mfd101

Most negotiations get to the '90% done' stage pretty easily, because that's how the negotiations are structured by anyone with a brain: Do the easy stuff first, make a few minor concessions so everyone's feeling good, and only then do you start into the 10% of 'difficult' or 'impossible'.

Examples: Kim & Donald love-ins; Brexit ...

5 hours ago, 473geo said:

Have a daughter approaching Uni age, the other day, out of the blue, when we were discussing her future my wife mentioned, come out of Uni, no work, nobody want......

I'm guessing a change of plan could be on the way, possibly an introduction to full time employment by family members already working in the factories, maybe the new preferred way to go

Either way the decision will be my daughters at the time, if not before, we shall see, I guess it depends if she plans for a profession, or just employment

The problem is of course that, depending on her family background & where she lives, she may have even less clue about future possibilities than her falang equivalents in The West would have.

I live here in Surin amongst the clueless peasants. We have a 16-year-old niece living with us to go to high school in Prasat. She did well enough at the village school earlier to win a scholarship from The Princess, so she has at least some potential, but there aren't too many signs of awareness of or planning for the future. 'University' looms but, in a family where only 1 aunt went to 'university' (with no outward sign of change in life style or earning capacity or a house full of books ... ), there is little awareness of anything more than 20 kilometers away or not on Youtube.

27 minutes ago, CGW said:

True! They weren't bought up as coffee drinkers, 25 years ago it was near impossible to get a passable cup of hot coffee in Thailand, Nescafe was about the only thing on offer, there were NO coffee shops or stalls.

My first visit to Vietnam a few weeks ago. Didn't have a decent expresso ('short black' to an Aussie) in the 2 weeks I was there.

I wonder what the "445000 seats" actually means. Is that the number of full-time students the Thai universities are funded for? Or is it just the first-year entry numbers?

If the former, it would be woefully small for a country of c70 million. [Australia, with 1/3 the population, has that many FOREIGN students in its university system and some 1,500,000 full-time equivalents. Whether that's good or not is a different matter ... ]

I plan next month to do a fair comparison of TW service (having transferred funds to TW in advance so that that particular blockage is removed) vs using my Oz Citibank debit card (which I have used only for atm withdrawals to date) to make ฿65K+ transfer around 20 July. Will compare timing, xrate & fees (expressed as ฿ received), & FTT showing.

Will report in due course.

6 minutes ago, theoldgit said:

 

I called TW on Thursday and they advised that the payment had been put on hold as I'd asked for it to be routed via Bankok Bank into my Bangkok Bank account, and they were looking into it, I reminded them that there was a reason for this and that my last two transfers were routed the same way.

I had the same problem at the Oz end of TW this last week: Ordered up the funds last Thursday before 0700 Thai time. All fine. Payment to BKK Bank account due next day - has always been around 1500 the next day. By around midday Friday the website was saying not due for payment till Monday. Now due this afternoon. Not obvious what the reason is but it could be, as you suggest, my ringing them - as they advised me to do each time - to have the transfer done VIA BKK Bank to BKK Bank. Why that simple task should delay receipt of the funds is beyond me ...

On 6/22/2019 at 6:43 AM, ezzra said:

Trump is playing with the Iranians just like a cat plays with a mouse before the final act, admittedly, no one wants war, least of all Iran, but Iran being Iran with it's well known passion for rhetorics and death and destructions proclamation to anyone whom they don't like, and Trump being Trump, he will hold on as long as he can before he will have to strike back, casualties or not, just to maintain and show who's boss here...

Mmmm, not entirely clear who's the cat & who the mouse.

Not sure I understand what this thread is about. Motorcyclists only? Corrupt police demanding money for no good reason? People driving without licence or with no current rego or with defective vehicle or no helmet ... ?

I get stopped (Mazda 3) here in Prasat at the same spot about 4 or 5 times a week as I'm driving to or from brunch at PTT. Usually they either just wave me thru without stopping, or if I'm in a line of vehicles they glance at me thru the window & wave me on. About once a month I get asked to show my licence (usually elsewhere). No sweat.

Since these police checks became more common over the last couple of years, I notice the number of motorcyclists & their passengers driving without helmets has declined sharply. Not sure what people are complaining about.

Clearly destined for greatness.

Churchill's private life was something else again ...

monito.com is always good to make comparisons between transfer providers including relevant banks. For me (AUD) TW always comes out 2nd best (after Singapore-based Instarem - who are impossible to join, however, if you don't still have a home-country address).

The important thing is that the comparison is between baht-in-your-account end results, while showing the process details too (xrate + fees). So no stupidities about 'X doesn't charge fees so they're the best' or 'X has the best xrate so they're the best'.

1 minute ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

err its down 22% in 2 years. how is that stable?

Perhaps his concept of 'relative' is purely relative.

I've just (Thursday) initiated my monthly transfer of funds from Oz to Thailand via TW:

(1) I initiate before 0700 Thai time & money arrives in my BKK Bank account afternoon of the next day. This was signalled on their messages this time but then the signal changed to delivery next Monday. Don't know why. Not a holiday in Oz ...

(2) Having had one occasion over the last 6 months when the intermediate bank was NOT the BKK Bank & so the transaction does not show in my bank book as FTT, TW advice by phone in Oz is that EVERY time I organize a transfer, I should ring them to ask for it to be done via BKK Bank. Works fine now. Phonecall is local cost (00500 on AIS - other service providers here have similar arrangement).

Can't quite find it but I'm sure there must be a conspiracy lurking in there somewhere.

We often see monks eating at PTT where my b/f and I have brunch most mornings. They look at us as if we were from another planet ...

Clearly the improvement to 'traffic facilitation and safety' is going to be so spectacular and with such longterm effects that there will be no further requirement for the 'command center' after next Sunday.

Forward planning not a strength in this country. Spontaneity is the life of the party. Either go with the flow or just go.

Question Time. Always fun to watch.

This is what happens when you pretend to cease being a coup-leading general & start being a civilian PM. He's gonna havta continue pretending!

Annual monsoon season now well under way, at least here in south Surin.

So, um, what do we need to think about announcing this year? Um, maybe we could say something about dengue fever and measures against mosquitoes? Do you think? Howsabout a committee? 

23 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

It's all here (3 pages):

  https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b06302/underground-temple-safeguards-greater-tokyo-from-floods.html

 

 

 

 

 

Well, THAT is impressive: well-designed, well-built, everything works as planned. Of course Thailand will seek detailed advice & perhaps even design from Japan ...

Not sure I understand the THEORY of this, let alone the likely corrupt & incompetent putting-into-practice ...

So you have a 'monkey cheek', of whatever size. Even the largest will fill within, let's say, 4 hours in & after a downpour. And then what happens?

57 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

I know this may be less true for more Westernized Thais, but from what I've seen out in the country, birthday celebrations seem to be mostly reserved for very young children and for girlfriends during honeymoon stage of the relationship. Birthday celebrations for men don't seem to be that common. Before anyone jumps all over me, just saying celebrating birthdays doesn't seem to be as widespread a tradition as in the west. OP needs to discuss his expectations with his girlfriend.

 

Yes, no birthdays in my Thai peasant family. Some of them - the older ones - don't even KNOW when their birthday was, let alone remember to celebrate it. The emperor was far away in the old days & there were many rice paddies, so no officialdom to register births. My oldest SIL & oldest BIL are officially twins, but actually 3 years apart. Their parents just didn't get around to registering the 1st birth till the 2nd arrived ...

So the only birthdays celebrated, now, are the children's & mine & b/f's ie kids + source of money.