Etaoin Shrdlu

Thaksin's greatest crime was appointing Purachai as Interior Minister.

I don't believe that any of the international bank branches here offer retail banking services. Citibank used to, but is in the process of transferring its retail accounts to UOB Thailand. It is possible to transfer funds out of Thailand, but from your post it seems that the funds are from trading on international exchanges which implies that the funds are already outside Thailand. I'm not sure what the issue is.

Some insurers will cover portable electronics under a homeowner's or renter's policy as long as they do not represent a large percentage of the total sum insured for property. In isolation, no.

I can remember listening to it in the '70s. It was around for a long time.

Used to be a panel discussion show on German TV and radio years ago called Frühschoppen. A group of journalists would discuss issues of the day. I think they were served drinks during the discussion.

Mrs. Shrdlu received a letter in the post with a photo of the family vehicle speeding while traveling on highway 24 in Buriram Province. The time lapse between the offense and the arrival of the letter was measured in months.

Mrs. Shrdlu and I make a similar pilgrimage on 24 several times a year and have also seen the checkpoints near Prasat and once in a while in other places. I keep the speed under 100 kph anyway and have not been ticketed. Mrs. Shrdlu after a solo trip once received a letter in the mail with a photo of our vehicle exceeding the limit. I think the fine was 500 baht. She wasn't stopped by the police at the time, so no checkpoint doesn't mean no citation!

I believe Luma is an insurance broker, not an insurance company. The actual coverage and claims service would be provided by whichever insurance company Luma placed your business with. A policyholder's satisfaction with breadth of coverage and claims paying attitude and ability would be dependent upon the insurance company, not Luma. You might wish to ask Luma which insurer or insurers they place their clients' travel insurance with and then ask about those insurers' cover and claims-paying attitude and ability.

It isn't always necessary to sue a Thai insurer to get them to pay third party liability claims under their auto policies and there is a way of dealing with recalcitrant insurers short of suing them: file a complaint with the Office of the Insurance Commissioner. Syn Mun Kong is one of the insurers that ran into difficulties as a result of their issuing Covid-19 policies: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Thai-insurers-sink-into-bankruptcy-due-to-COVID-claims. but I don't know if this is affecting their willingness or ability to pay auto third party liability claims. Do you know whether the driver or owner of the car has notified Syn Mun Kong of the accident and do you know of SMK's response? Regardless of whether a lawsuit against Syn Mun Kong becomes necessary, I think Mike and his family would probably benefit from some kind of expert help in navigating this. Travel insurers often engage assistance companies to help sort some of these issues. Has Mike's travel insurer gotten their assistance company involved?

I think that the recovering Thai economy will give the Bank of Thailand cover to increase interest rates while the expectation is that further US interest rate increases will be smaller than the recent 75 basis point increase. I think future rate changes get built into exchange rates in advance unless there are surprises.

I suspected it must have been something like this.

Have received both the first and second 7162 notices. Still no sign of any 7161 for daughter's benefits.

A good insurance broker can help you find a suitable policy for your needs. If you aren't using a reputable broker, I would suggest that you do so. I would avoid any broker that was not forthcoming as to the exact identity and financial strength of the insurance company or companies from which they obtained your quotes. My preference would be to have quotes from insurers that have a Standard and Poor financial strength rating of "A" or better or the AM Best equivalent. This would probably rule out Thailand-based insurers. Offshore insurers also usually offer broader coverage and have better claims-paying attitude than insurers based in Thailand. Even the Thailand-based operations of multinational insurers use more restrictive policy forms than their non-Thai operations. Not all Thailand-based insurance brokers are willing to work with offshore insurers as this is technically not permitted by Thai insurance regulations, but some will. Good luck.

I agree, but the foreign reserves belong to the Bank of Thailand, not the Thai Government. If the Thai Government wanted to use those reserves to pay down external debt, it would have to find the cash to buy them from the BoT, perhaps by issuing more local debt!

Is the 750% possibly the total amount of all outstanding debt obligations issued in the US including Federal, state and local governments, corporate and private (including consumer) debt expressed as a percent of GDP, or some combination thereof? I really don't know. I can't find any online source that cites a similar number, but if a logical case can be made for it using credible information, I'm certainly willing to listen. It may or may not be useful to compare such number with Thai or UK government debt levels, but if it helps explain why Thailand is in a better position than the US is economically, that may be interesting.

My apologies about the edit. I did not intend to change the meaning, only clarify. I was initially reacting to your earlier post when you mentioned that US debt was more than 750% of GDP after having mentioned Thai debt at 60% of GDP and then later UK debt of 100% of GDP. The 750% on the US side did not seem to jibe with what I thought I knew about US Federal debt to GDP, so I did an internet search. The sources I cited in my earlier posts refer to a US Federal debt to GDP ratio of about 125%. I am interested to know why you believe that a US Federal debt to GDP ratio would be over 750% when other sources seem to use figures closer to those in the links I posted and which I made in my earlier statement, and whether the methodology in arriving at the 750% is the same as that used in arriving at 60% for Thailand and 100% for the UK which would allow for direct comparison.

Yes, those links support my earlier statement that US Federal debt totals about 125% of GDP. My point is that if one is to reference Thai central government debt of about 60% of GDP, the appropriate metric on the US side would be to use Federal debt to GDP which is about 125%.

Here's a link to data published by the St. Louis Fed showing US Federal debt as percentage of GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S

Those statistics are for national debt, not US government debt. National debt includes corporate and individual debt, state and local government debt, etc. If we are going to compare Thailand's central government debt of about 60% of GDP, then the appropriate figure to use would be the US Federal government's debt as percent of US GDP, which is about 125%.

US government debt is about 125% of GDP. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/government-debt--of-nominal-gdp#:~:text=United States Government Debt: % of GDP,-1969 - 2022 | Quarterly&text=United States Government debt accounted,Mar 1969 to Jun 2022.

No, and foreigners with work permits and well-paying jobs often don't, either.

I looked at UOB Thailand's website and it appears that only corporate accounts can send or receive international remittances. I wonder what's behind that. After my Citibank account is migrated to UOB, if this requirement applies, I won't be keeping the UOB account.

UOB bought Citibank's retail operations in the region including here in Thailand and are in the process of integrating them into UOB's operations. I think this may be the reason UOB won't transfer to Citibank although I have not been advised that transfers into my Citibank account here can't be completed.

I used to get snail mail Nigerian scam letters back in the '90s. I suspected the Nigerian princes got contact details from one of the foreign chamber of commerce directories here or perhaps a business card that was misplaced or passed along. Nowadays I get recorded phone messages that start "Praisanee Thai......." and also SMSs that inform me that my loan application has been approved by a bank with which I have no relationship.

I was able to open an account at Chase several years ago using my Thai address and phone number. I can transfer funds from my Chase account in the US to my Thai bank account online. I believe these transfers use the SWIFT system.