Trillian

14 minutes ago, kenk24 said:

We don't really have thick grass... we keep it short... but if you had it to do again, what would you buy? 

Probably a shiny new rake and I'd invest the money I saved into a mulcher to deal with the leaves I'd collected.

But if I had deep pockets and I wanted an easy life I'd probably go with the most powerful battery operated blower I could find. I personally don't like the hassle of having yet another petrol driven device  in the garden because they need to be maintained.

BTW we keep our (malay) grass short also.

1 hour ago, innosiem said:

maybe its what you paid for
by stated specs the milwaukee has 25% more power
Greenworks is 560m3/h vs milwaukee 420 CFM (713.5m3/h)

personally, i would also expect the Thai brands specs to be best case
where as milwaukee use more reliable motors
as the brand aims at professional use

i doubt i would buy any greenworks products myself
never knew the name until you mentioned and i looked at website
only to see its the bright green brand i walk past when in stores

Perhaps you can share the reply.

I'd not heard of Greenworks before until I started to research leaf blowers a couple of years ago, at that time they were the only imported battery operated product I could find in Thailand and they had a good reputation.

In reading product comparison they all rated performance on flat concrete path surfaces and across grass,the smoother the surface the easier it is to move the debris. At the time Greenworks came out on top so that's why I bought the unit. 

We have about one rai of garden that include around thirty mature trees, dealing with leaf fall is seriously hard work. And since the leaves fall onto grass rather than on concrete, clearing them becomes an issue since the GW unit is underpowered for that sort of job. There's then the issue of what to do with the leaves once you've piled them, this is where the mulcher is essential for us since we can't burn in our location.

Bosch used to make a blower/vac/mulcher which looked ideal but they stopped selling it around the time I wanted to buy.

5 minutes ago, Naamblar2014 said:

Meanwhile in Australia,  Up to 30,000 people packed Perth's Optus Stadium last night for the AFL showdown between Collingwood and Geelong,

 

With a capacity of 60,000 they are still showing caution by limiting only 30,000 people. Time will tell if this was a mistake or not.

Sure, but who won?

1 hour ago, MrBrad said:

The bug bomb, ARS Kwan, can be bought at Home Pro.

https://www.homepro.co.th/p/245602

A good find MrBrad

4 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

 

The Thai tourism model is based on high volume/low margin.

 

In order to acommodate tens of millions of tourists there will be new, additional costs.

 

This will eat into the margin, unless you pass those costs onto the "tourist".

 

Plus no one really wants to come here, or go anywhere.

 

That said, my post was poorly worded.

 

 

There are many different segments of the Thai tourism market from backpackers in 300 baht a night guest houses, through mass tourism and on to FITS and high end travellers, only the mass market segment is high volume low margin and that segment is being discouraged.

New Additional Costs: the tourism sector is overpopulated with hotels et al, there is an over supply of everything, especially hotel rooms. As a consequence there is no additional cost to absorb a further 50% in tourist numbers because that infrastructure and staffing is already in place, elbeit underutilised.

I agree few people want to go anywhere although large numbers of people seem to want to come here, historically, as evidenced by the YOY growth in tourist arrival numbers.

3 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

And getting ready to cut the basis point again. So since you read this economic news and reports for dissemination to others, tell me why the economy is contracting since you have said before its recovering and jobs growing. Or maybe I misread your writings on the different sub forums.

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/0PTT4HU4/world-bank-sees-thai-economy-shrinking-by-at-least-5-this-year

 

I'm not sure that I've ever said the economy is recovering and jobs growing although that sort of statement is more about what context any statement may have been made. The economy is not a single unit, it is comprised of lots of small pieces, pieces of it grow just as other parts of it shrink, even in today's environment.

The link you provided says the Thai economy may shrink by 5% this year, BOT says it will shrink by at least 8.1% and I suspect that figure will be adjusted later, 10% wouldn't surprise. Why is it shrinking? Tourism is down, exports are down, supply chains are broken, importing countries are closed etc etc.

"Cut the basis points again" - BOT's MPC may well cut the base rate again but I think that's window dressing, it's nearly at zero anyway so the effect is minimal.

4 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

looks like the Baht did not like the economic prospects of the economic team leaving and shrank some more giving the BOT fits.

I doubt that, it looks like normal intra-day movement when there's a change in personal or news. And given the economic climate at present a weakening of THB is actually desirable so I imagine BOT is quite pleased.

Regarding forecasts, this is what BOT forecast in April so you can see what they said then versus what really happened

Two points of interest include a forecast of 15 mill. tourists in 2020 (the first three months of the year saw 7 mill.) and a fall in exports of 8.8% FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR (exports have fallen 3.71% in the first five months of this year):

https://www.bot.or.th/English/PressandSpeeches/Press/2020/Pages/n2163.aspx

https://tradingeconomics.com/thailand/exports

https://tradingeconomics.com/thailand/tourist-arrivals

16 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

The mighty baht sure is getting softer.

 

This is not conclusive by any means but it may help explain the chart above.....the BOT Exchange Rate Report shows that REER is holding up quite well but nominal value has been falling.

https://www.bot.or.th/App/BTWS_STAT/statistics/ReportPage.aspx?reportID=407&language=eng

37 minutes ago, Miami007 said:

International tourism is about 12% of GDP. As things stand now, there won't any substantial  international arrivals for the rest of the year. 9 months down the drain. Domestic tourism won't make up for it and there was none for 3 months (unless you count trips to see family in the villages). So the country will lose about 15% of GDP in tourism alone

How much damage will be done to foreign investment in Thailand when it is nearly impossible to enter?  

If there is another 10% loss due to decreased domestic consumption, we are at a 25% contraction of the economy in 1 year... that is a depression and not a minor correction (imagine a pay cut of 25% for your household).

It will take years to recover from this - or living standards decline as population doesn't shrink

International Tourism - 3 months good, 3 months down the drain, 6 months unknown.

Domestic Tourism - 3 months good, 3 months unsure, 6 months unknown.

Sorry, that's the closest I can get with any certainty, my crystal ball is broken!

6 minutes ago, Ironman1958 said:

Isn't Finance Minister Uttama Savanayana the same guy who was in charge of the Thai economy way-back-when and crashed it, then Thailand had to go to the IMF for a bailout?

No, Tarrin was: https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/It-was-20-years-ago-that-the-Thai-central-bank-panicked

Uttama was Minister for IT and before that Dean of a University

https://www.set.or.th/thailandfocus/2019/speakers.html

You might try asking at a vets office for the bug bomb.

We bought a similar product from Greenworks, battery included for 6.5k, sturdy kit but not really effective for us.

We're faced with a similar problem and have been looking around to see what's available. 

There's a black and yellow electric leaf mulcher which is on sale in lots of places for around 6k, it just wouldn't handle the volume either you or I have in mind.

We have a blower which works well on concrete but much less well when blowing leaves across grass or open ground, I think you will be disappointed. On the occasions we have been able to use the blower effectively we're still faced with having to break them down into a usable mulch, just dumping them onto the garden and digging them in manes they take a long time to break down.

The farming guys recommend either a hammer mill or a mulching machine/chipper, good quality ones are expensive at around 50k (and up). There are several Thai models to be had but whether or not they are reliable, robust and have hardened blades is another story, 

We're currently waiting for the next agricultural fair to be advertised, they generally have lots of people selling this type of gear. I'll look forward to see what others recommend here.

2 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

The mighty baht sure is getting softer.

 

I don't know what that really means, it's about 80 satang in 18 days and corresponds to a fall in the Dollar Index from 97.54 to 96.21 over the same period....the timeframe is quite short so not exactly a trend I don't think, yet.

1 hour ago, JonnyF said:

You could quite easily guess (with a high degree of accuracy) but the reality of the situation doesn't fit your narrative. As there are no plans to allow tourists in for several months (especially following recent events with Egyptian soldiers) and it's already the middle of July, we can safely say it won't recover this year. What scenario could possibly allow it to recover? 

 

Exports were down 26% in Q2. This matches (within a couple of %) the export decline for the company I work for (domestic sales have also tanked) and our July is looking even worse. Unless you think the rest of the world's economy is going to recover in the next 5.5 months and start purchasing Thai products at 2019 levels then it would be safe to assume Q3 and Q4 will be similar or worse to Q2. These are the top 10 purchasers of Thai exports. Huge problems (politically and C19 related) in at least 4 of them. US and China top 2. India also in there. 

 

 

You can pass your rosy predictions off as optimism, but they just appear to be deliberately misleading rhetoric.

Deliberately misleading rhetoric! First you had me being somebody else, then you had me being paid to talk up the Baht and the Thai economy and now you have me setting out deliberately misleading rhetoric....I'm not sure JonnyF that you and I are going to be able to debate the Thai economy, you just don't seem to want to allow that!

If you want to set out the future of the economy, and you have a crystal ball or are good at guessing, please be my guest, personally, that's not my thing. Sector performance is reported monthly and quarterly, when we have a few more months of reporting then I'd feel comfortable making a projection, but not at this stage, it's probably best we don't continue this exchange because we don't agree on the fundamental approach.

1 hour ago, Cake Monster said:

With Vehicle sales Globally apparently falling off a cliff, the 11.8% GDP is going to take a really heavy hit.

The EU has already stated that Vehicle sales are down 25%, so on a pro rata basis lets assume the GDP for vehicles will fall to around 75%, thats about 9% instead of 11.8 %, a drop of $7.2 Billion of GDP.

If we also assume that due to a tightening of purse strings Worldwide, the purchasing of White Goods and Computers, the other Two of the top 3, will also drop - lets say 10% with a combined GDP hit of Approx another $7.4 Billion.

Already the total is more than the entire Plastics Industry GDP 6.4% of GDP worth $13.3 Billion.

Factor in the Tourism slump at 20% GDP and there you have a massive Economic hole appearing.

Sure, nobody is saying there won't be falls in GDP or its components, the only difference between us is how much and how those falls are calculated. As said earlier your tourism slump of 20% isn't really 20% yet although it might be later, we don't know, today it's 3 months of 11.5% which is international tourism, what it might be later is another story that I wouldn't want to guess at.

1 hour ago, statman78 said:

Trillian,

Just a correction to one of you statements which actually supports your arguments.

"a 22.5% fall to the smallest exports since 2016. That means that exports increased by 22.5% in under four years" is not correct since percentages are not additive.  A 22.5% fall to a point 4 years years ago means that the increase was really 29%.

 

For example;  Assume the maximum is a nice round number like 100.  A 22.5% fall back to 2016 means we are back to 77.5 as the starting point.  From this starting point of 77.5 we would need a (22.5/77.5)*100% increase.  This is a 29% increase from 2016.

 

Calculating the % increase from 2016 and calculating the % decrease from 2020 uses different denominators.

Yes you are correct of course, I wasn't trying to be exact in my numbers but was instead trying to simply make the point although it wouldn't have hurt if I'd been more precise...I get lazy from time to to time after repeating the same things over and over to different people!

8 minutes ago, Susco said:

What has the USD/THB exchange rate has to do with Euro exchanges?

 

 

Nothing much at all, as said, I track only USD/GBP, USD/THB and GBP/THB, I don't pay attention to Euro.

3 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

Well we're only just into Q3. Q1 wasn't too bad since it didn't really hit until March.

 

Q2 was horrendous. Q3 could be even worse than Q2. I doubt it will be better when you look at the situations of the countries that Thailand exports to.

 

So we're looking at 9 of the 12 months being pretty dreadful. And you reckon an 8% GDP drop overall is realistic given that exports (67% of GDP) are down 22% in Q2 and tourism (domestic and international) is also massively down?

 

What about the rest of the domestic economy? You think that will tick along the same as 2019 or do you think maybe, just maybe all those people who have lost their jobs might reduce their spending? You think people might postpone that truck they were going to buy? I haven't even lost my job and my monthly spend for Q2 was less than half of normal because the shops and pubs/restaurants were closed. Everyone I know was the same. 

Unlike you I'm only prepared to accept what has actually already happened as fact, what may happen in the future is another question and yet to be determined. I also try to be optimistic rather than pessimistic otherwise there's a temptation to just collapse into despair and not pay attention to the positive things.

BOT currently forecasts -8.1%, as already said I suspect that may change to at least -10%, so? They are just numbers, whatever they may be doesn't change the actions that need to be taken at this point so dwelling on what the numbers might be is really not useful.

I do however think that domestic consumption may surprise to the upside, there's a lot more disposable income available in Thailand than most people on this forum care to acknowledge. That's because everyone seems to be wrapped up in the plight of the impoverished rural poor, perhaps because that's all they see. The middle and upper classes spent THB 440 bill. on foreign travel last year, that's about 7% of GDP, if those people spend only half of that amount in Thailand it will help reduce the negative fall in GDP. 

2 minutes ago, Susco said:

You think so?

 

The dollar and Euro have gained almost 1 Baht since July 1

Sorry, I meant against USD and THB, I don't track Eero exchange rates at all.

7 minutes ago, Susco said:

Anyone had a glance at the Baht exchange rate the last couple of days?

The Pound is up but the USD Dollar Index is down.

https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/data/currencies/gbp-pairs/GBPTHB-exchange-rate/

4 minutes ago, smedly said:

you think the Thai baht going up is good for Thailand ?

 

The flaw in your thinking right there

 

a strong baht only serves a few in Thailand and they don't rely on the economy for their increasing riches 

That sort of comment usually comes from people who are being squeezed by exchange rates and want somebody to blame for not making the right currency exchanges ten and fifteen years ago, ring any bells?

9 minutes ago, smedly said:

another beauty from our resident financial TVF expert 

 

dear oh dear oh dear

Thank you for the accolade Smedly but I prefer to just be known as Trillian. And I already addressed that point earlier in the thread, did you overlook it? Oh no you didn't, you read it, you put one of your  little smileys on it, how cute.