Lacessit

Australia provided $4.6 billion in aid in 2022. Based on population, we are actually more generous than you. I very much doubt Thailand could defend itself, too many chiefs and not enough Indians. The Thais are more expert at fence-sitting. Don't you feel deprived of your Second Amendment rights here? Or are you that rare person, a sensible American?

Quite correct, although the proles would probably squeal when they can't get cheap imports. You would also be introducing inefficiencies. Your steel industry would be making steel from the poorest grade of iron ore on the planet. You would be using expensive energy to produce aluminium. If you can feed, energize and defend yourself, why are you so paranoid?

The anesthesiologist is saying there is brain activity after the heart and breathing stops. Having had general anesthesia multiple times, it's a big fat nothing when I go under. The next thing I know, I am in the recovery room. Luckily, my only side effects are hunger and thirst. The OP does not say how long after the clinical death brain consciousness lasts. Is there a population from which statistics can be drawn , to say how long it takes on average for brain activity to cease entirely? I can't say if he is right or wrong, but it does appear to be wishful thinking.

How long do you think the US will have allies if it's going to slap tariffs on everyone? Canada is already forging trade ties with China and the EU. If you think Trump and Musk will be putting the money they save into SS and MC, you are delusional. Oligarchs line their own pockets.

So do I. There are a couple of other possibilities: (a) The tax office is uninterested in reported incomes below a certain threshold. Not worth the effort. (b) They have bigger fish to fry. This is Thailand. Like Immigration, rules and their application may vary between offices.

Isn't your village missing you?

It's already happening, obvious to anyone with more than two brain cells. You think DOGE is about saving money? It's about re-directing it.

And you will be licking up ants from the floor for protein, after your SS payments get cut because you are not spending them in the Hew Hess Hay.

According to life expectancy statistics, ashes fertilizing my GF's garden.

IME the Arabs I worked with spent more time trying to get out of work than it would have taken them to get the work done.

We have ginger nuts too, please keep up.

Trump paid $750 in tax in 2016 and 2017. Someone on $50,000 per year in America pays about $5900. No need to call you stupid, you do that out of your own mouth.

America is not Russia. There is only so much BS Twitter can pump out when COL is visibly rising, before it gets to the same credibility level as Truth Social.

What would you have paid?

I am quite well aware if someone is black, brown, brindle or white. I judge a person on how they interact with me. Treat me with respect, I return it. I have worked with a range of nationalities. The only ethnic group I have an antipathy towards is Arabs, based on my personal experiences with them.

It's pretty mild compared to gweiloh ( Chinese ) or gaijin ( Japanese ). Then there's the Russians, with chorny.

I have worked with both races, plus Japanese. As individuals, not the same deal. Your generalisation is more applicable to groups. Thais don't like Chinese because they haggle over price to the point of exhaustion. Shopkeepers detest them.

It must have changed from when I was there in the 90's. I saw some pretty raw racism then. Black people were less guarded with me, because I had an Australian accent.

I can remember an Indian guy in my Chiang Mai condo who complained the Thai women treated him like dirt, even though he was quite wealthy. Thais are quite obsessed with white skin. It's a status thing. To me. racism is all about lack of education.

I remember the book " Black like Me" by John Howard Griffin. He was a white American journalist and author who, in 1959, darkened his skin and traveled through the Deep South for six weeks, posing as a Black man. The book is his account of his experiences with racial prejudice and segregation during that time. In Thailand, dark skin means you are in the lowest socio-economic class, working in the rice fields. To me, black skin means a beneficial genetic inheritance. People with it are far less likely to develop skin cancers. It's like the epicanthic fold in Asian eyes, which originally developed to prevent snow blindness.

Going to be interesting to see what happens in the mid-terms.

Personal safety, climate, food, infrastructure, living costs and, yes, women were all factors in my choice. The other countries struck out, for various reasons. To give one example, you don't pay rent in Indonesia on a monthly basis. You pay 12-18 months in advance.

I spent 6 months researching Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia before retiring here.

You beat me to it with the Titanic analogy.

The most I ever paid for a big basketful of laundry here is 200 baht. 3200 baht is an AI that does not know Thai prices. One could buy an entire wardrobe at a secondhand shop for 3200 baht. My Gf does my laundry for me.