mfd101

A good place to start would be to pay all public servants - including police, Immigration officials & teachers - a decent (livable) salary from the public purse. Next step would be qualifications for entry ie failable exams, properly (externally) supervised. No quals, no job. No regular training updates, no job.

Mmmmm, well optimism's what keeps us going.

Gently gently catchee monkey.

I'm wondering whether before I die (currently 74) I'll be able to take a bullet train from Surin to BKK. Or even from here in Prasat! Currently it's 1.5 hours car to Buriram airport, 2 hours wait for takeoff (always on time in my experience), 1-hour flight, 1 hour from touchdown at Don Muang to Asoke. Most of a day gone. Then the reverse a few days later.

If I were attacked here at home, I could always throw books.

My b/f ate raw pork yesterday here in Surin. His family think it's normal. He had a tummy upset all last night. Fine this morning. No signs of imminent demise.

Yes, Usofans live in a highly suggestible society.

In BKK I take the skytrain wherever possible. Solves all the above problems on both sides of the argument.

I have heard it said that Thais laugh in such situations because they don't know what to do. Combine that with Buddhist pacifism and here's the result ...

None of the above. I have an old (long-closed) Federal government superannuation (CSC) which is funded from consolidated revenue each year & is taxed 'coming out' because not taxed 'going in'. So I now pay the 32% tax on every part of that part of my income. Didn't have to do that until I became a NRfTP 3 or 4 years ago.

Thanks. Noted. Will certainly consider Public Trustee when necessary.

So you have no Oz-sourced income? [I'm a 'non-res for tax purposes' but my entire incomes are from Oz and I pay more tax than I did when I was a resident.]

If simple superannuants/pensioners are going to have to lodge a return (and 120K per year is absurdly small), I guess the Thai tax/revenue department is going to be overwhelmed with work requiring English-language skills (amongst others). Net outcome: Swollen bureaucracy even more swollen. No benefit to the nation (except for lower middle class employment opportunities).

Oh dear. I better get used to the idea then.

The question then is: Will we nevertheless still have to file a return?

Most of my bridges have been 'burned' by death. Not too many contacts back in Oz now - which makes organizing matters financial for my partner post-my-mortem increasingly difficult (because Oz law requires all sorts of things to be signed off by an Oz resident).

They retire to the family farm in Isaan and keep house for the workers.

I don't disagree but - in democracies in particular - getting there is very difficult (just ask the Japanese who have 'been there' for now some 30 years). Aging population, tax base, economic energy & creativity ... managing expectations in that context is very difficult for any government. China already facing it.

Thanks, I'll check it out on Amazon. Might do the trick.

Yes, they're very good. Have used them 2 or 3 times over the years for new battery. Same-day service.

Um, I don't think the concept's all that hard to grasp. Fertility rates as discussed in demographics are a statistical concept not a biological one. Given infant mortality you need approx 2.1 babies on average from every woman to reproduce the current population level. Fewer than that and the population begins to decline. More than that and it increases. Experience shows that, in the modern world once the trend moves in one or other direction, it's immensely difficult to make it change back. The reason being that people in the modern world make conscious lifestyle choices under various social & economic influences. People in the old worlds of poverty and ignorance did not make such choices as they were unaware such things as 'choice' existed. My MIL, 6 years older than me and illiterate, never been to school, has produced some - and I use the term advisedly - 11 children across 3 marriages. My FIL, 2 years older than me & similarly afflicted, has produced 8 children across 2 marriages.

My b/f and I have been trying for some 11 years now. Without success.

The difficulty is that - as China's example shows - demographics are a long-term item where relatively small 'tweeks' of the birthrate above and below 2.1 produce slowly gathering & eventually huge changes in outcomes. Over decades. So, as China shows, even an authoritarian regime with maximum social, cultural and economic control has little capability to change the demographic outcomes once a trend has been set in motion. The beauty of demographics is that, for the State and its bureaucracy, very long-term predictions are possible. For instance, the number of baby boys born in cities this year produces useful estimates on crime rates 20 years down the track ...

On the 100m walk from my Asoke hotel to Benjakiti Park for my daily walk when I'm in BKK there's a lamppost in a narrow part of the footpath with a large (6"+) bolt sticking out of it, pointing in towards pedestrians and exactly at adult eye height. I first noticed it when we were living in BKK in 2013. I wondered then how long it would be till it was fixed. It was still there last April.

Good news (for once).