cmarshall

So, you identify as an "Englishman," not as "British" then?

Given that volunteer labor is against the law for non-Imm O visa holders, what would such service to the community amount to?

"Globalist" doesn't seem like a useful term to me. How would a globalist perspective be distinguished from any other? I suppose someone with a xenophobic, racist, and fascist outlook would hardly qualify, but who goes around congratulating himself on being free from those prejudices? Are the globalist Westerners living in Thailand distinguishable from the rest by anything other than bar room opinion?

Not quite correct. Remarriage does not affect the spousal benefit. Neither does divorce if they have been married at least ten years. Ten years of marriage is not required to be eligible for spousal benefits; one year is enough. Once your wife achieves her forty quarters, then she can apply at sixty-two for benefits on her own earnings and wait until her FRA to apply for spousal benefits if that would be greater than her own benefit.

Not exclusively. The Sirindhorn Dam is in Sirindhorn District, Ubon Ratchatani, Thailand.[3] It impounds the Lam Dom Noi River, and its reservoir is the province's largest water resource. The dam was commissioned in 1971 to serve as a hydropower facility as well as to supply irrigation water. The dam was named after Princess Royal Sirindhorn. All of the electricity generated by the dam is destined for domestic markets. The dam was constructed and is owned and operated by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and is located in the Mekong River Basin, just upstream from the controversial Pak Mun Dam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirindhorn_Dam

She doesn't need to have a US green card to receive SS spousal benefits on her American husband's earnings history. However, she must have previously had a green card in order to have lived legally in the US as man and wife for five years. However, once she has moved out of the US the green card would have expired after six months, but she could still collect her spousal benefit if she met the other criteria.

Not quite right. The spousal benefit is 50% of the husband's Full Retirement Age benefit, if he waited until FRA to claim benefits. If however, the husband claimed his benefits earlier than FRA, for instance at age 62, then his benefits will be permanently reduced and the spousal benefit will be half of his reduced benefit. On the other hand, if he waited until age 70 to claim his benefits in order to earn Delayed Retirement Credits, he would receive a permanently higher benefit. However, the spousal benefit would not reflect any DRCS and would be half of what the husband's benefit would have been at his FRA. She can only receive a spousal benefit if the husband has already filed for and is receiving his retirement benefit. She will receive her full spousal benefit if she has reached her FRA before she claims. She can claim as early as age 62, but would then receive a reduced spousal benefit. If the husband dies while she is receiving a spousal benefit, the SSA will automatically convert her spousal benefit to the survivor's benefit. She does not have to notify the SSA of his death since they will know. The survivor's benefit will reflect any DRCs that the husband may earned by claiming later than his FRA, but if he dies before she reaches her own FRA, the survivor's benefit that she receives will be permanently reduced. She will have no choice to delay at that point, unless she has qualified for SS benefits on her own earnings record. A foreign national is eligible to receive the spousal benefit if she lived married with her American husband in the US for at least five years. Presumably, she would have to provide documentation to support that claim, which might be difficult after the passage of time.

The OP's interests seem to be confined to his own life. If you want other people to be interested in you, you should make the effort to be interested in them.

So far, no Fukushimas, Chernobyls, or Three Mile Islands with PVs. Without data of any kind your post is just unsubstantiated opinion. If you have a case to make against PVs, make it. Meanwhile, South Australia in 2020 was generating 60% of its electricity from wind and solar with power costs the lowest among the among the mainland states and in 2021 became the only state not to have a power outage since 2018. And they are expanding the capacity of the Homsdale battery. They expect to become an energy exporter in the future possibly including exporting clean hydrogen to Japan. Sounds like the basis for a solution to me.

$0.25 to send, nothing to receive.

Not to the poster to whom I was responding.

We are always discussing cost when considering power generation. Lower cost of generation implies more resources available for mitigation of environmental effects. Also, the costs including environmental costs of various alternatives for generating power can only be considered relatively, which you haven't done. Are the environmental costs of PV power higher than that of coal, natural gas, or nuclear? That is the context that matters.

You really don't think so? Notice that the other, more expensive sources of generation in this graph have their own environmental problems.

It's interesting that the dam itself only produces 36 megawatts.

Both of those banks participate in popmoney. You should be able to make the transfer that way. Not as fast as Zelle, however. https://secure2.popmoney.com/richux/faces/base/popmoney/prelogin/searchBank.xhtml

But the problem is that if the legitimate government does not aggressively defend democracy then the fascist forces will be encouraged to increase their aggression. After the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 the perpetrator spent only an easy year in jail and seven years later gained full control of the country. So far, nothing at all has happened to Trump or Bannon, Flynn, and the rest of the conspirators. We hope that will change soon, but it remains to be seen. The power of Congressional subpoenas is teetering on the edge of effective abolition. I think it matters. If the House Select Committee can drag someone in front of the cameras to reveal that Trump was on the verge of declaring martial law, that would matter to a lot of people.

Blogger Allison Gill is reporting that on Jan.6 after Pence, his team, and his family were evacuated from the Senate chamber their keycards stopped working. Pence's access to the Capitol, the White House, and the Vice President's office suite were all disabled along with that of his staff. That explains the photos, which have not been published, that show Pence and his entourage stuck in a parking garage under the Capitol, according to journalist Jonathan Karl's book, "Betrayed," which has just come out. In addition, there is a report that Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 6 which has not been released. Also, the gallows that was erected on the Capitol grounds that day was made of 8" x 8" beams of the type that one sees only on long spans in barns, for example, and which would have carried the weight of several hanging victims. So, what are the chances that the executive order instituted martial law and a cancellation of the Jan. 20 inauguration, which Trump planned to publish following the kidnapping or murder of the Vice President?

Pib, Do you have Schwab International brokerage account or just the bank account? I am looking to see if I can open a Schwab International account as a backup to my US broker.

Buying is easy. It's the claiming part that gets hard.

I don't believe this is true. If the Thai government wanted to boot out us Westerner immigrants (more appropriate term than "expats" especially for those complaining about the lack of residency status), they would just do so. Unlike when the military government fresh from the 2014 coup summarily tossed out several hundred thousand workers from Myanmar and Cambodia and then had to back down when the Thai business owners complained that they had lost their workforce, if they tossed us out no one would scream but some wives who would have a lot less influence with the military than the business owners. Thailand doesn't need us. Our contribution to the Thai economy is infinitesimal. But they do tolerate us, if only grudgingly, because some Thai people do get some economic benefit from us. It's been like that for decades and is likely to continue. If not, we'll move on just as we always knew we might have to. No one lied to us that future Thai governments would feel honor bound to accommodate our needs here as we age uninvited in their country. This is just more white people's sense of entitlement.

Nevertheless, there is a small sign at the TM at Chaeng Wattana that announces this section is the place for extending visas.

Renewing the non-Imm O visa doesn't seem onerous to me. I liked Ecuador when I visited there, but I didn't feel safe in Quito where you couldn't hail a cab for fear of being kidnapped and every bank had a guy with a carbine standing in the doorway. When I bought some over-the-counter meds in a drug store in Quito, the pharmacist opened every box to make sure no one had stolen the pills inside. Despite the many attractions I wouldn't live anywhere in Latin America, because of the crime.

Does login.gov offer the id.me option to log in like ssa.gov does? My wife used id.me to setup her ssa.gov account and now uses it every time she wants to logon.

The ssa.gov website says that person who is applying for survivor's benefits cannot do so online, but must call the SSA. Does that mean for a US expat appyling for survivor's benefits should call Manila?

We know with certainty that the official Covid death count in the US is way too low. As of June, 2021 this article cites a number based on excess deaths of 900,000. Must be well over a million by now. It’s always been near certain that the U.S., along with every other nation, has severely undercounted the number of coronavirus cases and deaths attributed to the virus. The speed and scale of the pandemic made getting an accurate reading of its impact a challenge, but, as of Friday, the numbers in the U.S. currently stand at more than 32 million reported cases resulting in 580,000 deaths. Those numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins are grim, but a new analysis by researchers at the University of Washington puts the death toll in the U.S. far higher, at 905,000 deaths. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/05/covid-death-toll-underreported-higher-excess-deaths-study.html