Isaan sailor

I love my new Ford Ranger—my 3rd one (last two here in Thailand. Rides great, great fuel economy and lots of power too. Made in Rayong.

I got my last chance SSA letter late October. It gave me 30 days to respond—but typically the letter arrived three weeks late. I also recommend you put tracking on your response correspondence.

I’ll never forget my SSA letter last year. We had heavy rain the week before and the day it arrived. The letter got wet in the mailbox. The barcode got smudged. So I called SS to report it. The agent assured me it was OK, just fill it in, include a note about the bar code smudge. So I sent it back. Three month later, I got a “last chance letter”, since I failed to return the first one. Always check your bar code for smudges.

So now I can buy that tb1000 bottle of California Cabernet for the reduced tariff price of tb 600? In fact, more like a case Cabernet for $609.

Hope they move on it soon. The 62 and over retirement voting block is huge. No party can afford to alienate them. If it comes down to a cut in SS, most of us will simply cut back on things like travel, western food, etc.

They keep kicking the can down the road. They’ll fix Social Security but only at the last minute.

Had the pleasure of meeting Hulk and his wife in Miami Beach one night. Very gracious guy. He was seated on a couch in a lounge and reached out to greet us—with the biggest, longest arms I’d ever seen.

My rice farming wife tells me the government has reduced the standard subsidy from tb1000 per rai down to tb500 per rai, with a 10-rai maximum per farmer. And the government will subsidize the purchase of fertilizer by tb500 per bag (10 bags max), providing they submit receipts. We haven’t heard of any loans to farmers per se.

Here’s a novel idea for dealing with a 36% tariff: devalue the Baht 36%. Devaluation—isn’t that kinda like what Vietnam has done?

Higher prices do flow down to the farmers. My Thai wife has rice farms and I see the receipts from the distributors every November after harvest. It’s all about the price for rice that day.

On the other hand, if the Thai government does nothing, thai rice will cost 36% more in America, and add the high Baht—forget about that export.

Vietnam reduced their tariffs. Why didn’t Thailand?

Well, on the downside, Americans could pay 36% more for Thai wine. The upside—good California wine for less than TB1000 per bottle. I’d call that a win.

I disagree. We have Uncle Ben’s, And yes, they grow rice in America.

Well, most rice farmers in Thailand aren’t exactly rich—so a higher rice price would be a good thing.