13 hours ago, Jenkins9039 said:

Not so much, the World which includes states, corporations, people, require dollars to service their eurodollar debts, the Eurodollar debt / liabilities market is a paper market worth anywhere between 350 Trillion $ to 420 Trillion $, which is currently rolled over at roughly 75 Trillion $ annually, the debt / liabilities are across the world, predominately not with the the West but with each other.

 

So every year there is the demand for the $ to service the interest or refinancing of the debt.

 

 

 Yep.  All over the world governments and businesses have US dollar or Eurodollar debt.  When payments are made on those loans, the payments must be made in dollars. Consequently, the demand for dollars will not disappear anytime soon.  Moreover, much international business will continue to be conducted using dollars as a medium of exchange.

So, for the foreseeable future, the dollar won’t be dead simply because the BRICS nations establish an alternate method of transacting business.  
 

The real danger, I think, is continued reckless government spending.  The U.S. is currently borrowing a trillion dollars every 100 days. The Fed has been buying many of the bonds, but that won’t continue forever. In any event, all that money creation can cause very high inflation. The value of the dollar is eroded. And that will someday spook the bond market. 
 

The Fed can’t really control the interest rates, long term.  If the bond market crashes, that’s big trouble.  
 

On 5/21/2024 at 2:50 PM, Mike Lister said:

How seriously a person ought to take this depends where they are on the risk line. If a person has multiple rental units, and doesn't file a tax return, and has multiple large remittances every year also, their risk level is fairly high. The typical pensioner on the other hand, the guy who remits only his pension every month, is tucked away quite nicely on the low end of the scale. That's not to say that at some point, measures wont be implemented to catch the the high income guy that will also ensnare and inconvenience the average pensioner. I think that's the risk that most people face, collateral damage. Whether or not the average foreigner is more at risk than the average Thai, I imagine that they are. This is simply because one call to Immigration to activate tax clearance certificates and it's game over, the average Thai doesn't face the same threat. 

 Sorry is this question has been asked and answered, but I’m too lazy to go back and read all the posts. 
 

Anyway, I’m sure there are many people like myself who transfer into Thailand only a portion of the money they receive from government pensions or from Social Security.  In other words, all the money sent into Thailand should not be taxable in Thailand, but only in the USA, per the clear language of the tax treaty which say such money is taxable only in the country of origin.
 

So, the question is: would such a person be required to file at all? The money is not taxable. None of it.  Or, if a tax return is required, what would one have to do to show that the money is exempt from taxation in Thailand?  How much do accountants in Thailand charge do do a simple return?
 

It would be nice to be able to ignore the whole thing until such time as the Revenue Department or other authorities questioned it, but then again, it might be easier to go ahead and file, even if no tax is due.

Can it be assumed that neither Social Security payments nor government pension payments constitute “earned income” for purposes of Thai tax law?

On 6/10/2024 at 10:07 PM, impulse said:

99% that it's something age and back related.  But I'd sure hate to find out later I had prostate or colon or other cancer and didn't spend the few bucks to have it looked at.  I did just that a few months back for similar pain after walking my target 10,000 steps a day.  (20K when I'm in Thailand)  Well worth the money just to make sure it wasn't cancer. 

 

I'm probably paranoid, staying in China this past year to care for my GF who does have cancer, that got into her lower spine.  I wouldn't wish that on anyone.  They didn't catch it early with her because the hospitals were so booked up during the lockdowns.

 

That happened to a guy I once worked with.  One day he came to work using a cane because of back pain.  He wasn’t that old, though, so it seemed a little surprising.  Anyway, he went to the doctor a few weeks later, only to find out he had cancer that had spread to his back and elsewhere.  He died a few months later.

From what I’ve seen online, the $1 houses in Italy aren’t always in good shape.  By the time you spend money renovating, you’ve spent a fortune.

Japan also has abandoned houses you can buy cheap.  They aren’t $1, but some of them look like you could live there while doing any renovation you might want to do.

Of course, anywhere you go you have to sort out the visa situation.  

On 5/27/2024 at 1:31 AM, swissie said:

My Ex-Wife wants me to stay healthy. She forces me to walk every day. After 500 meters I developpe strong pain in my lower back. (in German; Kreutzschmerzen). The Doctor says: At the age of 72 you must expect all kinds of things. Furthermore, surgeons shy away from "surgical-corrections" as 1 "wrong" cut in this bodily aerea can send you to a wheelchair. So, they rather do nothing.

 

So I stopped walking, replacing it by increased drilling in my nose and scratching my ass.

 Depending on the severity of your situation, you might benefit from exercises to strengthen your abdominal muscles.  Doing that can help support your lower back.  Look up “Williams” back exercises.  Years ago, while I was in my early 20s, I suddenly had a problem with lower back pain. Spondylitis at L4. At the time, I was in the Army. The physical therapist gave me those exercises to do, and so I did them.  I’m now 72 and haven’t had the problem since.  Anyway, back surgery should be avoided if at all possible. 

On 6/2/2024 at 3:42 PM, Jingthing said:

Some more ideas

 

Evansville IN

Very low cost. Southern Indiana so warmer.

Probably need a car.

 

Lousville KY

A bigger city so lots of amenities.

Possibly some neighborhoods no car.

 

Wilmington NC

Desirable as on the coast.

Probably too extensive but downtown might be possible without a car.

Worthy of research.

 
I agree. There are lots of places like these in the US that can be affordable so long as you don’t mind winter weather. Unfortunately, rent isn’t the only consideration these days.  Food is more expensive now, no matter where you go. Taxes can be a factor. Insurance.  

I saw something just the other day about Georgia changing their laws.  Squatting is now more difficult there.  
 

The law varies from state to state, but it’s easy to see how the squatters can get away with the scam. Anyway, there are always people trying to game the system.  
 

In California, businesses have sprung up to combat the problem. Basically, the real homeowner hires a goon squad to make life difficult for the squatters.  The goons get a lease from the homeowner, somehow gain entry to the property, and proceed to make life extremely difficult for the squatters. If the police show up, the goons have a lease, so it’s again, a civil matter.

And to think I was on the verge of changing everything around so that my deposits are routed to my Thai bank. As it stands now, my deposits go to my U.S. bank, and every so often I send a wire transfer to Thailand. That has always worked, so far. I don’t use online banking, so all I really need is a Thai account for my retirement renewal and access to an ATM.  I pay my rent with cash. Ditto for the electric, which I pay at the 7-11.  Once in a while, I’ll use a U.S. credit card to pay for something here in Thailand, and that seems to work ok. 
 

There really should be a simple solution to this problem.  One solution might be a Schwab International account. That account can be hooked with a Schwab bank account, which I think is a U.S. based bank.  And I think that can be opened up from outside the U.S. I’ve never looked into Wise.

It’s hard for me to imagine that there are groups of people actively planning and hoping for a nuclear war.  What are they thinking ?  
 

Do they think that in the aftermath they’ll still have electricity? Heat for their homes? Do they think their cars will be usable? What are they going to eat? Even the

 billionaires with underground bunkers will probably wish they were dead.  
 

Perhaps some humans will survive.  Isolated tribes in Africa or in the Amazon rainforest.  People that don’t depend on the grid or industrialized farming.  The rest of the world will be a real disaster.

I’m sure that’s the story. I just wonder how such a thing could have happened.  

No telling what really happened. Off the top of my head, this girl seems to be a scapegoat. She probably doesn’t have the money to fight back.  

Music?  Maybe you just need to expand your horizons. Try  something different.  If you usually listen to rock, try jazz. Or classical.  
 

I think everyone goes through phases.  Maybe it’s just a temporary thing. Don’t listen, if that makes you happy.  But at some point, you’ll want to listen again.

Im sort of like that with movies.  Sometimes, I’m just not in the mood. Other times, I can watch movies every day. 

The COVID thing probably won’t scare too many people at this point. But not to worry, they have another trick up their sleeve. Bird flu.  Supposedly, more deadly.  And I think they have a new MRNA vaccine ready to go.  

15 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

People can look up all they want on supplement-selling websites and dodgy YT videos. But credible sources find no substantial evidence to support most of what you're citing above in terms of actually preventing or treating COVID:

 

U.S. National Institutes of Health - Dec. 2023:

Supplements

Vitamin D

• There is insufficient evidence for the Panel to recommend either for or against the use of vitamin D for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.

Zinc

• There is insufficient evidence for the Panel to recommend either for or against the use of zinc for the treatment of COVID-19.
• The Panel recommends against using zinc supplementation above the recommended dietary allowance (i.e., zinc 11 mg daily for men, zinc 8 mg daily for nonpregnant women) for the prevention of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial"

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/supplements/summary-recommendations/

 

And as for ivermectin:

Recommendation

• The Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19

...

Trials have failed to find a clinical benefit of using ivermectin to treat COVID-19 in outpatients.

 

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/miscellaneous-drugs/ivermectin/

 

A few links on research:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8970839/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9137692/
 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fft2.207

45 minutes ago, jas007 said:

Look into the Edelweiss Dental House.  
 

I needed a routine dental checkup and I had seen a YouTube video by the “Retired Working for You” guy, Chris Parker.  Anyway, I figured I’d give them a try.  It worked out well.  I’d go back.

13 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

What if scenarios ... nobody knows what would happen in a nuke war.  As far as we know, all the nukes won't even function, or even exist.

 

Again, people are relying on info from their lying govts 

Anyone remember reading about the UFOs that somehow switched off the nukes? It was a temporary thing, but I wouldn’t doubt it.  Maybe the aliens will save humanity from the Neocons. 

Whoever reacted.  Why do you think that was funny? 
 

I thought the people who treated me were very professional.  They knew what they were doing and they have all the latest equipment.

I think I had it one time, two or three years ago.  It lasted for about 24 hours and that was that.  No big deal, but I was healthy.  Lots of sunshine (vitamin D), and Zinc and Quercetin on a daily basis.  So it was a one day cold.
 

I’ve never been jabbed. I’m not stupid and I’m healthy to this day, even though I’ve been running around the world without a mask for the last few years. 

Anyone paying attention to the real news in early 2020 must surely have realized that information relating to COVID was being heavily censored. True facts were scrubbed from the internet almost instantly.  The narrative was controlled.  And the officials told one lie after another.  I remember watching my Twitter feed. Someone would post something obviously true, and yet that post would be gone in 30 seconds if it didn’t follow the official narrative. That was enough for me.  Whatever was going on, I wasn’t going to be one of their victims.
 

Look into the Edelweiss Dental House.  
 

I needed a routine dental checkup and I had seen a YouTube video by the “Retired Working for You” guy, Chris Parker.  Anyway, I figured I’d give them a try.  It worked out well.  I’d go back.

A nuclear war would be bad for everyone on earth, and especially bad for those who survive the first few hours. I think many people fall to realize the extent to which we now live in a global environment. There would be no winners. The catastrophe would be a global affair.  
 

Would the internet survive a global thermonuclear war?  Would ATM machines still work? What about your fiat currency? Would you still be able to obtain whatever medication you need? What about cell phone service? Food distribution? Oil? Food? Electricity?  Water?

Face it. You would be screwed.

21 hours ago, george said:

 

A month ago I bought a Macbook Air M3 2024 and that's the best laptop I've ever had. My old 2010/2020 MacBook Air suddenly didn't want to charge, so I upgraded.

 

IMO much better than iPad Pro.

For sure, the new M-4 IPad Pros are still not as good as the new M3 MacBook Air, but that’s more a function of the software than anything.  I now have both, just in case. We’ll have to see what Mac OS 18 brings. Supposedly, the new M4 chip is designed for better AI performance.

On a day to day basis, I find myself using the IPad Pro. Smaller, lighter, and easier to use.  I still have a laptop simply because I’d feel bad without one. I bough my first computer in the early 80s and have had one ever since. I’d feel deprived without at least having a laptop with a computer OS.

Somehow, my condo came with a a streaming service already in place. I don’t pay anything extra.  Most of the channels are junk, but what do you want for free? I think a lot of the channels are grabbed off the internet somehow, as once in a while a channel will freeze and then I see a browser onscreen until someone finally fools around with it to regain the signal. The channels go from 1 to 900. Shopping channels, news channels, sports channels, movie channels, etc.

Mostly, though, I use my Apple TV gizmo and stream some of the apps I can get on that. I already subscribe to Nord VPN, and there’s a Nord VPN app for Apple TV, in case there’s a channel that is restricted to the USA. Anyway, there are tons of free movies on channels like Tubi and Freevee.  I also subscribe to Apple TV+, and have some content on Amazon Prime.  And of course, there’s always YouTube.

Also, I can cast anything I want from my IPad to to the Apple TV box.

I realize there are probably cheaper alternatives.