybuilders and hippies...

aha, right ! and don't forget to add those "evil backpackerzzzz" !!!!!!!!!!

here is the "bodybuilder":

Leo Del Pinto

(photo from The Vancouver Sun)

why ! he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime !

More like Maynard G. Krebs.

check out the guardian story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...2236672,00.html

Odd that the Guardian story says that the cop was charged with premeditated murder. That doesn't seem to jibe, all accounts in this forum and int he press seem to describe a crime that occured in the heat of the moment. Being charged with a premeditated crime would imply that the police think that the shooter had a motive to kill the bodybuilder and the hippy prior to this incident.

Yes, there are many lenses designed specifically for APS-C sized sensors, but what I was saying is that I am not aware of any optics specifically optimised for the 35mm DSLR format. Maybe these lenses will appear in time, but I also suspect that over a period of time, it will be realised that the lens-mount diameter will need to be be significantly enlarged, so that the rays exiting the rear element, strike the sensor in a more parallel manner than existing 35mm lenses designed for film. I have even heard of people gaining imaging improvements by attaching lenses designed for the 6x6cm format, (Hassleblad and maybe Bronica) via adaptors onto 35mm bodies.

Nikon's 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens, announced concurrently with the D3, probably qualifies as being a lens optimized for 35mm DSLR format. However early reviews of the D3 seem to say that the camera does quite well with a variety of Nikon lenses which had a good reputation during the pre-digital era as well.

im jealous of yr gurl sir.............lol.

give us sane peeple a break. you almost 4x as old as her. id like to give her an examination in what she sees in a matured farang...............lol.

22 to 66 is 3x not 4x. Is the real problem here the man's age or that you dropped out of school after the 2nd grade?

http://www.twenga.co.uk/dir-Photo,Photo-pr...s,Film-scanners

... seems a pretty good comparison site, arranged here by popularity.

I considered just buying a cheapie, or even a multifunction printer would do, in order to select which negatives I would have professionally scanned (it's hel_l trying with the naked eye!). Then I thought well, it's only my old holiday snaps -- for the memories really ... so why not scan the lot with a low-to-medium-price dedicated film scanner which will give good enough output for 6" x 4" colour prints? Any tips on a suitable brand and price level? Thanks a lot.

The Nikon film scanners are great, to the point that if you buy one you may become dissatified with even high-end DSLR's.

I'm thai.

Many american people were very surprised when I told them that my home has hi-speed internet.

How jerk.

Judging by all the complaints about connection speed in the Internet section of thaivisa, it seems that there are a lot of expats living in Thailand who would also be surprised to hear that you have a high speed internet in your home. Maye you need to pick a better example to ilustrate that your distaste for Americans is legitimate.

Extreme NATIONALISM as we see in Thailand always goes hand in hand with xenophobia.

I am not sure I would agree with Extreme, but a high level for certain. And they do certainly go hand in hand.

For those that disagree with xenophobia, try agreeing whether the Thai are nationalistic, and work the discussion forward, it may be a bit less taxing (Or Thaksin, what card do you think he played apart from the other populist policies?)

Expats in Thailand are more than a little bit prone to tribalism themselves.

As a non american I would explain it like this:

Election. Two man. People like two man same same. One man jai dee never cheat. He lose. Other win. Later the man lose get nobel peace prize. The other man who win start war in country far far away.

Seriously, I consider myself fairly educated (double MSc from HPU) but your electoral voting system is quite hard to grasp for non americans. I have to agree, don´t expect all non americans to know it all.

Interestingly, that jai dee never made his now signature issue an campaign issue during the 2000 campaign. It's nice that he got a nobel peace prize for courageously advancing the topic when he had nothing to lose politically by doing so, but it would have been even nicer if he was a courageous enough leader to stand behind his beliefs when seeking the highest office in the land. Maybe, just maybe, if he showed just a little bit of back bone and if he didn't try to distance himself Clinton during the campaign, he would have won by the margin that you would expect the vice president of a popular incumbent to win by. The circumstances in Florida may have made him a maytr in the eyes of people who are sympathetic to his politics, but the fact of the matter is that he ran an extremely poor campaign and exhibited poor judgment at every juncture. Neither the electoral college nor the Supreme Court were his problem, he was his own problem.

Beardog: You are not alone. There is presently a constitutional amendment being circulated among the states to do away with the electoral college. You can google the issue and see how many states have ratified it. My guess somwhere around 30.

Can you name one state that has voted either for or against that ammendment?

If the Resturants follow Thai Law they must give you a bill with 7% Govt VAT, service charge is optional.

However most restuarants and bars run two sets of books, the real one and the one for the tax man.

If oyu go to a resturant or a bar in an established hotel such as Zico's Brazilian resturant or go to Tesco you wil lsee the 7% VAT on the bill. If you want to claim the tax back you must ask for a VAT invoice, and unless it is a big Hotel or Tescos etc, you can forget it as the place will be running two sets of books.

Hope this helps...

What I've wondered in places where they charge a 10% service charge is whether the staff gets the 10% or whether the owner of the restautrant pockets it. In such places one normally wouldn't leave a tip since the "tip" is automatically added to the bill for the "convenience of the customer", but does this just mean that the staff is getting screwed?

I Had a tooth removed yesterday at the new dentist opposite the go kart track in bophut all the latest equip and brand new,

Must admit it took a lot of work to get it out one of my back teeth, but today I Have taken no pain killers hardly any pain.

charged thb 1500 incl medicine.

A good dentist is one who saves teeth; any hack can pull them out without a lot of pain.

I am not saying they are justified, what I am saying is that they are justified in their eyes, i dont agree with them at all

just trying to get a handle on why this type of thing happens as often as it does.

Is it just greed?

Is it a total disregard for the law?

Is it that the rich farang is taking and changing my island and I am still poor?

Is it all of the above?

Maybe the law here was just a guide line and no one really worried about such laws until the Farang came, and here we are and here we talk again about European laws and not island Thai laws, (guide lines not real laws to village people).

Bottom line that I am trying to get across is why are the Farang treated like this.

Is it jealousy?

Is it the fact that some farang look down to Thais?

Is it because farang have money that grows on trees and therefore deserve disrespect.

Scenario

So Papa don’t like rich farang on his island by the sounds of things.

Dim and Sons have no regard for the law, its only a guide line in any case- Dim says.

Dim finally gets kicked off the beach, victory for the BBC?

So the Sons story to their children will go something like this-

When I was young and lived with your grandmother the rich farang came bought and raped our beautiful island and also kicked us out of our beautiful house on the beach.

So the story gets worse the farang word changes again.

Has this happened already somewhere before?

By any chance are you a timeshare salesman?