NorthernRyland

the best part is he refuses to learn Thai properly because it's a primitive language and won't button up his shirt out of respect for the culture but then he won't take off uncle Som Chai's magic amulet. Very confused by this obvious hypocrisy of his.

Anyone that isn't hopelessly partisan can have an intelligent conversation about trade policy and globalism. People take Trumps blustering too seriously and there is a real issue underneath all of this.

Benjamin has made a good point here. I didn't know myself but apparently American consumers are paying the VAT tax in Thailand when goods are exported to the US. This is especially unfair for US companies that offshored and export back to America. Basically they make the consumer eat the taxes and they get to keep the profits from the cheap labor, then the Thai owned factory profits as well of course. Clearly unfair and something to re-negotiate with Thailand although it's not going to reduce the trade deficit. If this is all the trade war accomplishes with Thailand I'd be happy. It would be typical of Trump to throw out this trade deficit talk as basically B.S. and a means to an end and not really about this thing itself per se. VAT is only like 7% anyways and doesn't come close to the 34% Trump wants on them.

There's no mechanism to fix trade deficits in the short term so people will be waiting for many years for factories to reopen and even if they do that's no guarantee it will be cheaper than China, unless they heavily use robotics (they will) so in this case less blue collar work than he may think. If he doesn't back down at best this will be a transfer from American consumers to American businesses and labor. It's not going to be an across the board win for everyone by any means.

no this is really a thing. Of course it's not everyone but I see way too much concrete and dirt where it doesn't need to be. It's harder here to keep gardens though because they can explode in jungles very easily. Ever see the houses where they concrete over everything and let it bake in the sun? Looks miserable to me but many people do this because it's easier to maintain. Many housing projects are big offenders here. Pure concrete from house to house with barely any privacy and scorching hot.

I think many of them simply don't care about trees. They're like pests almost. Same with dogs actually. Notable how most of the wild life was hunted to extinction too. I only see birds and maybe a squirrel now and again. The jungle should be filled with animals so where is everything? The annual human made forest fires in the north are probably a big factor to this too. Where I'm from in Colorado it's teeming with animals, even if the residential areas. Deer, raccoons, squirrels and rabbits everywhere and you'll see bears if you get into the mountains at the right time of year.

oh man that hurts. I would be pissed. so many Thai people are living in stuffy little concrete boxes and think this is just fine. Why walk under a nice shady tree outside when you could be sitting on the floor in your condo? something like that...

Pruning yearly is ok, but that's not what they're doing. This is the laziest/cheapest possible option. Just cut once and that gives you 5-10 years until the next time. Sure now your property looks terrible but at least you didn't have to get sweaty doing anything. Edward scissors hands would be rolling in his grave.

They are worried about falling branches on cars/roofs often. Fair enough but they have a drastic over reaction and do these crazy hack jobs. You could prune the old/dead branches too but that require more work and monitoring the tree yearly so they do the laziest thing possible and just chop off it off in the middle every 5 years or so.

Here was a once very lovely tree with a wide canopy which you could park under. Totally butchered into this abomination. This isn't a one off incident, I see it over and over again. Just week where I live they did the same thing to some large trees which shaded a parking area and was a primary feature of a coffee shop. Climped up and chopped off the tops . Now the parking area is safe from falling branches but is roasting in the sun and really killed the charm. I was with a Thai men when they were doing this and he said Thai people don't like trees. I tend to agree. Why do they do this? Such a pity.

He may have been in Pattaya first before coming to Phuket.

That guy looks like he's been sleeping on the beach the whole 8 years and utterly destitute, no wonder he got a foot infection. He may have dementia or something. Doesn't right this could happen.

It boggles the mind. AN knows the people here are like this and yet they promote these stories with donation links. Remember not all of us here are British and this guy was probably a first generation immigrate to the UK. As an American I have less connection to him than my Thai neighbors so why are they promoting this on their platform instead of local stories? The logic seems to be we both speak English and we're in Thailand, therefore I should prefer to donate to him over a Thai person. Totally misguided if you ask me. Put it on a UK travel blog or something but not an English-speaking expat forum which. That's why they get pushback here.

I wonder why the NHS is so backed up.... maybe it has something to do with people like his family flooding into the country over a short period of time?

Thanks. I did try the beaches 20k south of Hua Hin last year. More of a Bangkok party crowd but I could have found some more quiet beaches if I knew in advance. This year we tried Krabi but we almost did Koh Chang or Nakhon Si Thammarat since we've never been. I thought Koh Chang would be the same as Phuket or Krabi...

It's a real problem. Even if the tariffs are successful that means factories come back to the US and will now prices will be who knows how much higher. If the tariffs fail then all prices are 34% higher. The best scenario is a transfer from Chinese labor to American labor and increased prices for goods. There's no clean win-win here.

The Trump admin is filled with WWII era heads and they have this idea China is an existential threat to the US. I bet they would love to get in a full scale war with China if they could.

Thailand is severely over touristed. Not even Thai's and expats go to many locations now because of mass tourism, and those includes all their best islands! I tried Samui, Phuket and Krabi and I think I'm done now. Not only was it expensive but I was surrounded by Russians and Indians on all sides for 5 days.

Do they know how embarrassing this is for them in their face saving culture? It's such a joke I cringe a little reading these things. Any person from a civilized country that steps foot in Thailand for 10 minutes, figures out they have a serious problem behaving while driving yet the authorities can't figure out why buses keep going off the road.

Must have some natural features (mountains/sea) or something of cultural interest. Desolate flat plains are banned. Phichit is just plain old Thailand so it's not like you're going to see a new culture either. I went to Krabi last week. This is a pool which descends down over 100 feet into a cave network, hence the color. Krabi itself was an over priced tourist trap fill with Russians and Indians but the area itself has many interesting limestone mountains and formations which were nice to see.

Exactly. Give me 10 minutes and I'll find a Thai person in which 40k pounds would be a life changer for their family and help their young children get ahead. Giving that dying old man (look at his legs ffs) the money would be a waste of money.

Sorry I'll donate to any random Thai family in need before this random immigrant from Britain.

If your bar is that low then yes. I'm sure you can find good things anywhere.

If Thailand removes their various taxes on imports that's all they can do and then it's up to the market. I would totally disagree with Trump putting tariffs on Thailand simply because there is a trade deficit. I agree this is probably the first step in a greater bargain they can do down the road. The worst thing to do is what we have been doing, which nothing and just sitting there and taking all this one sided trade with countries that have interest in being fair at all.

They need a plan to lift the tariffs if Thailand complies with some terms but I haven't heard they have any such plans. I don't see how the trade deficit between the US and Thailand could be 1:1 ever unless Americans simply stop buying Thai products but that isn't in anyones interest.