cmarshall

On 2/16/2022 at 2:09 PM, seedy said:

From the link in the OP -

sparing him the humiliation of giving evidence in a trial and protecting the royal family from further reputational damage.

 

Why is this allowed ? Courts should put a stop to this behind the scenes bargaining so a scumbag can remain hidden for the measly sum - to him - of a few million.

 

There is no "Justice" in the criminal justice system. Only $$$

The legal process in this case is a civil law suit in which the plaintiff seeks damagers from the defendant.  It therefore would hardly be justified to deny the plaintiff the opportunity to reach a settlement with the defendant out of court.  

This was not a criminal legal case.  The statute of limitations on any crime that may been committed has long since passed.  

On 2/12/2022 at 8:17 PM, Isaanlife said:

Have a legal will is the first step.

It is not necessarily true that a legal will is necessary.  I am thinking of the home country, rather than Thailand, at the moment.  For instance, a US will is not necessary if the only assets in the US are financial accounts with a Transfer on Death (TOD) provision.  Such assets do not go through probate which would relieve the surviving Thai spouse of the headache of handing probate from outside the US.

13 minutes ago, BudRight said:

I do not have any sort of social security or pension, but thanks for the tip about SDFCU and the domestic wire transfers (as I hadn't considered the latter option).

You don't have to be an "emeritus member" to do a domestic wire transfer from SDFCU to BBK Bank, but if you aren't it will cost you $20 each instead of $6.  You could also do an international wire transfer to any other Thai bank for a cost of $25 per.

Some brokerage firms, such as Fidelity and Vanguard, offer free domestic wire transfers, but I wouldn't recommend those particular brokerage firms, because they would freeze your account if they got wind that you became an expat.  

The better solution is State Department Federal Credit Union.  They offer accounts to expats.  If you have your pension, either SS or any pension, direct deposited into your SDFCU account every month then you qualify for "emeritus member" status, the chief benefit of which is that you can do domestic wire transfers at $6 a pop.  Then if you have an account at Bangkok Bank you can do a wire transfer, not an ACH transfer, to that account in any amount.  The funds will be available at BKK Bank first thing in the morning of the next business day.  BBK Bank is the only Thai bank that is also a US bank with an ABA number, which is required for a domestic wire transfer.

These transfer do get coded as foreign transfers on a bank statement from BKK Bank.  I use the income method myself for visa renewal.

The OP's plan is likely full of holes.  He has to keep his sealed document up-to-date at all times.  He hasn't tested it to see if she is going to understand and be able to carry out all the steps necessary.  My guess is that it won't work very well.

The problem is that he doesn't trust his wife/girlfriend sufficiently.  If that's the case, then he should dump her for someone he does trust. 

Then he should incorporate whichever wife/girlfriend has passed the test into his household finances.  That means access to all accounts such as bank accounts, brokerages, credit cards, online billing, transfer, and payment procedures, access to his mobile phone, access to his online contacts for notification purposes, and so on.  

He should also prepare a manual of procedures that she will have to carry out in the event of his death or disability.  If she is going to inherit his assets in his home country the process for obtaining the necessary documentation to carry that out should be obtained from his consulate and documented.

Then going forward, they should carry out every financial step together at all times.  The goal is that in the event of death or debilitating interest she should be able to continue to run the household without missing a beat.  The only way that can happen is if she has been carrying out all those steps already for years together with the OP.

Sound like a lot of work?  It certainly is.  That's what it means to have responsibility for someone else.

If the OP is over fifty with monthly revenue coming into Thailand of at least ฿65,000 then the retirement visa is more straightforward.  They don't hit you up with new requirements out of the blue.  In my experience at Chaeng Wattana, they just check the bank statement for qualifying transfers for every month.  Then you sign all the documents warning against various infractions and then you are done.  You don't have to go back a month later to get the stamp in your passport.

Immigration doesn't seem to like the marriage visa.  In the years when I was doing the marriage visa the officers were forever suggesting that I switch to retirement.  I have no idea why.

18 hours ago, alextrat1966 said:

Someone who needs CPR done to him is essentially dead. It’s just that you have a little bit of time where the brain is still viable, so if you get that heart beating again, the person may regain consciousness. 
 

But it’s not just being unconscious, because your heart doesn’t beat and you don’t breath. For all purposes you are dead. With around 1 in 4 chance of being brought back to life if CPR is done rather quickly after losing your heart beat. If you wait for too long chances go to 0.

I think they are failing to register the difference between "unconscious" and "permanently unconscious."

15 hours ago, itsari said:

It appears you understand English grammar far better than I do . 

Yet there was others on the net saying something different to your good self . 

Nothing written in stone on the subject .

 

I do understand English grammar and you can take that information to the bank.  If others have other opinions on the subject, they are wrong.

2 hours ago, itsari said:

I do not agree with you after googling the subject . 

Whether you agree or not that is the fact of the matter.  

"Less" applies to uncountable things, e.g. less noise, less support, less water, less knowledge.  "Fewer" applies to countable things, e.g. fewer people, fewer problems, fewer books.

On 1/28/2022 at 4:25 AM, GypsyT said:

I've seen many smart people here giving good answers so maybe I also get help?
My income, including interest and foreign pesion, is less than general $ 14500 deduction.
I have SSA pension which is 100% tax free.
Do I still need to file Federal tax return?
I've asked around and got many different answers.
I want to make my life simple. I already reduced my total foreign bank assets below 10k/yr. No more Fbar reporting.
Thank you!

 

Even if you are not required to file, it is always a "safe harbor" to file and you should do so.  That prevents the IRS from sending you a letter asking where your returns are and assures that you will get govt money if any is ever distributed again. 

The only Medicare programs for which an expat can register are Parts A and B.  All other programs require a US residential address.  If an expat were nevertheless to register for Part D, Medicare Advantage, etc. by using a US address where he does not reside, he would be committing fraud.

14 hours ago, itsari said:

One person less 

One person fewer, actually.

5 hours ago, Moonlover said:

No it is not a ridiculous statement at all. Because in eyes of the law of most jurisdictions , a person is not dead until a doctor certifies them so. That is why 1st responders are required to carry on with CPR until a doctor says otherwise or they are no longer able to do so. On the courses I've been on, 10 minutes was the recommended minimum.

 

I say again, Kudus to the rescuers for their effort and that is the last I have to say on this topic.

You are getting ever more ridiculous still.  Yes, there is some difference between a person who is dead and a person who has actually been pronounced dead by the medical authorities.  But that is not to say that a person whose heart has stopped beating and who is therefore dead, but who has not yet been pronounced dead by the medical authorities is merely "unconscious."  He is dead with a small chance of being revived.

How do someone get this confused in what I assume is his native language?

32 minutes ago, Moonlover said:

How can you assert that the report contradicts itself? If the heart stops beating, unconscious follows No blood to the brain would induce that and very quickly too, less than a minute. Heart failure in a traumatic accident is not unusual, even a heavy punch can cause it.

That's just a ridiculous statement, isn't it?  A dead person is dead, not unconscious.  "Unconscious" implies the person is still alive, i.e. with a pulse, but not responsive.  While it's true that dead people are not responsive either, that does not mean that they are unconscious.  They are dead.

In this context a dead person is one without a pulse, i.e. the heart has stopped beating.  If you do your own search you will find that it is not recommended to do CPR on a person with a pulse, although the risk of injury resulting to the person from doing so is currently downplayed by comparison with past advice.  

I don't find believable statistics on the success rate of CPR.  Most discussions are just recommendations that CPR will always improve the chances of survival, which may be true, but it's hard to tease out a convincing case for just how effective CPR. 

It reminds me of all the discussions that rail against drunken driving which emphasize how much being drunk increases your chance of having an accident.  That's true, but they basically never report just what your risk of an accident actually is if you drive home tonight, just this one time, drunk.  But someone did calculate it.  Turns out to be 0.001%.  Shocking, isn't it?

I am in favor of CPR and opposed to drunken driving, but I don't think those values excuse misleading statistics.  

18 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Do please explain what possible evidence you have that the victim's heart was beating before

they commenced CPR. They are trained 1st responders and I'm sure that they know what signs to look for before taking such action.

 

 Restored her pulse after 5 minutes!!!

The report contradicts itself, so we cannot know what really happened.  It said the victim was unconscious, which means alive, heart still beating, but unresponsive.  If that is indeed the case, then CPR is definitely contraindicated.  On the other hand the report also claimed that her pulse was restored after five minutes.  That would imply that she had no pulse and was therefore dead.  That is when you should attempt CPR.

The reason that I believe the reality was that she always had a pulse is that reviving a dead person via CPR is extremely rare.  People have whole careers as EMTs without ever witnessing a revival of a dead person.  

17 hours ago, ratcatcher said:

Thitima was unconscious but was given CPR that restored her pulse after 5 minutes, reported 77kaoded yesterday.

 

If she had no pulse when they started CPR, wouldn't that indicate she had no heartbeat?

 

It only indicates that the obviously confused writer thought so.  CPR is only done on a dead person and it almost never starts the heart up again.  I had CPR instruction from someone who had been an EMT for many years.  She had performed CPR many times, but it never succeeded in restarting the heart.

11 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Yes that's true. It's just as well these trained 1st responders understood that isn't it. Thanks to them a life has been saved.

 

Kudus to them.

If the victim's heart was still beating then performing CPR should not be done, because it's dangerous.  In this case the victim survived despite the efforts of the first responders, which could have killed him.

14 minutes ago, sirineou said:

That's very interesting and would have to look into it. 

I have the option of buying into the Greek national health case system , which is one among many reasons why we are considering moving our retirement base there. 

So I need to see if that would qualifying me to delaying buying into Part B without penalty. 

Thank you for that reply and link????

I should add that AARP's link is the only reference that I have found that mentions a national health insurance as the basis for an exemption to the late enrollment penalty for Part B.  AARP is generally well-informed, but they are not the authoritative source for Medicare's regulation.  So, you should verify this strategy if you can with Medicare itself.  I will do that, but haven't done it yet.

8 minutes ago, sirineou said:

Thank you for that explanation, I had read something like that some place but I was not exactly sure. 

I wonder, is it possible to sign up for part B, so that as you said I can move back without penalty,

and later on in life if it seems like I am never moving back to the US drop it? 

Yes, you can sign up for Part B at age 65.  In fact, if you are already collecting SS benefits, you will be signed up for it automatically.  If you aren't collecting SS, then you fill out this form to sign up:

https://www.cms.gov/cms40b-application-enrollment-part-b

There is an exception to the penalty for not paying into Part B at age 65.  If you are covered by an employer's insurance package at that time, which may not be very likely, you will not have to pay any penalty if you later enroll in Part B.  Perhaps a more likely exception is if you are covered by the national insurance of any other country, which would also exempt you from the subsequent penalty for late enrollment in Part B.  You might look into the possibility of getting coverage in the Greek national insurance plan.

I am planning to move to France next year where, after a short initial period, I will be covered by the French Sécurité Sociale.   At that point I will quit paying into Part B.  

You can delay Medicare enrollment in Part B (and avoid its premiums) if you have health care coverage from: 

• An employer for which you (or your spouse) actively work and which provides group health insurance for you (or both of you)
• The public national health service of the country where you live — regardless of whether you or your spouse works for an employer or are self-employed 
• The sponsoring organization of voluntary service you provide abroad (for example, the Peace Corps)

https://www.aarp.org/health/medicare-qa-tool/medicare-if-living-outside-united-states/

As a US citizen you will never be "locked out" of the US Medicare system, but if you don't sign up for Part B at age 65 and later repatriate for whatever reason you will have a lifelong penalty for the years after age 65 that you weren't paying for Part B.  So, it is prudent to sign up for Part B at age 65 as expected.

For all the other other Medicare options such as Part D, Medicare Advantage, etc. you are not eligible for them unless you reside in the US.  However, unlike Part B, if you do repatriate at some point you will have a 60-day period to sign up for any of the other Medicare packages without penalty and without exclusion of pre-existing conditions.  

So, there is a new app that works with GPS driving apps.  Some bright light mapped 57 trillion ten foot squares to the entire surface of Earth.  Each ten foot square also has a unique identifier in code.  For instance, one ten foot square right at Door # 2 of Government Complex Building B in Chaeng Wattana has the unique identifier of ///congas.moment.chose.    So, if you download the app, What3words, and enter that code in the aerial view, for example, there you are at the door to your next visa extension. 

What3words is a free download for IOS and Android.  Or you could get it as a standard feature of the Lamborghini Huracan for $200,000.  What3words interfaces by forwarding its three word codes to apps like Grab, Waze, Line, and others.   

Definitely a step forward.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/business/lamborghini-huracan-what3words.html

On 2/3/2022 at 8:43 AM, Bkk Brian said:

You mean this Japan? Cases through the roof and deaths following the trend

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/japan

I mean the Japan that has a cumulative 15.09 Covid deaths per hundred thousand which compares favorably with 273.14 for the US and 236.80 for the UK.