scorecard

Agree. I'm wondering if Biden is sitting it out, keeping quiet and hoping that soon the dems will announce a replacement presidential candidate and VP. The dems have been silent on this but maybe that's part of their strategy, and I'm expecting that they well understand; - Biden is to too old to continue much longer. - Biden has achieved good things. - His current VP hasn't achieved much and doesn't look likely too. - Because of his age Biden is obviously NOT capable of another 4+ years. Come on Dems get your fingers out, nominate a credible / capable / younger replacement team. Seems to me there plenty of possible dem candidates with the right capabilities / track record / affiliations and the right personal charisma. and younger.

That should be true of course, but in reality not so true.

In Thailand there's an item which strongly supersedes the comment just above. It comes down to a few words 'corruption / collusion'. Many politicians / parties see this as operationalizing the very reason why they entered politics, a chance at the trough, often for very big money. And it often means creating new budgets, often enough for unneeded building etc., opportunities to sell land at massively inflated prices for facilities which aren't really needed or for which current facilities can easily be upgraded. That's all ignored to create a big budget / in other words create new chance at the trough.

About 15 years ago (just a guess) a foreigner was appointed to the board of directors. The man had achieved Thai citizenship many years beforehand, had an impressive work achievement managerial record and could read/write speak Thai language same as a Thai national. First meeting, many Thai members of the board of directors refused to be seated and made it very clear they refused to work with a foreigner and they refused to accept that he had Thai citizenship, had worked in LOS is snr. positions for a couple of decades with impressive results / performance ratings. He was 'let go'.

Oranges have a special meaning. Go to a business meeting in China, probably with old style Chinese business folks and especially if the meeting / dinner has been set up for the host company to get acquainted with another company which is trying to win a work contract. If plates of cut oranges appear on the table near the end of the meeting / dinner it's an indication the host likes you / thinks your capable of doing the work the host is requiring.

And change the attitude of the staff, which can be done, and change the reward (pay) system to a performance base rather than just a time base. Plus put into every contract of employment clauses which clearly indicate: - Lack of performance / low performance quickly turns to dismissal, meaning that 'guaranteed job for life' doesn't exist. -The company / organization has continuous transparent systems / methods to observe and measure performance. The Singapore public service including all gov't ministries and agencies (one example the education ministry) etc., changed to this quite a few years back. Singapore also did some serious work to create credible methods of assessing / observing performance and they are actively in place. Australia has done something similar by creating 'government corporations', including old government job for life offices / agencies into performance based operations. I'm aware of one quasi Thai gov't corporation which has done the same thing. The first to get dismissed because of lack of performance was 90% of the HR team. It can be done.

A quick lunch and coffee at a local small noodle shop.

Followed by 1 minute playing with his grand children.

You wrote: "Basically, from what I understand of what you wrote, is that you rejected the idea that God exists because you had a rotten chaplain." I didn't say that and it's just your wild assumption. Don't assume that you know how I think or how I analyse whatever.

Thank you.

I blocked him 2 years ago.

What's less then ethical / less than common sense is that his GOP / MAGA followers don't think about what's good / ethical / moral / good economics / helps build maintain a good quality of life for all / sharing of health care benefits etc., ; they've been totally brainwashed into agreeing to whatever is in the personal best interests of the clown.

Cashiers cheque sounds good but check carefully how quickly it would clear. From my actual experience selling a townhouse in Pattaya: Buyer (Thai lady) insisted she pay whole amount by local cashiers cheque issued by her bank (not same bank as the bank I use). At Land Office she handed over the cashiers cheque. My Thai adult son took the cashiers cheque quickly to our local K Bank, after some inspection of the cheque and a long phone call to the issuing bank, our K Bank manager said: - We will accept the cheque and it appears to in order and the issuing bank confirmed (in the phone call the details, cheque number etc.), for deposit to your account but we will not cash the cheque instantly. - It will take about 5 to 7 days to clear then we will give you the cash. At the same time it became clear that the cheque had been issued by another bank (not the bank indicated earlier by the buyer) and the other bank branch was in the upper corner of Essan on the border. My son had by this stage, at the lands title office indicated he would not hand over the original chanue or the keys to the property until he had full payment in cash in his hands. B Buyer lady went into a hissy screaming fit and insisted 'you can't tell me what to do, I want the chanut today / now.' Son had also called an old police buddy and a snr police office from Pattaya station appeared at the LTO. Police guy was quick to get the full story and suggested we all move to the local big branch, in Pattaya, of the bank that had issued the cashiers cheque upcounty. Local Pattaya manager of the bank which had issued the cheque upcountry said, I have one possible solution and he then spoke to my Thai son and myself and the snr. cop: "if you open a new account at my branch (in Pattaya) right now (take 10 minutes of less) then I can accept the cashiers cheque into your new account, clear if instantly and give you cash immediately. 10 minutes later my son had the full payment in cash in his hands. Them the snr Pattaya cop said to my son, I will go with you to K Bank now to ensure the cash gets into your K Bank quickly (now) and with no issues. Then the snr Pattaya cop said to to buyer lady 'Why did you change the agreed bank details, I don't trust you and I will have an officer immediately check your name for any previous issues with you. By 5.00 pm tomorrow I will call the seller to inform him of the result of our check'. Buyer lady then gave snr. cop a mouthful of abuse. Cop responded by asking my son 'do you have all the documents needed to change the name on the electricity, telephone and water bills? Son responded 'Yes I have them all ready'. Snr cop replied 'one of my men will go with you and the buyer tomorrow morning to the 3 utility offices to ensure the name change is smooth and fully completed'. Son whispered to me and the snr cop 'but her name is not yet on the chanut'. Snr cop whispered "I understand, I will take care of that as needed.' Next morning about 10.00 am name change on all utilities completed. Then back to the LTO and smooth sailing to get the name change on the chanut completed.

Trust banks: Ain't much better in many other countries.

Sure but the owners committee should make several solid rules that the management company must follow / no flexibility: 1. Management company had no authority to withdraw funds from condo bank account. Must be 2 signatories: both signatories must be from a list of say 4 authorised signatories and the owners on the list of 4 signatories must change regularly (every 6 / 12 months). No 2 expenditure items can have the same 2 signatures to withdraw funds. 2. The manager from Management company must not be related or have any close relationships with any other management team member. Must be a regular review of the management company job descriptions, the authorities allowed for each job and a clear statement of the job outputs which must be achieved by each position and a timeline. (Job descriptions which state a list of tasks are not allowed, must state job outputs expected. 3. A monthly meeting: manager (from the management team, and all staff) and the owners committee. Manager from the management company must provide in advance a list of activities of the management team for last 30 days and why each item was undertaken. Owners at the meeting expected to ask questions for clarification and must direct their questions to the management team. If a question is directed at a jnr member of the management team that jnr employee must answer the question. Manager cannot try to intervene and answer the question.

We have a small male toilet room on the ground floor for public usage, also female toilet room. There was a lot of water damage to the ceiling of one of the rooms. Suddenly damaged ceiling tiles removed and new fitted. No paining work to provide an overall new appearance. Then every owner got a bill for their share of the work done, 5,000Baht each owner. One new owner objected and sent a notice to the manager and a copy (Thai and English) under every unit door. I forget the total amount being claimed from owners but around 1 million Baht. All hell broke loose and a snr. policeman / owner put a notice under every door asking owners to indicate if they wanted an extra ordinary owners meeting to be held to discuss the matter Majority of owners agreed should be an owners meeting. Turned out: - Approval to spend any funds to repair the small ceiling had never been given. - Office manager had (with no discussion with committee) ordered the repairs and had in fact taken about 1M Baht from the building funds and had paid the contractor. - One condo owner was a building contractor who had deliberately never submitted requests for repairs nor quotations for mooted repairs. However, after the event, on request by the snr. cop gave a quotation of 5,200Baht. - Another own got her brother (small time renovations guy) to give a quote. His quote was 5,000Baht. - Snr cop called the police to attend the meeting. End result, Condo manager changed with several offences, sacked, went to court, fined 40,000Baht and court order for her to return the 1Million Baht to condo owners fund. - New rules discussed at the extra meeting, including a ruee that nobody working in the management of the condo was authorized to spend 1 Baht. Manager and all her staff (all were her relations) sacked on the spot.

Yeah the usual 'you can't punish me, that's not fair, I was drunk.'

I doubt he cares, as long as he's free and can dictate whatever benefits he wants.

Wrong and wrong... he's a conman...

Perhaps even more true many farang simply don't think about medical insurance. And/or mistakenly believe travel insurance (lost luggage etc.,) is the same as medical insurance.

Perhaps: - Riding motorcycle without valid license? - Riding motorcycle not wearing moganok? - Riding motorcycle or driving a car and fail breathalyser or blood alcohol test?

Old news, many times before they have won international awards when the flying public know full well there's many other airlines with much better service e.g. Singapore Airlines.

And I repeat, how can a con-man who has deliberately failed to pay hundreds of contractors and their workers, the trump uni staff and more be seen as having any right to make comments about Nato countries etc.

Thanks.

Just one example, I was recently shopping at Rimping in Chiang Mai. An older farang asked me if I buy Aussie beef. I replied 'YES and also Thai beef'. He responded 'this has to stop' and after some diatribe 'trump will fix these issues when he gets re-elected'. I asked 'why would anybody vote for trump?' His response 'He's a good honest man, respectful to everybody'. The shopper continued, 'trump totally fulfilled all his promises to all Americans and more in his first term.' ... and 'trump has such international respect he can and will stop the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas with one meeting about 1 hour each.