Kelsall

Biden is now toast, the first casualty of the impeachment effort. 

Pure genius on Trump's part.  Released the transcript knowing he would take some flak, but Biden, the only Dem who had a chance of beating Trump, would be wiped out. 

BTW, Trump won't even be impeached, let alone removed from office.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics/house-democrats-impeachment/index.html

1 hour ago, wayned said:

The acting DNI threatened to resign if the Whistle blowers complaint is not handed over to congress.  Supposedly it will be handed over to congress today.  Most likely with all of the "other" occasions other than the Ukraine call heavily redacted.  We'll see!

Nonsense.  He never threatened to resign.  https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/25/acting-dni-joseph-maguire-denies-report-he-threatened-to-resign.html

Trump expands his base.

Trump 2020 assured.

And here I thought tattooed women were tough, could handle knife fights, jail cells, etc.  Learn something every day.

3 hours ago, NancyL said:

It's not "centralized" in the U.S. with each county having it's own set of rules about requesting certified copies of marriage, divorce and death certificates.  We discovered this a couple years ago when we thought we'd want to move to Malaysia under their 10 year retirement visa program and, unlike Thailand where we each can maintain our own retirement visas, they want married couples to come in as a couple.  

 

Our original 40+ year old marriage certificate didn't cut it, so we had to request a new certified copy from the Payne County (OK) courthouse.  Now Hubby and I had the good fortune to be in Oklahoma together for just a year of grad school  and we found the place even more foreign than Thailand.  But, just like being in Thailand, you could use your charms to work the locals and that's what I did to get our new certified marriage certificates.

 

In looking at the county website, I discovered they had a new courthouse, probably built in the 80s or 90s and the old one, build in the 1880s, where Hubby and I were married had become a historic landmark, so I wrote a nice email to the county clerk asking about the fee for a certified marriage certificate, explaining how we were married in the old, very cramped courthouse, including some photos of the courthouse wedding with us posing next to a trash can in the hall with our party of other, equally out-of-place grad students.  How our marriage had thrived for over 40 years and we needed a recently certified marriage certificate for a visa application.  I received a nice email in reply and the ladies sent us two certified marriage certificates to our U.S. mail forwarding address.  Bingo!

 

Hubby likes to point out that we were married in the Payne (Pain) County Courthouse, but it turned out to be a good beginning.

OT, but why did you abandon your plans to retire in Malaysia?

"It would appear that offices are making their own policy."

The always have.

12 minutes ago, BertM said:

Problem with O-A in US is the cost and hassle of going to consulate in another state like California or to Washington DC when he goes home for a short visit in Texas. My friend works in Saudi, so it's a lot easier for him to pick up a short-term visa at Thai consulate in Bahrain rather than flying all the way back to US. His thinking is, he can get a 2 mth visa in Bahrain where he stays while working in Saudi, then 90-day non-O & 12 mth extension in Thailand for a total of about 17 mths and only needs to make about 5 or 6 - 65k xfers. The rest of time he can xfer what he needs to when he's there. The rest of the money can be sent back to US or used in Bahrain. That's his way of looking at it anyway. He's on extension now and has the income, but was really not wanting to xfer or keep too much there. Just looking at different options.

I think you can do the OA by mail from Texas to the LA Consulate.

There's no guarantee the powers that be won't change the requirements for the Elite visa. 

Requiring health insurance from an approved Thai insurer might be one. 

It's hassle-free...for now.

9 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And even if they would have known what Epstein supposed to have done (as far as I know most are unproven accusations), what is wrong with his money? 

Epstein was a convicted sex offender, required to register as such.  He was convicted in 2008 in a plea bargain.

On 9/3/2019 at 11:06 AM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Also, whatever purifier you look at, make sure you inquire prior to purchase about the availability and cost of replacement HEPA air filters for that particular unit. Because, a lot of the stores that sell the purifiers don't stock the replacement filters for them. And it's not always easy to obtain replacement filters for various models.

 

This cannot be overemphasized.  On cheap purifiers I've been burned on this and so have friends of mine.  It might be a good idea to buy 5 or so filters at the time you buy the air purifier.  Ever since I switched to IQAir though, no problem obtaining filters from their distributor in Bangkok.  

And the wait continues...

On 8/29/2019 at 1:23 PM, the guest said:

I'm surprised that China hasn't brought in the tanks already.

 

Anyway HK will go to the dogs soon as I hear many investors are closing their bank accounts & businesses and moving out to more fertile ground.

 

Source?

4 hours ago, Max69xl said:

August 18 was a Sunday,so August 22 is next week. 

I was referring to his first point.  The announcement did not happen.

On 8/27/2019 at 10:39 AM, rott said:

Small point. The OP says details to be issued on 22 August. No details yet??

 

Second (pedantic) small point, the OP was dated 18 August so should have read "this week" and not "next week".

 

Still, bad that there is no announcement yet ( assuming the recent posts are correct, I have not been following daily).

 

 

 

 

 

Respectfully disagree.  It is a big point.  An unnamed source supposedly told one news organization that there would be an announcement regarding health insurance requirements for the OA visa on Aug 22.  Did not happen then and hasn't happened yet.  This is a very long thread based on questionable at best information.

On 7/25/2019 at 9:32 PM, HerbalEd said:

I'm continually amused that the majority of comments about Thai PE visa are done by people who've never had one -- and, no surprise, their comments are most often full of misinformation and inaccurate assumptions. And then there's always 2 or 3 or more who seem down right offended by those "fools" who choose to use the Thai PE Visa. Anyway, I'm in my fifth year of my first Thai PE Visa and I'll definitely be signing up for a renewal. After thirty-plus years of frequent travel in and out of Thailand, and border runs, 90-day and 1-year reports, etc., etc., I would never go back to any other visa.

Yep.

7 minutes ago, ThaiBunny said:

Since they walk you from the aircraft to the special Immigration counter for TE members, what do you reckon?

And if you don't want that, what do you reckon?

8 hours ago, simon43 said:

The Elite visa doesn't need any monthly income, only 500,000 baht for a 5 year visa.  At the time, (5 years ago), I had a spare 500,000 baht in savings, so went for the visa.  Now I can see better visa alternatives in other countries (Laos).

 

BTW, my monthly income is actually about 100,000 baht.  I lead a simple life, spending perhaps 30,000 baht per month in total, including 5-star medical insurance.  So I can save perhaps 60-70,000 baht each month.  Saving up 500,000 baht takes less than a year ????

 

Having finally relocated back to Luang Prabang, I find that living costs are lower than others have warned.  I'm paying 1 baht to buy a banana, 500 grams of fresh tomatoes for 17 baht. fresh evening meal (all you can eat) for under 70 baht.  My daily expenses for food and drink are running at less than 200 baht a day ????

Aren't you a ham radio op, or am I mistaken?  If so, can you do ham radio there in Laos?

On 7/24/2019 at 1:45 PM, wolf81 said:

I have the Elite visa and could use the 90 days reporting site last time, so that's not too much of a hassle. Of course you'd also still need to report once a year at immigration if you don't leave the country at least once in a 1-year period. 

Do you have to inform the TE people every time you enter Thailand so they can start the countdown clock for doing your 90 day report?

From the OP:  "On Friday, a senior executive from one of the insurance companies involved in the scheme told Thaivisa that the Office of Insurance Commission, the Ministry of Public Health, the Foreign Ministry and Immigration Bureau will announce the insurance requirements for  Non-Immigrant O-A visas on 22 August."

So did this happen?

On 7/26/2019 at 10:47 PM, Sheryl said:

1. This is going to be required for issuance of O-A visas (obtained in your home country) and is already required for O-X visa. To date there has been no mention of it being required for incountry extensions of stay which is what most of us are on.

 

2. For the O-X visa (and soon, but not yet, the O-A visa) 400k and 40k are not the maximums but the minimums.

 

The O-X visa requires an insurance policy from one of a handful of Thai companies, and these are very bad value.  It has been said that the O-A requirement, when it comes online, will accept any policy (including international ones) that meets the minimum requirements but this is nto sure and details nto yet issued. I have no idea, given the complexity of insurance policies, how Thai Embassies and consulates would go about determining if a given policy met the requirements.

This is what concerns me.  I have a US-based policy that runs 150 pages.  There is no mention of coverage limits though I am sure they are well above the Thai requirements, given US medical costs. 

Not mentioned in any other publication.  We shall see if this announcement even happens.