saengd

I guess there will be a lot of people escaping from Bangkok and headed up this way which is not great for residents. I also expect supermarkets to be manic today as a result.

Pump cycling is often caused by a leaky bladder valve on the pump unit. The way to check is to isolate the pump electrics by turning off the breaker at the consumer unit, turn off the water supply to the pump and then remove the pump cover. The bladder valve is a dome like object that is quite large and unscrews from the pump body. The bladder valve contains a rubber bladder and is filled full of gas, as the bladder ages the gas escapes and it causes pump cycling. Unscrew the unit and take a pencil and insert it into the bladder valve and see if it goes in a long way or a short way, if a short way, the bladder is still full of gas and your problem is elsewhere, if it goes in a long way the gas has escaped and the unit must be replaced - Home Pro or similar, 1,000 baht ish.

5 hours ago, Logosone said:

Oh I couldn't agree more, it's a real, massive problem for the UK, a country that has been downgraded by Moodys for a long period in succession now.

 

48 billion in interest payments just got a lot more expensive.

 

The UK does have a bit more leeway due to its assets, but it's heading in the wrong direction for sure.

Not strictly correct, Moody's downgraded the UK from Prime in 2013 and then to the second tier grade in 2017, Moody's Aa2 is still regarded as high grade credit.

7 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Yes, they test several times, but the test is not complicated at all and you don't need complicated 'kits'. It is basically a nasal and throat swab.

 

It is then sent to a lab, where they do the polymerase chain reaction, PCR. The PCR has been around for a very long time and is already used to do paternity tests and to identify genetic diseases.

 

This is really not rocket-science and could be done, and is done in Thailand.

Does the WHO know you're available and do you do consultations?

1 hour ago, JimGant said:

 

 

Saengd, you're showing your age. This group is no different than we were back in our invincible years. Sadly, they just might have a far superior foe than we ever did at that age. Meanwhile, when I watch them happily have spring break on the Florida beaches, I can only smile, with a little remorse.

 

Not at all. That action redefines stupidity and selfishness, we may have behaved as entitled back then but NEVER to the point of risking the lives of others.

9 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Let's look at SARS, a cousin of Covid19 which shares 70% of the genomic make up and is also a coronavirus.

 

It just disappeared. Methods used to control it included testing, isolating patients and screening people at airports and other places where they might spread the virus, The strategy is simple: If sick people can be stopped from infecting healthy people, the disease will eventually die off. SARS did not disappear because everyone stayed at home. SARS disappeared because the sick were prevented from infecting the healthy.

 

It is the SICK people that need to be isolated. Not healthy ones. Isolating healthy people is pointless.

Gets my vote for the most stupid post of the week! 

How in gods name are you supposed to separate all the sick people from the healthy ones, all at the same moment in time, synchronized testing perhaps!!! Get it wrong by one minute and the pattern changes!

I think it's pretty sad that one particular age group doesn't get it and have said effectively, I'm alright Jack and BTW I never did like boomers anyway.

10 minutes ago, englishoak said:

Of course it does, just like most cold type viruses. This isnt really news, we knew that 5 weeks ago from reports out of China and then Korea it was hanging in the air, thats why the wide use of masks.. Duh ! . WHO is an utter joke and so far behind the curve its ridiculous... 

Not everyone knew.

23 minutes ago, pdtokyo said:

A pretty clear request for evidence is diverted ...

 

Aptly, the practice of avoiding a question now has a label ...  "whataboutism" ... see quite a lot of it here and elsewhere ... 

 

https://simplicable.com/new/whataboutism

How do you get through your day without having something to panic about or getting involved in some kind of conspiracy theory? 

Doctors in the medical profession have a very basic premise that they teach at nearly all medical schools and it goes like this: if that's what it appears to be, that's what it is, in which case don't waste a whole bunch of time, energy and resource looking for something different that's sexy that it isn't.

1 hour ago, Brunolem said:

What isn't? What is "it"?

 

"and it is still very far!

how do you know (for a fact) it is recovering"?

6 minutes ago, ThaiPauly said:

I have a flat back home as well. Trouble is my tenant was self employed and his work has dried up and he can't pay the rent. 

Bit of a <deleted> that

I imagine that quite a number of people will be using the same reason not to pay rent, I wonder how many are actually true.

2 hours ago, Ron jeremy said:

Great post

people don’t understand the severity of the virus, still thinking of booze and whores

i mean get a life

this is the last place anyone with half a brain wants to be. 
and even with things shutting Moro every day, there are still people talking about coming to Thailand 

Getting a life is what it's all about for me, or rather keeping it I should say!

It depends on a number of factors, age, how long you've been here, where your family is located, what facilities you may have back home. For me personally I've been here for twenty years, my home is here and my wife is here. I do have a flat back in the UK but yesterday I made the commitment to the tenant to let her remain for at least the next four months, even though I have a return ticket for mid May. If there's going to be a health crisis and a crunch for medical care I'd rather be here than back at home in the UK where the NHS is already over stretched and older people are already being prioritized out of the treatment queue. At least here I can carry on my life as normal plus I don't have to travel, we don't have to go out hardly at all and if push comes to shove I may actually be able to buy some care at a private hospital....I'm 70.

41 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

You don't buy the dip, you buy the bottom...and it is still very far!

 

As for China, how do you know (for a fact) it is recovering?

 

It is very difficult to know what is really going on in China, even in normal times.

 

Videos posted by mainland Chinese, in Wuhan, seem to show that everything is still very far from normal.

 

On top of that, China has an export economy...who is going to buy Chinese stuff when the global economy has come to a halt?

Ever the pessimist Bruno...how do you know it isn't, how do you know it's not, is your glass half empty or just completely empty?

11 hours ago, DaRoadrunner said:

Agreed. To which I would add, the fact that China is recovering within 3 months shows us this is likely to be self limiting.

 

Quit panicking and buy the stock market dip.

Exactly, the time to buy is when people are panicking the most. But the herd is slow to change direction, by the time they realize this it will be too late. 

14 hours ago, Brunolem said:

The economic/financial crisis will fully blossom in a few weeks or months, and it's gonna be a doozy.

 

In 2008 we entered in the cyclone, then for 10 years we were in the eye, believing that all was well, and now comes the tail which is generally much worse than the head.

 

(This comparison was made by Doug Casey who, like a number of others, has been waiting for this event to unfold)

 

Most economists outside the mainstream TV/newspapers think that we are about to get a once a multi generations crisis, that could last between 5 and 10 years.

 

If you wait long enough every prediction ever made will come true, it's just like wining the lottery, every set of numbers ever picked will win one day, if you wait long enough.

Just reading that Foreign Currency Reserves are down USD 7 Bill. on the week to USD 229 bill., as a result of bond buying and markets intervention. Foreign buyers pulled USD 4.6 bill. from the Thai bond market in a rush for cash, 10 year bond yields have doubled in a week to almost 1.7%. Info. per the newspaper that cannot be named, not new news but now the numbers are more clear.

Looks like investors going into cash, especially USD, Thai buyers liquidating to pay margin calls and no new buyers emerging, except BOT.

7 hours ago, Logosone said:

This is the time to trade Forex. The currency markets are alive with the sound of giant waves. Such volatility brings fantastic opportunity.

 

Before you ride a wave you just have to make sure it's going the right direction.

+1......100%

The headlines out of the UK and USA are all about how people in the 24 to 35 years age group think they are invincible and are ignoring the request to stay home, instead they congregate just as before. From what I read in this thread there are other doubters who also will ignore the advice and of course that will increase the spread and cause even more people to die. How do I know these things to be true? Because I tend to trust the people put in charge to deal with such things and to provide appropriate advice rather than strain myself thinking up contrarian conspiracy theories that ultimately will make me look like a complete <deleted>.

What am I going to do? We're fortunate we have a large garden and access to it is very secure, we're staying within our perimeter and NOBODY is allowed in. When we do go out for essential shopping it's to a single store in the shortest possible time-frame, homemade masks and hand sanitizer at the ready. If we start to get symptoms we have paracetamol and we;ll see how it pans out. Our plan B is a run to one of the private hospitals and we have cash on hand in case there are problems. Chances are that if we stay put we'll be just fine.

On 3/20/2020 at 10:53 PM, Trujillo said:

Part of my point is that closing some businesses and not others with similar or more contact among people is ridiculous. 

 

How is a bar different from an establishment serving food? Why not close banks? All those people in the same place sitting as close as the now closed theaters? 

 

But oh, the danger! So horrible so far! Already ONE (1) person has died out of the entire population of 69,040,000,000. Are you scared? I know I am. 

(I should mention that the person who died already had Dengue fever, but let's not get distracted by the facts....)

 

You talk about the facts yet you don't know the difference between millions and billions, it doesn't help your argument or credibility.

13 minutes ago, pacovl46 said:

Well, I found it remarkable that the GBP as well as the Euro went downhill/Thai Baht went uphill that much. I also find it remarkable that the price for one Baht of gold (15,1 grams if I’m not mistaken) went from 6250 Baht per Baht in 2003 to 6850 just before the financial crisis and then to over 30000 during the crisis. Since I don’t live on Thailand anymore I don’t know the current price. Would love to know, though. 

https://goldprice.org/gold-price-thailand.html

Most of those price movements were a result of the US and QE, the Thai Baht is loosely linked to USD for trade purposes so it tends to track USD.

If motorbike taxi's can ride on pavements and if everyone can ride the wrong way down the street I'm sure it must be perfectly acceptable for electric scooters to ride on the sidewalks, after all, where else would they be expected to ride in Thailand. In the UK people ride them extensively on sidewalks, I guess the same is true of other countries.

I just ran the numbers on some of my investments for the first time since this business began and actually things don't look that bad, all things considered. But I don't invest in gold, bitcoin and I don't subscribe to all the other nonsense theories that people dream up, some of which are mentioned on these pages. I'm not really an investor per se, I like to leave such things to people who are experts in that field, I do however understand a few things about economics, global finance and risk.

My approach to investing has always been to diversify my investments globally and only ever to buy funds that are managed by Grade A Fund Managers, the very best I can find and the ones with the best and longest track records. I currently hold 13 funds split approx. 70/30 equities and bonds that broadly spread 20% US, 15% UK, 15% Europe, 12% emerging markets, 15% developed Asia, the rest are spread across two bond funds. Last year I was up 18%, this year so far I'm down 12% and I sleep very well at night. Mind you, that is ring fenced money that I never planned on using, my income streams are intact and the real estate is paid for, I'm also OK for cash for quite a few years.

So what does all this cost me? Last time I checked I'm paying about 0.50% in platform fees and a further 1.1% average in recurring annual fund fees. Oh sure the fund manager gets his slice before I get mine but who cares, I still got 18% last year, give unto ceasar what is due and all that. Exactly why others don't do the same thing is beyond me, why worry and fret over things you can't control, don't really have expertise in etc etc. Each to their own however.

EDIT TO ADD: the next fund I buy back into will be Baillie Gifford International, a geographically diverse fund run by two very experienced FM's that have beaten the the IA Global indicies every year, by a fair margin.

3 minutes ago, dabhand said:

Interesting BBC article, particularly the last couple of paras indicating a lack of any proper assessment of the economic and social costs of the measures taken, and their impact on lives and health. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654

Sometimes you have to just make a call and there is no time to do a proper in depth assessment, 250,000 deaths versus 20,000 deaths would appear to be one of those times.

Welcome children to this weeks edition of the Twilight Zone.

Remember kids, just say NO to drugs or you too could end up like this.

For those of you who were not paying attention we've moved on from hyperinflation and are now on global conspiracy theories involving dead people. Stay tuned, it'll get better.

9 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

The IMF, owned by the Rothschilds(as are most CBs) in conjunction with Ripple and XRP. 

The central banks already know this, why do you think they are continuing to print money?