mfd101

Yes, and many of the young federal bureaucrats who worked for me in Canberra had swarthy skins and difficult to pronounce surnames, but they had been born in Oz and spoke broad Australian. Often very talented young people and a pleasure to work with.

My comment was meant quantitatively rather than qualitatively.

Not sure how that helps. My point is that expats here invariably overestimate their own importance in the scheme of things.

Rubbish. Old Falangs are nothing but a pimple on the backside of Thailand.

Well, whether you approve or not, the world's population will be declining steadily after the middle of this century. And no doubt panic will set in, the opposite kind from what we currently have. We love panics. Without them journalists & politicians would have little to do.

Life expectancy figures are nearly always based on expectancy at birth. But most of the large increase in 'life expectancy' in Western countries over the last 120 years came from the virtual elimination of child mortality. Which means that, if you were to take the figures for life expectancy at, say, age 10 or 15 or even 20, the improvement over the last 120 years would be nowhere near as great as is usually quoted. There have always been people who lived to a ripe old age (Thomas Hobbes was one: 1588-1679). Just not many of them.

Yes, I entirely agree. When politicians intervene in this area, they have no idea what they're doing or what the longterm effects will be. The only counter-example to that that I can think of MIGHT be Singapore ... but it's so small & so competently governed in autocratic style that it probably doesn't have too many lessons to give the rest of the world.

Issues with Wise seem to vary from 1 country to another, mostly I suspect because each country has a different set of security requirements. I use Wise to transfer from Australia to Thailand. Since we fixed the 'reason for transfer' issue in relation to Thailand several years ago, I've never had a problem. Occasionally they take an extra 24 hours for the transfer to arrive, presumably because of security checking.

Yes, and by donating younger people to the older receiver countries, they don't just help the inverted pyramid in the receiver countries, they reduce the huge pyramid in their countries of origin where, characteristically, babies per woman are still around 3 and only slowly edging down to the magic crossover number of 2.1. The problem with all of that is that migrants tend to be the better educated, get-up-and-go (literally) individuals & families. People with energy, whom the donor country can't really afford to lose. The one thing that follows from all of this is that, when it comes to demographics, it's pointless taking a short-term view of things (say, next 5 or 10 years). What will happen in 5 or 10 years, in every country, is largely already decided by the decisions people have already made and acted upon re baby-production. We know for instance how many babies were born last year in country X. We can therefore predict, taking life expectancy stats into account, how many young males will be on the streets in say 16-24 years, and therefore what levels of street crime are likely to be. We can predict what the levels of demand for education from primary to secondary to tertiary will be over the next 20+ years ... And so on. And no country (not even Nth Korea) misses out on all of this.

Migration flows reduce the effects of the inverted pyramid. At least in receiver countries. Not so good for the donor countries ... but even in Africa positive change is under way in many countries with booming economies (Ruanda, Kenya, Nigeria ... ). They may not be countries you or I would want to live in, let alone retire to, but they are slowly catching up and rejoining the mainstream at the global level.

What we are living through is the middle of the 1000-year process of the reunification of the human species, a process that started (symbolically, for Westerners at least) in 1492. This process has of course been under way for 2000 or 3000 years or more (eg Central Asia) in smallish numbers, but it has picked up speed over the last 200 or 300 years because of the spread of technology and increasing migrations which even out social & cultural differences over time. To take one highly successful example of the process at work, Australia is a very different country now from what it was 100 years ago, and not just because of technology but because of the tides of migrants pouring in from all parts of the globe, building a very successful, culturally-enriched country in the process. Similar things could be said about Usofa, over a longer time frame but, in some ways, less successfully because of the different cultural origins of the European migrants from the C17th on making the integration process much more fraught (religion, slavery, a peculiar concept of 'freedom' etc). Europe is also struggling for a different set of reasons. The point is that as these processes work their way at the global level, all countries are caught up in the same processes - technological change, international trade, worldwide effects of change (eg Ukraine War, climate change, demographics, economic influences ... ). The effect long-term is that social & cultural & ethnic differences slowly reduce. There is no reason to expect that Thailand will escape these global changes over time. Yes, its starting point is a surprisingly inward-looking culture & society cut off from the rest of the world. But, as the recent election demonstrated with the influence of younger generations coming to bear, mobile in hand, things are changing even here.

That's the short-to-medium perspective. The medium-to-long perspective is likely quite different, depending on how Thailand navigates its socio-cultural problems (corruption, feudal hierarchy, abysmal education standards ... ).

It does in Australia. Without the 200-300,000 migrants pouring in to Oz each year (mostly educated people in their 20s & 30s & 40s), the country would be way poorer.

BKK & 'Eastern' region - 2nd world by any reasonable definition. The rest 3rd world.

Nonsense. Give them a decent wage and the education to plan a future and they stop breeding like rabbits. As has happened in every First and Second World country. It's not rocket science.

Well we can all make smartass comments but none of us on AN actually has a clue as to his real state of health or what the current plans by and for him are. It is certainly not impossible that he might be genuinely suffering the ailments that rich people of his age usually suffer (too much lavish foods, too little exercise, too much stress ... ), and all the excitement of the last few days has been almost more than his oldish body has been able to cope with ... I guess we'll be in a better position any week now to offer yet more demonstrations of our collective nous and humanity.

B/S. The birthrate in The West has been declining for at least 4 decades, and in China for about 5. The thing about demography is that it changes the shape of your country for decades ahead (as the Chinese are finding out). It changes the culture, it changes the economy for both better & worse. And noone has any longterm control over it. But you can predict your population numbers and mix with great accuracy decades ahead. You might say: F...g is destiny.

No different from the rest of the world outside Africa (and THEIR turn will come as their economies are clawing their way up the status ladder). The planet needs it that way even if particular countries don't like it. The future is smaller and multculti. Looks pretty good to me.

80B under threat of being withdrawn by terrified expats?

Contrary to what some expats seem to think, I don't suppose expats are in the top 500 items on Srettha's to-do list.

Too early to tell. We don't even know yet what portfolios will go to what Ministers (& their parties). And, depending how Srettha turns out as the boss, it may or may not be he who decides most important questions in any case ...

I'm an MFP supporter and I hope they sweep in to power next time round. But meantime we have a mixed bag of people coming to power. I'm realistic enough to recognize that the world is grey, not black & white. So I shall judge the new government on its performance over time, as any reasonable person should do. As to the new PM, his background & expressed views on the need to reduce inequality suggest he at least understands some basic issues that need addressing. If he's genuine, he'll need to act quickly & ruthlessly while the going's good and the dinosaurs are feeling great pain: new constitution, economic measures to spread wealth outside BKK, decent social security, decent education system for all, renewed infrastructure ... the list is endless and constitutes 50 years' work ahead, all of it overdue to transform a 3rd World country into a 2nd World one.

Worth reading the description in the Op full article. Reads like a description of Pita & MFP goals. Here's hoping. Actions speak louder than. Fingers crossed.

Pre-Covid I had some major work (caps) done over several years at BKK Smile Clinic. Excellent work. Half the price of work I had done in Canberra. In fact Canberra friends of mine used to fly to BKK every couple of years to get dental work done there. They said the difference in costs paid for a 2-week holiday in Thailand.

Here in Isaan the cane rats are not a problem. Au contraire, they make - along with dog and snake - a favourite dinner item. I have even tried one mouthful myself. Hard to do because of 'Western' association of rats with sewers, but here they are just another clean source of protein.