Walker88

Good for you. My Piaget doesn't quite do that, but when she sees the Gulfstream, even her mother gets weak in the knees.

Adding to my own post, somewhat facetiously.... In the not-too-distant future, a statue of a bargirl will be erected outside the main TAT office, an admission of her importance to both the development of Thailand's modern economy and her ongoing contribution to economic growth. I suspect bargirls had some impact when location managers came to Thailand looking for a place to set up a factory, especially in the Bangkok-Pattaya corridor. Also, even non-mongering tourists rather enjoy taking a stroll down Walking Street at night, or Soi Cowboy, Soi 4, and in years past, Patpong.

I asked a very successful foreign bar owner what impact this 4am closing will have on his business. He's a numbers guy, so knows revenue vs costs, plus what his staff likes. His answer: "Maybe during the high season we'll stay open until 4am on Fridays and Saturdays, but otherwise it isn't profitable." Elsewhere, it seems the government is admitting two things: 1) Even those "dirty farangs" count as quality tourists, and tourism is one of the few things we think we can affect right now to boost the economy (4am closings, legal weed, visa-free for Indians, russkis get 90 days) 2) Though we have no prostitution in Thailand, woman accepting tributes for supplying sexual favors is an important part of Thailand's tourism appeal (put another way: "Beer goggles" will be the norm by 4am, so even the fatties from Isaan will get barfined and be able to send money back home)

The property bubble in Japan was built on 100 year mortgages. Most still have 55 years to go. Japan is in a terrible funk now. Whatever you think it was, it is no more. It is depressing. It has lost its will, perhaps even to live. Some areas the major goal is suicide. Japan will not be just fine.

Japan is doing well? Hardly. They have a wildly underfunded pension system, but a rapidly aging population. (I used to manage Japanese pension money, among other things, and the accounting they use is simply bizarre. The underfunding is criminal.) Homes that once were valued (money loaned against) for the equivalent of $1 million are now on the market for a few thousand dollars, with no takers. Many many more houses than people now. Japan's debt is staggering. By a factor of five they have the highest service ratio on govt debt as any other country, Greece being second. An incredible amount of total tax revenue goes to service existing JGBs. Like most countries, their system was built on an ever-expanding population base, or to put it another way, a Ponzi Scheme. Now that the population pyramid is inverting, inflows cannot meet outflows. The yen is evidencing this to some extent (~150/$ now), but it will get worse.

In India I watched a truck swerve to avoid a cow, and then smash into a tuktuk carrying half a dozen schoolgirls. Horrific.......but 'sacred'.

We would call what you described an 'excise tax'. Wealth is a moving target, a function of market moves, interest rates and a host of other things. I know there are, and have been, wealth taxes, but I think the concept is ripe for corruption and abuse. I agree with you on tax rates and capital gain rates.

You sound bitter. I might not think Kim Kardashian has even an ounce of talent, but I applaud her for marketing herself and making a fortune. I'm not sure what 'overpaid' means in entertainment. Celebrities get what the market gives them. If teenyboppers want to make Taylor Swift a billionaire, more power to her. I have my favorites in Hollywood and sports, and I don't begrudge them their fortunes. I got pleasure watching Tom Brady play football, MJ playing basketball, or 'stars' like Gene Hackman....sometimes even Tom Cruise.

Capitalism works because it is based on incentive. Socialism and Communism---which also consolidate wealth into the hands of the few, usually self-appointed leaders---offers zero incentive. It goes against human nature. Those who can't make it, usually because they lack the ambition to succeed and do the work it takes to succeed, don't like Capitalism. They want a free ride, or remuneration in excess of the value they add. Redistribute wealth, and those who have skill and can be productive lose their incentive, making all of society poorer.

A few comments.... How do you implement a wealth tax? Cannot be done. Asset values fluctuate too wildly (just look at trump's NYC trial to understand the inexact or amorphous nature of asset values and the ability to make them whatever one wants). What is Elon Musk's Tesla stock worth? You cannot take closing price and apply that to all his shares, because if he had to liquidate, the price would tumble. Same with Bezos and his Amazon stock. On 19 October 1987, the Dow fell 23%. Wealth tax on what....something that can fall 23% in a single day? What is a house in the Hamptons or Pebble Beach worth? Does the USG go by Zillow valuations? Raising income or capital gains tax rates is more realistic. Capital rates of return vs growth are not the real issue. The real issue is that increasingly labor is losing pricing power. Globalization started it, as low skill workers in advanced economies lost out to China, India, Bangladesh, etc. Technology is exacerbating the problem. AI will devastate labor markets. Society is going to be turned upside down. A funny aside....those who want to make society more equal focus on corporations and corporate chieftains. What about the massive wealth in the hands of "artists", whether that's Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift or Damien Hirst? How does one measure their rate of return vs economic growth? The bifurcation of wealth is only going to worsen, as markets award rare skill, celebrity, innovation, invention, or simply those who already having wealth. Most people are redundant or simply unnecessary. I never made any kids. Why should I have to pay just because others might have been either biologically irresponsible, or else were egotistical enough to think the planet needed their gene pool? That is an entirely different part of this 'equality' thing. I don't make any kids, but my neighbors make ten, and expect me to send over some of my wealth to take care of what they popped out? Most kids are the result of mistakes or just plain horniness. Why must I pay for other's carnal pursuits?

"Mainstream at the time" Does that excuse Begin's butchery at Deir Yassin and the King David Hotel, because he wasn't yet 'mainstream'? If so, then in some bizarre future, will Mohammed Deif be at Camp David dining with a future POTUS? Terrorists are terrorists. Deif is a terrorist. Begin was a terrorist. Arafat (whom I did not forget...and even met him once) was a terrorist.

What do you think of foreigners in your country? I suspect the answers would be similar. Some like, some think they're good for business, some tolerate, some don't like, some think outsiders are bespoiling the culture, some think outsiders are dirty, etc. Xenophobia is common the world over to some extent, as is tolerance, affection, curiosity, etc.

Though it matters little to this debate, and I write it more for pedantic purposes, Jews had been a minority in what was greater Palestine since around the 4th Century. For the next 1500 years or so, Jews were between 1% and 4% of the population. As the Zionist Movement grew from around the 1920s, Jewish representation grew into double digit percent. By the end of 1945, Jews were still only half as large as the Moslem population, and a third of the overall population, the rest made up of Christians. The Mandate granted the land to an ethnic group who were still a minority, though the impetus behind that decision is understandable (the Holocaust being the last straw in discrimination/pogroms/genocide going back to at least Roman times). That never sat well with the previous Moslem majority, and the past 75 years have yet to quell the tensions. I doubt the next 75 will be any better, especially if current events and this thread are any indication.

When you cannot compete with Silicon Valley, are starting to lose out to Vietnam that will offer better incentives for FDI, when exports are faltering, and when drought threatens to impact the ag sector....embrace VICE with both hands. (Just don't hire trump as a casino consultant...the guy was so bad he bankrupted several of them). Maybe hire Pansy Ho?

I have no more skin in this game than I did for the horrors of Rwanda back in the 1990s. Horror is horror, evil is evil, and people are people, no innocents better or worse than any other innocents. All of the deaths are sad. A bigger picture worry I have is that Iran will either get too actively involved, or else Netanyahu will unilaterally decide to attack Iran. Undoubtedly that would please short term thinking right wingers in the US, as well as the Gulf States. Obama and his team had true vision. The JCPOA was merely an initial step, and a time-buying step, to bring Iran into the community of nations. It absolutely stopped nuke development, although an Israeli disinformation operation sowed doubts in that ("finding" documents from ~2001 that indicated Iran's nuclear goals). The JCPOA was effective, but trump---the consummate bad dealmaker---decided he had to undue everything Obama did. The longer term outlook of the JCPOA was to buy time until the aging mullahs died. Iran is ripe for change. It's young want to be let loose to modernize the country and live lives similar to what people in developed countries live. The trend in Iran is toward a middle ground between the abuses of the Shah and the fanaticism of the mullahs. Iran has everything it needs to become an economic powerhouse, and if calmed and left alone, will become that after the mullahs die. That scares the Gulf States, because most have organically done absolutely nothing with their vast oil and gas wealth. They have remained feudal and mostly backward, few outside of the royal elite have any chance to prosper, and the royals can pillage their own coffers for their own benefit as they wish. To have a neighbor become a non-resource player would embarrass them. Worse is that the player would be Shi'ite, not Sunni. Since Biden was VP under Obama, I hope this long term belief still exists in this Administration, and that the US is quietly discouraging Netanyahu from setting things back another few generations, as well as warning Iran.

Your going down a bad path playing semantic games with him. One might argue Hamas has decided those rules never apply, and is trying to take land the way the settlers in the US, or Australia, or the Mongols or Israel with its settlements has taken land not theirs. When is it wrong, or is it forever going to be those who can do, or those who want try? With Hamas and the corrupt and, I suspect, psychopath Netanyahu, we've gone back to the law of the jungle. There are no moderates in positions of power today. In no way do I support the terrorists of Hamas. Similarly, had I been alive in 1948, I would not have supported the terrorists of the Irgun and Stern Gang. They slaughtered somewhere between 105 and 250 (depending on the source) men, women and children at Deir Yassin, and also blew up the King David Hotel. Bad start all around. Sadly, one of the terrorist leaders became Israel's Prime Minister, and I suspect that has stuck in the craw of Palestinians and been passed down as fuel for an eternal blood feud.

Interesting how different nationalities of 'tourists' take over different aspects of Thailand's 'economy'. There's biker gangs (a veritable UN), the russian mafia, the Chinese triads, and the Indians. The Nigerian drug dealers---who can even be spotted by Western schoolkids on Sukhumvit in Bangkok, have local allies who wear tight-fitting brown uniforms. All are part of that wonderful fabric of Thai society. Indians bring in a few thousand of their 1.4 billion fellow citizens and start them out selling nuts. Pretty legit business, though nobody selling nuts has any sort of work permit. Do well and move up to fake watches. Succeed irritating al fresco diners with Piajays and Rollekes, and one gets a motorscooter and becomes a loan shark. Should any ill gotten gangs be stuck with money that needs a proper cleansing, there's your restaurant and now Pattaya nightclub. Everybody wins, especially the goombahs (a Hindu word absconded by other mafia types).

The Thai economy is in the doldrums and has been for years. The PM announced an average GDP growth of 1.8% per annum over 10 years, at a time household and corporate debt soared. Tough to sustain even that modest growth with so much debt, so Thailand has to look where it can for spending. Exports are not good, and the world economy is slowing. So.....tourism. In 2019 Tourism represented 17.8% of Thai GDP. I suspect in 2024 it will easily pop 20%. Thailand is pulling out all the stops. They legalized weed. They marketed heavily to India (as the endless line of fake watch sellers shows). They grant russians 90 day stays. The govt knows where it can squeeze blood from a rock. One wrench in the works was the crazy kid who shot up Siam Paragon and killed one Chinese tourist. That likely has cost Thailand 10 billion baht minimum, with cancellations and money not spent. Odd that a single death would do that, but who knows how Chinese calculate the odds. TAT should pressure Immigration to extend easy lengthy stays to others, especially possible snowbirds. Older and wealthy people in cold climates may well be tempted to spend winters in Thailand, and they are the type of folks unlikely to be troublemakers.

Lived in downtown Roppongi for 10 years. Aparto was about 350,000 baht/month equivalent, but company paid. I remember buying a single cantaloupe for $80. Came in a lovely box. The yen fluctuated a lot over that time, but yen prices barely budged. Had a favorite ramen shop where I learned to slurp just like a local. Yes there were/are places where gaijin are not welcome, but as you said, they're dull as all get out, so you don't miss anything. Once one gets accustomed to the culture and style of life, it's an easy place to live. Everything is quite structured and repetitive. There are rules for every situation. One of the oddities gaijin learn early on is that what happens outside of the office stays outside of the office. In the office there is a pecking order, but go out as a team and after the first sip of alcohol, anybody can say anything to anybody. It is all forgotten (not really) the next day in the office. You don't talk about 'last night'. Cherry blossom time was my favorite. Little work is done, companies go out together to sit under the blossoms and get drunk. Newly hired employees first task is to find a suitable place and camp there for days, if necessary, to secure it for the company. I used to really enjoy flying myself around different parts of Japan. Because commo is in English, but many ATC folks are shy about their language ability when speaking with an obvious gaijin, I learned to affect a great Japanese accent in my English, so that that ATC folks wouldn't get nervous and give me bad instruction while in their airspace. As for Japanese women and gaijin, it's wide open.

You obviously do not understand hi-so Buddhism. How can one be truly sincere in their lack of desire for carnal pleasures or material possessions if they do not first experience them fully?

If everybody looks a lot younger than they are, what does age actually look like? Is there anybody left to look their age? I'm beginning to think there's kind of a Dunning-Kreuger or Downing Effect even with one's appearance re age.

Probably never swoon-worthy, but always in the right place at the right time. During university years I worked summers as a lifeguard on a large ocean beach, and there seemed to be a competition for women to 'do the lifeguard'. I did not disabuse them of their quaint notion. Far be it for me to ruin their summer. Now, long past lifeguard summers, but still the exact same size and shape as back then, I remain unlikely to be swoon-worthy. I still end up with lovely women somehow. Could it be the physique? Maybe the longish curly locks? Frankly, I think it's the Gulfstream. LOL

I suspect my existence has been easier than 99.999% of all the people who have ever lived (in stark contrast to the fellow posting above me....goodness, that's horrific !) That doesn't mean it was without challenges, but given all the possible permutations, I know it could have been infinitely more difficult. I wasn't born a female in rural Afghanistan during the Taliban years. I wasn't born when Europe was being ravaged by the Black Plague. No Genghis Khan nor tribes of Visigoths or Vikings slaughtered their way through my village as a kid. If one looks at all of human history since homo sapiens emerged, and could choose a time, place and collection of physical characteristics, the result would not be so different from my own materialization and path through life. Maybe there will be a better time and place to materialize in some future time, but up until now coming into existence in a peaceful and developed country, male, Caucasian, of bright parents, of modest to better economic means, not being short (6'+), being athletic, being well above average intelligence (inherited, not earned), and at least not being butt ugly is an ideal. Failure, given all of that, would have to have been sought out. Along the way I had some setbacks, but nothing that couldn't be overcome. I lost some loved ones to disease, a few to terrorism, and those will always hurt, but I suspect I'm far from alone in that regard. If my life has turned out well, I owe it more to dumb luck than anything I might have done. I'm well aware that life is far from fair. Toss in anyone's deity, if one happens to believe: terribly unfair. A civilized society can make all equal only to a certain extent, such as under the law. The Universe, however, sets the real rules about how one gets to exist, and fairness and equality have absolutely nothing to do with it. So much is random, and if free will exists, it comes with severe restrictions and limitations. Everyone plays the cards they're dealt, but some are born with seven high in mixed suits, while a few are dealt a straight flush ace high.

I suppose you prefer the roadkill trump wears on his orange noggin. Classy.

I lived many years in Japan. You are going at a good time, and a bad time. The yen is 150/$. Homes that might have cost $1 million in 1989 can be had for a few thousand USD, as the population is tumbling and supply is high. It isn't as expensive as it was when the yen soared to 80/$. On the bad side, Japan has lost its sense of self. The countryside (inaka) has become as depressing as Ceaucescu's Romania. People are giving up. Back before the Dai Boraku, when Japan was going to own the entire planet, the expectations and pride of the people had reached stratospheric levels. Those expectations have been dashed by 30+ years of mediocrity, and it is finally taking a toll of the mental well-being of the people. Japan has always had its oddities, even during the boom years. One could hire pretend offspring to come comfort old folks, as the real offspring had no time to see Mom and Dad. Filial piety there is a myth. To meet the obligations of Obon, where one goes to pay respects to ancestors, one could hire stand-ins while you go play golf. Every imaginable fantasy, including prurient ones, can be found in Cake & Tea shops. Tamagotchis really were many Japanese people's best friends. Others have noted 'schoolgirl panties in vending machines'. There are also beer vending machines that operate on the honor system that one is of legal age to drink. If you want to begin to understand Japanese TV or humor, see Lost in Translation. Incredibly accurate in so many ways. I remember a weird TV 'contest' where women stuck just their heads into a large box. Each woman had a steak stuck to her forehead. The box was filled with rats. The woman who endured the rat-fest longest was declared the winner. On the plus side, the concept of National Treasures is delightful, if it still exists. Masters of whatever they have chosen to do, and recognized by the govt. I used to fly a small plane around Japan. I loved flying around Mt Fuji, or taking a trip to Oshima and have lunch. Another plus is that it is very safe. The language is also easy to learn, but its subtleties take years to master. Also, Japanese women can be very matter of fact about their carnal desires, especially if you don't expect them to walk across a room on their knees to pour your sake. Not sure if this is a plus, but perversion is a national trait. You'll see salarymen reading the most graphic manga in plain sight, and it usually involves middle aged men and schoolgirls. You'll learn about Goths, Yamambas, Garus and Super Loose Socks. Something for everybody. Oh, and one last 'warning'....all those stickers you see posted every night on power poles and signs, advertising women who will come greet you, imply that Lisa Blackpink or Margot Robbie are the women who will come to your home. Don't believe it. LOL.