cmarshall

The conveyor belt structure of Ikea stores is so annoying. They force you to march by all of their products just to get the spatula you came for. No other retailer does that.

What I do notice is that I was able to extend my rental lease this month without the landlord's even asking for any increase. In fact, we pay a lower rent now for a bigger apartment than we did ten years ago for a smaller unit in the same building. So, groceries are chickenfeed, relatively speaking.

Realistically, expatting in retirement was always likely to be a one-way ticket. It's true that when I have visited back in the States prices seem to have grown excessively, but that would have been the case had I remained there in retirement since my income would have been the same. Among the disadvantages of continuing to own property in the US is that for some states property together with other factors may be enough to maintain tax domicile in that state.

Inflation in the US should not be a cause for worry for American expats. Just the opposite in fact. The Social Security COLA for next year is 5.9% while inflation in Thailand for the trailing twelve months has been 1.68%. That relationship could change, but as long as it persists we come out ahead.

It's not difficult to understand, but you don't understand it. The refining process is not some mystical transformation of natural stuff into evil manufactured stuff. Refining produces monosaccharides, which are harmful just because they pass directly into the bloodstream unlike more complex sugars such as those in grains that are digested more slowly. Therefore all of the monosaccharides are harmful whether the processing is done in a factory, by honeybees, or in boiling pots in a maple sugar house. If you were to chew a mouthful of rice 30 or 40 times it would become sweet as mastication breaks down the polysaccharides into monosaccharides which are basically the same as refined sugar.

Brown sugar, white sugar, honey, and maple syrup are all monosaccharides, i.e. very simple molecules that are absorbed into the bloodstream very quickly unlike polysaccharides like rice. The affect on health of all the monosaccharides is the same.

I did notice that when I reduced my daily sugar intake from about 70 grams to 17 I was no longer hungry all the time.

Soda water will damage the enamel on your teeth making them sensitive to temperature.

Except that it works, unlike your mobile app. But of course you could access the bank's website via a browser in your mobile as well. That would probably work.

Did all these app users forget that it's possible to access Thai banks through the website using a PC?

The CEO World rankings look skewed. WHO ranks Thailand as 64. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world

Hadn't heard of that possibility, but will look into to.

Dr. Narongsak seems very experienced. However, so far no luck in getting a complete quote from St. Louis. The surgery dept quoted their services on the back of a business card. No detail on what it covers. The nurse mentioned there would be other charges like pre-op testing, drugs, probably an anesthetist unless he's included in the surgery quote, etc., but no detail and no total. Called to request a complete quotation and then... crickets.

We get to keep most of the SS COLA increase. https://www.medicareplanning.com/medicare-part-b-costs-2022/

And since inflation in Thailand for the twelve months ending Sept. 30 was 1.68% while the dollar strengthened against the baht, we come out ahead this time. https://tradingeconomics.com/thailand/inflation-cpi

Where would be the best hospital to get surgery to repair an inguinal hernia? If suitable, laparoscopy would be preferable. Would such surgery be well within the capability of all the major hospitals? Our default hospital is St. Louis. Especially interested in Sheryl's opinion.

That's true, but in the US the true Covid death toll is more than one million, based on excess deaths, not confirmed Covid cases. One milion deaths is more than the 1918 flu and more than all the wars, except for the Civil War. So, an epidemic disease does not have to have a infection fatality rate to have a major impact.

I have a relative in the US, aged 99 and double-vaccinated, caught Covid two weeks ago, into the ICU, heart stopped twice, but restarted itself, out now, back home, and recovering. The Covid never went to the lungs, but has had other effects.

I am in the midst of documenting the plan for after I die. Our only assets are financial accounts located in the US for which my wife is the sole beneficiary. In the US Transfer on Death accounts pass to the beneficiary directly on death outside of the control of any will. Since she is a US citizen she will be strongly entitled to spousal benefits from Social Security when she reaches her full retirement age of sixty-seven if I am still alive, which benefits will amount to 50% of my then benefit. If I have died already she will be entitled to the widow's benefit which will be my full benefit. In order to assure that she knows where to find everything and how to manage investments we now do every single transaction together including household budgeting, paying bills, and managing investments, all of which is fully organized and up-to-date at all times in the Quicken software. All of this takes some thought and planning. Any husband who does not do his best to provide for his wife after his own death is reprehensible.

So, you came to Thailand for the good governance?

The Electoral College was designed to transfer the excessive allocation of power to the slave states in the Congress to the election of the president. Overrepresentation of the slave states in the Congress was achieved by both the equal representation of large and small states in the Senate and the Three Fifths Compromise in the House. It worked wonderfully well. All of the presidents until Lincoln were slave owners, excepting only the two Adamses from Massachusetts. Minority was designed into the Constitution from the start, as Madison explained, because if the South did not get excessive, undemocratic control of the government, they would simply not have joined the Union.

Ken Burns is in the entertainment business. I wrote him off as a serious person when, in his highly entertaining Civil War documentary series, he covered the Emancipation Proclamation without ever mentioning that it excluded from emancipation the states and the counties that supported the Union. He might also have mentioned that when Gen. John C. Fremont emancipated the slaves of Missouri in 1862, Lincoln promptly re-enslaved them. Americans wouldn't know an intellectual if they tripped over one.

What I expect to happen is that in the next twenty years, the US splits into two or more independent countries. I think this outcome is inevitable, because of demographic changes and the substantial and irremediable defects of the US Constitution. Within twenty years fifty percent of the voters will be located in eight states, because of migration from rural areas into the cities. However, the dwindling rural population will at that time have even greater control over national elections, because of how the electors are allocated in the Electoral College and because it will continue to be impossible to amend the Constitution. Without the abolition of the Electoral College, the president who wins the popular vote won't ever win. That's already been a severe problem for decades, but it will become so exacerbated by the demographic shift that the popular vote will become a mere footnote to the decisions by the ever less democratic Electoral College. In this scenario it could well be the blue states that secede this time. They will find it intolerable that the right wing continues to choose the president who stuffs the Court as minority rule becomes cemented in place while reform remains impossible. Since I don't think anyone will be able to stomach an actual shooting civil war this time, the secession will be unopposed. What does that mean for us expats? Well, Social Security payments are unlikely to continue uninterrupted. And you can't go home again, but some of us have already suspected that long since.

I went to pay our TOT bill using BKK Bank billpay which we have been using for that purpose for a number of years. It wouldn't let me pay saying the TOT account referenced had been closed. After multiple calls to BKK Bank (useless) and then to TOT (useless at first,) a TOT rep explained that we can now only pay our TOT bill online using the smartphone app, of which change they had never notified us. So, I entered it into the TOT app and it went right through. The rep confirmed that she could see that the payment was posted. I guess it's part of the general replacement of computer and website access with smartphone app access. Not my preference, but there it is.

Your expat friends are committing fraud. They may get away with it or they may find their insurance rescinded when they make a claim.