mfd101

U-turns. A Thai specialty. The new tax-the-foreigners tax also preparing for skid marks, I shouldn't wonder.

In another post today we learn that 51% of Thailand's 'workforce' are in the informal economy.

The age of consent in most 'Western' countries was between 7 and 13 until the early C20th. It remained 12 in Spain until 1999 when it was raised to 13 and now 16. Times change and with it cultural attitudes. But actual sexual practices don't evolve much. As in most areas of social, cultural & political sensitivity, people who are ignorant of the past have the most rigid views on the present.

Well, we're Oz/Thai in an Oz civil doda but I still wouldn't take anything for granted out here in the sticks. As with Immigration, news takes a while to penetrate across the rice paddies and in any case each local office makes up its own rules ...

So Thailand is a Western-world rubbish-recycling dump? I thought it was mainly some Black African states that had that role in life. True Third World status at last.

Well, every little helps but there is an indefinite (or at least unknown to me) number of Thais who do not belong to or work in the 'formal' economy. Only the informal one - somewhere between 30% & 60% of the population? The relevance to THEM of this generous committee's deliberations is not obvious.

Things that are perfectly normal in The West (and for good reason) are poured over here to find the hidden evil. Soon there'll be an appeal to the Constitutional Court to have him dismissed for taking 4 days' leave ...

A general cultural trait in Thailand: Unable to distinguish between quantity & quality.

That would be logical, but TIT ... might require a further 10-year wait. I'm torn between enjoying and dreading our arrival at the relevant office here in Prasat Surin and seeing the look of consternation on the faces of the clerks. "Thai only!"

Yes, it is the end of the world as we have known it. And it can only improve.

Let us hope so.

All about government intervention to change prices on this, that and the next thing. Does the Government actually produce all these things? What do the producers (ie capitalists at all levels of the economy) think? Or are we actually in a command economy à la soviétique?

And taxes on wine will be reduced by 90% any year now ...

Of course extensive ecological studies will have been undertaken already so the effects on tides, sands, fishing and local populace will have been fully considered and the necessary actions will be included in the regulations for the concession ...

None of which will help at all unless the thousands upon thousands of domestic workers are alerted to and understand their rights and are able to enforce them with their employers without being sacked (or worse).

I couldn't fight a kitten but I think if I were attacked like that I would be so outraged I would lose my temper and just flail at them till they killed me.

And the Finns are regularly rated the happiest people in the world! But that's on average.

More money than he knows what to do with. Fundamentally disgusting.

The biggest cockroach I ever saw was in BKK in 2013 when we were staying for a couple of weeks in a 1-room bit of a rather downmarket block ... A roach the size of a mouse ran out one day from under the bed. I thought that was the roach of roaches but, as I see above, apparently not. Here at home in south Surin I see about 2 or 3 every week, 'normal' size, but only if I haven't renewed the anti-gecko/snake spray ...

So salvation will come from more and more tourism? I don't think so. Tourism does 2 things: (1) confirms and prolongs your status as a low-education, low-productivity, low-tech Second/Third World economy & society; (2) destroys the basis of its own success - 'Come in your millions to see our pristine beaches!'.

It would make a great read to see the original strategic and operational planning that the Navy used to propose & justify the purchase of submarines. (Probably 2 minutes to get to the end?)

Don't be silly. We the planners won't be round by then so we don't need to worry about it. Meantime there's lots of profits to be made.

More cars doesn't HAVE to be a given. Decent rail systems - between suburbs, within cities, between cities - would be a much better investment.

All the usual Thai cultural problems. When the best you can aspire to - collectively or individually - is worker-bee status in the 3rd World/2nd World borderlands, then you're not going to head up towards the bright lights of technological creativity. Slumming it is all we can look forward to.

Always interesting to see people who think of themselves as upstanding members of our open, democratic & free societies but are quite unwilling to accept minority groups asserting their right to the same privileges.