Miami007

good luck waiting for companies to move their factories from China / HK to the USA.  They may move to Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand or Mexico and other LatAm countries before they set up in the USA where wages are higher and they have to pay benefits.  Central/ South America may be the regions to benefit most as they are closer to the USA and America will have an easier time pushing their weight around.  

Nobody really believes that USA will risk a confrontation over HK, do they?

4 hours ago, hioctane said:

 

Bankruptcy does not equal belly up. They are still in business. There are many levels of bankruptcy. This level just pauses the debt so they can restructure the business in hopes of turning a profit again. 

True - they are still in business, but the individuals waiting for a refund will just have to wait longer.  The same problem exists for other airlines and governments (in Europe and USA as well) will need to set rules that payments for future flights will need to be put into an escrow account and can't be mingled with operating funds (similar to professional services like lawyers etc).  

2 hours ago, Dukeleto said:

...aaaand good luck with that! That really is grasping at straws! Its going to take a while but a failing economy will eventually bring aboit the realisation that COVID-19 is here to stay regardless of a vaccine etc etc. People need this fact to sink in and become the norm just as the seasonal flu and dengue and other mirad of potentially lethal pathogens are accepted as part of the risk of living on planet earth. You simply cant put 7.something billion human beings on lockdown or quarantine or the threat of it indefinately. The economic damage is going to indirectly kill and harm far far more than this virus ever could have even if it was left unchecked. Mark my words there will be documentaries in the coming years showing the devastating fallout from our reaction to this pandemic. Who knows the next one from a different virus could already be simmering on the camp fire waiting for some oaf to stick it in their mouth because it might get his dick to stand up five times a day rather than four!

Nobody will talk about the fallout from the rush to close economies without evaluating data. Which politician will admit that they overreacted?. Especially,  as the original goal was to prevent a surge in infections which would overwhelm ICU capacity in hospitals. That goal to have enough medical capacity was reached quite some time ago - but the goal changed to preventing every single infection and death. The media sensationalized the topic and spread fear - in some countries because they don't like the present leader, in some because the government can look good by "saving" people. For authoritarian governments this situation was the proverbial wet dream... now they know how to ensure that the population stays home, is quiet and can be convinced to allow tracking and other surveillance.

Now the economy is ruined everywhere, regular people will suffer, countries are isolating themselves by closing borders etc. All because Mr. Ferguson created a model predicting 2 million dead people in the USA and 500,000 in the UK. His idea to mitigate the spread (although he admitted that he was not looking at feasibility and economic impact) was picked up by some politicians who promoted it and mostly everyone followed. Oh well...

20 minutes ago, kingstonkid said:

PING  

 

That is easy all the unemployed will take the trips.  Remember when the government made the incentive for people to buy new cars.  They told people that they could have 200,000 in tax savings everyone went out and bought a new car no matter if the could afford it or needed it.

Every year the government gives that end year save receipts and get tax rebates or savings on what you buy or if you travel.

Thais love it but the people that really love it are

 

VISA, AEON and the banks

 

The bigger question though is where will Thais go for their holidays.  Can not see them helping Phuket or Pattaya a lot.

 

Don't you need income to get a tax rebate / savings?

2 hours ago, bkk_bwana said:

Don't discount the value of domestic tourism. If the article is true, locals spend is almost half of that spent by foreigners. Fact 76% of tourists in Hua Hin in 2019 were Thai.  Average hotel rate 4k a night. Domestic tourism also puts more cash right back into the economy.

Not to discount domestic travelers but according to the report domestic would have to triple from its current level to make up for all of the international spend. As some international tourists will still come, Thai tourism will have to double.

Hua Hin may be an exception attracting an affluent BKK crowd... Samui, Phuket and Bangkok won't get that many Thai tourists. BKK high so is already in the city... They won't spend that much in their city.

Also, let's keep in mind that some domestic travel is business related and may decline as companies are cutting back. Another question is how Thai "holiday GFs " are being counted in spending. That segment will decline, if international visitation goes down

8 hours ago, KarenBravo said:

You are calling the Scandinavian countries inefficient? The citizens are clearly willing to pay high taxes to ensure a social safety net and to stop wealth inequality getting out of hand.

 

Witness the difference where US citizens that have lost their jobs are eventually going to run out of money, even though the government has spent more than  three trillion dollars (how very socialist of them) on them.

The Scandinavians in contrast don't have that fear, nor do they fear the cost of health emergencies that can wipe-out a life-times worth of savings.

Very true..nobody really k ows where the $3 trillion went (30% of annual GDP in one month)..

In Europe people have more security,  in the USA it is a constant struggle for the unemployed- which is leading to the efforts to open the economy as people simply can't afford it anymore.  

If closures continue,  there will be social unrest and there are way too many guns in circulation in the country for that to end well. 

3 hours ago, Oxx said:

 

It may be a tired argument, but it's also true.  Do you honestly believe that, to pick a few, Afghanistan, Burma, Brunei, Egypt, Kenya, Lesotho, Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Somaliland, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe are better off now than they were under British guidance? To more or less an extent they are now all basketcases.

 

 

Have you been to Qatar? One of the highest incomes per capita in the world due to natural gas.

Yes, there is abuse of foreign workers, no question about it. But Qataris have a good life.

Far from a basket case

15 hours ago, Pilotman said:

If you want an example of democratic power gone off the rails, just look at the UK.  That place is a mad house of over bearing Police, incompetent Central Bankers, Civil Servants  and politicians, with too much time on their hands, not a clue what is going on and with too much power to abuse.  In comparison, Thailand is a beacon of stability and common sense. I am just glad I was here in LOS during this social media driven, monumentally economically damaging fiasco

The economy in Thailand wasn't damaged? Restrictions were put in place here and there.. 

4 hours ago, Tropicalevo said:

1,000 Thais returned from overseas in the last two days. Some of them will be found to be positive. Not all of them obey the isolation rules.

It is still out there - just in smaller numbers.

It will always be there. These restrictions are to "flatten the curve", which means that we are spreading the same number of infections over a longer time.

The measures will not eradicate the virus. For that, you need a vaccine or the majority of people being infected 

2 hours ago, Don Chance said:

Seems fair enough to me. 14 days is not too bad if means you can walk around in society without a mask and without fear of covid.  Considering jet lag is 2 week is bit of a lose for me anyways.

Here in Canada they are opening things up yet the cases are rising. It is a s-show, people don't care just like the states, they don't wear masks and think it is all conspiracy. Things are expensive and boring too.  I can see the situation getting worse in the future and probably not getting better.

 

Once you pass quarantine in Thailand i would guess you could easily go to Cambodia or Vietnam too. I can see a benefit of have very few tourist around, cheap prices, nice local atmosphere.

You can go to Vietnam and have another 14 days quarantine when you return 

You still will have to wear a mask in Thailand after quarantine. 

15 hours ago, Mama Noodle said:

 

Seems the last on the list is foreigners with Thai families. Wish they would relax restrictions on that class of people so I can finally leave and get back to work without worrying I won't be able to get back to my kid.

 

Tourists being talked about. Work Visa and Diplomats being talked about. But <deleted> families? Who cares apparently. 

That is tough.. most countries allow spouses to enter.

Why not take wife and kid with you when you leave to go to work?

1 hour ago, MyTHaiMyKe said:

The second wave is coming! In the form of all the china people that Thailand is welcoming back with open arms!

why was there no first wave when Thailand allowed Chinese tourists without restrictions in January and February?

Or did China only send healthy people to Thailand and sick people to Europe?  Hard to believe

What about Thai, expats who visited China and returned - they didn't bring back the virus?

There is just a low rate of transmission - maybe because of temperature, a fairly young population, no handshakes or kisses when meeting, masks are more common in Asia?  Similar situation in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - low infections and low deaths.  You can hide infections but deaths is a lot harder to keep quiet.  So all these countries are doing better than many in Europe in general.  

Hard to tell and we may never find out

46 minutes ago, billd766 said:

Well the quick and very simple answer is that people NEED to work. If they work then they get paid and can afford to eat, (so can their family) and pay some bills and loans off.

 

From your post I deduce that you have money, food, accommodation and no problems feeding yourself and your family and no bills.

 

In other words, pull up the ladder Jack, I'm all right. Or to put it another way, you don't seem to care about anybody else. Perhaps one day in your life you will be in their position of needing help and nobody will care about you either.

 

Do you not believe the government when the PM says it is all under control?

 

BTW the more people that go to work means that less people need government help so the government does not need to borrow so much money to help people.

 

Tax revenue will rise and again the government does not need to borrow so much money to help people.

isn't is funny that most (all?) of the people who want to continue the lockdown are either retired with government income from their home country or large savings or people who are just wealthy or someone who keeps working from home and is collecting their same salary.

Don't see many unemployed people who are worrying about feeding their kids or paying rent having that opinion.

41 minutes ago, Ketyo said:

This is not a job for the National Security Council. It is not a National Security issue. It is a health issue and an economic issue. The only thing the security council is going to so is recommend more security. But since the army is in charge Security is the only thing they know about.

 

The main advisory committee should be The National Health and Economic Sustainability council.

 

You don't want to be in country where the army is in charge in a health and economic crisis!!  That is for sure.

 

I understand that those old generals are well into the age bracket where they can die of this, despite the boot polish in the hair. But they need to think of the future of the country.

 

 

Well that is the issue

the medical experts will always warn of the serious consequences of opening too early

the economic experts will warn of the dangers to the economy and the irreparable harm

the security experts want to keep everything secure

Everyone is only looking out for their field and using whatever argument they can find to justify it - and make money in the process

"You give a guy a hammer and he will want to hit something" - a quote from a former boss, which still holds true

June 31????

15 hours ago, JCP108 said:

Some hot countries confound that too hot theory (see India, Pakistan, Iran, and Brazil, for example). I think it's the somtam and Thai discipline. 

Thai discipline??? Like the disciplined motorcycle riders on sidewalks on Sukhumvit?

Brazil is entering its winter now.. this seems to be another seasonal infection. Iran is not hot in the winter.. India has relatively few cases based on the number of people 

14 minutes ago, Saddic said:

Don't expect dirty farangs from these countries to be able to enter the Kingdom anytime soon...

 

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-05-21-20-intl/index.html

 

WHO reports largest one-day jump in global coronavirus cases

 

Tedros Adhanom-Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, on Wednesday said that more cases had been reported to the agency in the past 24 hours than any time since the novel coronavirus pandemic began. 

“We still have a long way to go in this pandemic,” Tedros said at a briefing in Geneva. “In the last 24 hours, there have been 106,000 cases reported to WHO -- the most in a single day since the outbreak began. Almost two-thirds of these cases were reported in just four countries.”

Those four countries are the United States, Russia, Brazil and India, WHO infectious disease epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove confirmed to CNN.

 

 

USA found a way to not allow Thailand to ban pesticides made in the USA.. they will find a way here too.. I once saw a US soldier in camouflage uniform and with a sidearm in a hotel lobby in Pattaya.  Normally countries do not allow armed soldiers of another nation to walk around as they wish. I had to look twice.. but he did have a gun..

Must be some influence we don't know about 

16 hours ago, Curt1591 said:

Fear is a terrible thing to waste. Just saw a meme pointing out the "death rate" at 3%. It then went on to say that if there was a bowl of 100 skittles, and 3 were deadly, would you eat any?
 

The problem is that they are using the percentage of people who's death was "attributed" to COVID and used confirmed cases as the base. The reality is that there is over 330,000,000 people in the USA. If we divide the number of deaths "attributed" to COVID by the population, we are looking at less than .03 percent. Inother words, the bowl should have 10,000 skittles!
 

There are many thing we all face, daily, that put us at a higher death risk. 

-------------
 

Worldwide, it seems this thing has come, peaked and is waning. It will return next year, just like most seasonal diseases. Hopefully, healthcare systems will be prepared, vaccines will be available and it will not become a big scary monster. 

The big scare was that healthcare providers are prepared the annual flu epidemic. 

But then, , COVID rolls into town. They have no vaccine and no established treatment. So, the healthcare industry panics. 
 

They have weathered the storm - treatments have been established and vaccines are on the way.
 

The season is over. Time to get back with our lives. 

Winter is coming in Australia and South America.  Let's see what happens.

Vaccine - maybe or maybe not anytime soon. Same for treatment.

8 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Since the major economies of the world have never been deliberately shut down, in the history of mankind, for a dozen very good reasons, nobody knows how we are doing to emerge from this, how long it will take, what the long term ramifications of the shutdown are going to be, how many millions will remain without a job, how many millions of small businesses will not be able to re-open, and when tourism will return. So, any and all projections are just that. Most are based on computer models, and computers are far more effective if they have good information to work with. In this case, there is no information to work with, as this has never happened before. The economic shutdown was an experiment in insanity. Projecting the economic recovery is equally insane, and a complete folly in hubris. 

 

I get why Thailand is desperate to revive tourism. The fall off has been a major financial hit, and also a great humiliation for the administration. There have been multiple sources that have quoted July 1st, as an opening date, for incoming international flights. But, nobody knows if that is certain, and nobody knows what the requirements will be.

 

A Covid free letter may be required, and I know for a fact those cannot be obtained in the US, at any price.

Also, there may be a requirement of health insurance, without a pandemic exemption, which will be quite costly, and who knows what else.

 

Though Thailand wants, and desperately needs international tourism, it must be very careful, as the country has done a great job in keeping the number of cases and the death rate low, and it has to be very vigilant against a second wave. If that second wave is going to happen here, it will not come from within. We have beaten Covid into the ground here. It is DOA. Thailand is one of the safest places on earth right now, in terms of Covid, in my opinion. But, it is raging throughout the world, and much care has to be taken to prevent it from slipping back in. The revival of tourism here will depend on how quickly them come up with a vaccine, and how desirable the world perceives Thailand to be, after all of this is over. Also, the biggest factor that is not being taken into account, by small men with little minds, like Pipat, and Anutin, is the fact that the target group that Thailand has been attracting for the past several years (low to lower middle income Chinese and Indians) are the ones hardest hit by this virus. It could be a long time before they have the extra money to be taking international trips. 

 

Will nations be rated, depending on the number of cases, the number of deaths, how recent the curve flattened, etc? If so, it will be quite difficult to get in from the US (the most radioactive people in the world in terms of tourism in the near future) Spain, Russia, UK, Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, Iran, India, Canada, and quite possibly China. The world leaders. In Covid. 

How did Thailand beat the virus by allowing chinese tourists until March 7. 

The restrictions alone can't explain that - especially as the virus was active in Europe and USA late last year. It must have been in China in October or November.  Maybe there were previous undetected outbreaks in Thailand and the population has some immunity already built up. 

Thailand is not testing a lot of people,  so I would not say that the virus is eradicated. It will be here to stay. I feel that overall the country is safe to visit, but you just have to meet 1 wrong person and have a problem. 

Tests give you a better chance of filtering out people,  but they are not 100% either.

We better adjust to living with the virus as most people will NOT die. Many even have no symptoms at all.

19 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

No surprise if you sacrifice the economy

So true.. media in the USA is acting surprised that we have 36 million unemployed.  

What did they expect?? Full employment at full wages at home and no work to do??

7 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

It seems there are extreme few infected people in Thailand. So who is going to infect whom?

As long a no "outsiders" arrive who bring the virus the risk is minimal.

So it seems the most important issue is: Keep the borders closed. And/or anybody who comes to Thailand must be tested and/or quarantined.

That is obviously inconvenient for the people who want to come to Thailand. But the best way to make sure there are no new infections.

Thailand can survive without foreign tourists for a year or two.

 

As tourism is 20% of GDP, you would lower living standards by roughly that amount. Survive, yes - but not living as well. But you probably don't care about the millions of Thai people who will lose their jobs. Eventually,  it will impact you, too

Funny that Thailand didn't have any infections when the virus was confined to China and Chinese tourists were allowed to enter in February and January.  It only became an issue once the virus became a problem in Europe...

10 hours ago, chowny77 said:

Basically they are after digital nomads. Wasn't it a few years ago that they were kicking these people out for not having Thai work permits?? I think it's about time that Thailand reverses this draconian law and allow people to work in any job if they have the knowledge or skill. It's not difficult and I expect more foreigners are likely to pay tax rather than their Thai counterparts. 

But many tech savvy digital nomads would not work for Thai salaries. They expect expat wages and benefits and employers don't want to pay these..

2 hours ago, Traubert said:

Yes. Effortlessly.

 

Chinese don't travel for wine and handbags. Jade and gold perhaps.

You should have seen the Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci stores in Paris, London, Tokyo and even inside China before the outbreak...  Chinese do spend on luxury items

10 hours ago, Pilotman said:

If you think this is bad, wait until all World governments start to recoup the economic costs incurred by Covid 19 and start to lower the massive debts being incurred right now, £500 billion in the UK's case, to date and still rising.  Prepare for massive tax rises across the board in all jurisdictions, weak western currencies, expensive air travel and hotel prices and a massive hike in all classes of insurance, Worldwide. And expect this to go on for many many years.  Welcome to the new World.  This small price to enter Thailand is a lot less that a drop in the ocean, it's nothing in comparison with what's coming.  

Don't worry - a Dutch guy told me on another forum that the EU will pay for all the unemployment and medical assistance needed to fight this pandemic... They are already creating a budget - LOL

Seriously, yes, taxes will have to go up or countries will just have to print more money, which causes inflation.  The problem is that economic activity and tax revenues will be depressed for some time as people were so scared that they are not spending anything.  I also do not see any large increases for retired people in the future as there simply won't be enough money left.