John Drake

If you do, then maybe you would at least agree with me that there should be one standard. Every person applying for a retirement extension must meet one standard: 800K in a Thai bank or 65K coming through to Thai bank every month. Everybody. All nationalities. And absolutely no discretionary waiver of this standard on the part of immigration officials. No ifs, ands, or buts. Just one clean standard that puts all expatriate retirees on the same level playing field and which would curtail corruption immensely.

Well, it's not the Americans, British, or Australians who are the subject of this topic's article, is it? The fact is that the vast, vast majority of Americans, British, and Australians follow the rules. None of them is being investigated for 200K to 300K payoffs to immigration for visas. None of them is threatening to snatch up every piece of property along Sukhumvit and Ratchadaphisek roads, as Chuwit says the triads will do. Retirees from those three countries mostly follow the rules and those staying here now meet more stringent tests for qualifying for extensions than any other nationality.

Don't care. Do the Russian and Chinese embassies do that? Do they issue letters? How trustworthy are any of these "affidavits" coming from foreign sources? There is a simple answer: one standard for everyone; prove you have 800K in the bank or 65K monthly coming in through documentation issued by a Thai bank. Cut the embassies out of the picture entirely. Treat everybody equally.

Maybe it needs to "spread" to everyone using letters from their embassy. If Americans, UKers, and Australians need to provide Thai bank sources to prove their eligibility for visas and extensions, shouldn't everyone else? Wonder what those letters are worth coming from the Russian and Chinese embassies?

Several years ago, I read that some 800,000 Chinese had moved into Laos. They simply came in and started to live there like they owned the place. That, in a country of 7 million people. I can't find the article now and I see that Wikipedia says the Chinese in Laos only amount to one or two percent of the population, although they dominate 100 percent of business, finance, and commerce. So who knows the real numbers. I do know that it is a distinct source of trouble to share a border with China or border a small country that does and serves as a transit corridor.

You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The schools are just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the main article is highly detailed and describes an operation active at all levels of society and the economy.

FWIW, a lot of Thais are worried about Chinese infiltration and annexation. https://www.khaosodenglish.com/opinion/2022/12/04/opinion-growing-anxiety-about-the-rise-of-china-in-thailand/

But it helps a lot when you're buying soccer teams, mansions in the UK and US, and buying out foreign businesses. And those are the only people that matter.

You can use google authenticator on your Thai phone. You don't need an American phone number.

The last tracking info I received on both the Thai Post website and USPS is that my mail left Jamaica NY on 24 July. I've not received a second notice. I suppose this is the best we can expect from an inefficient, indifferent, incompetent mail system. And I do not mean Thai Post.

There are a lot of crossover athletes in the US, even at the professional level. Bo Jackson did NFL and MLB. Michael Jordan going from basketball to football. The Dallas Cowboys made all stars out of Bob Hayes coming from track and Cornell Green from basketball, while Ed Too Tall Jones went into boxing. I don't follow soccer enough to know if its players crossover into other sports. The only exception I remember is soccer players becoming placekickers in the NFL back in the late 60s and early 70s, such as Toni Fritsch and, I think, Jan Stenerud.

It's a matter of comparing the athletes. You could take NFL, NBA, or NHL players and have them square off against the best in soccer and probably still see a score not too far out of the realm of reason. Put soccer players up against even the worst of those other games and you would have unimpeded scoring just about every play, drive, or rush.

Watched the Cowboys-Giants Thanksgiving Day game. That was entertaining. Soccer is such a soft sport in comparison. Take the best players from either the US or England teams, put them in an NFL game, and no way they make it to the end without ending up in the ICU.

I didn't even know the US had a team in these playoffs. But I saw the title of this thread. When I saw how few comments there were in the topic, I just knew that the English had lost. But no. It was another one of those boring ties. Best part about this? English are butthurt and Americans don't even care.

I thought Subic Bay was turned into retirement villages for expatriates.

You would think so. I believe many/most of us file a return every year. But there is probably a privacy firewall between the two agencies.

It's not about you or anything you wrote. The use of quotation marks, here, are as simple scare quotes, used to indicate irony or disagreement with the phrase.

Not Hawaii. They wish. It's in San Francisco.

Tang China Shanghai in the 1930s Japan in the 1980s

I do hope you are correct. I went to my PO Box at the Taling Chan post office today and did not have a second notice waiting in my box. As most of those receiving them apparently did so earlier in the week, I hope this means I'm free and clear. I'll check back on Wednesday and see. I still think this is a deplorable way for SS to leave recipients hanging in the air. It was especially disconcerting in that other main topic on Form 7162 to see one poster report he talked with someone at the Wilkes-Barre building who told him that thousands of returns were laying around in boxes on the floor.

There are plenty of people posting on Thai news topics on Twitter that are perfectly reliable. Some are current and ex correspondents for major international new agencies. Too, there is simply a much larger base of people posting to Thai news on Twitter. And I think it's a good thing to have hundreds of contributors, instead of the same 10 to 12 you get on Aseannow. The one exception on AN is the Immigration/Visa forum, which is unmatched anywhere for information about Thai visas. It's also the one forum where many different people post, instead of the same 10 to 12 on all the others.

Twitter is just fine. It's the best source for breaking news there is. That includes Thai news, which is faster more thorough and detailed than anything you get, for example, on Aseannow. Even if a story makes it to AN, it's usually hours after the event, sometimes days. I know that I look for both local Thai news and international news on Twitter first. Most of my focus and interest has migrated there. Elon Musk is now running Twitter with 50 people doing the job 7500 were doing before. There's a billion dollars right there.

But shouldn't those rules and regs also require them to process the forms they demand? If people returned the 7162s back in mid July, that is plenty of time for ss to do their damn job.

A suspension from receiving SS could play havoc with those on monthly proof of pension with Thai Immigration, instead of the 800K. I can't believe how cavalierly SS is with wrecking people's lives.