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US is printing money uncontrollably and keep raising their debt. Small wonder that USD is tanking against most major currencies. You just need to look at DXY to see that. EU is taking much more conservative approach to this and that is why EUR is doing fine. Last year the THB was actually losing some value against EUR but gaining significantly against USD. In my view it has more to do with the US deliberately lowering the value of USD and not with any BOT policy per se.

In US the higher fee applies to non-residents, not to foreigners in general. In Thailand it is applicable to all foreigners, no matter resident or not.

I would think that with all these services automated now they would actually save a lot of money on staff costs as less staff should be needed but instead they just use it as a justification to raise fees.

Unfortunately, the official policy says that the lower pricing is applicable only to Thai Nationals. The Work Permit used to work for me in some parks many years ago but it has not worked for me in many years already, as lately they always insist that the lower pricing is only for Thais.

My name on SIM matches the name on the account. Still, they recently blocked my banking app without any advance notice because I have a new passport now and the passport number was not matching the one registered with SIM anymore. That was with Kasikorn though.

Had the same problem with an old passport number registered for SIM. They froze my access to account for the mobile app without any advance warning. I noticed only when I tried to pay some utility payments. Extremely annoying as I was abroad at the time... After return it still required like 20 minutes discussion in the bank for the bank staff to figure out why the access was frozen and advise how to reactivate. The provided message in the app was not clear at all.

He is denying leaking it but he admitted that he recorded the conversation and shared the conversation with 80!!! top officials. In my mind this is as good as intentional leaking,

It is the same Russia that has invaded or taken control of territories of few neighboring countries, like Chechnya, Georgia and Moldova and has invaded Ukraine multiple times since 2014. The same Russia that has doubled their military spending just in last four years. The same Russia whose top government officials repeatedly and publicly threaten to attack and annex other neighboring countries. There are quite a few tiny neighboring NATO countries that Russia could easily annex in a day or few (and it has threatened to do it too) and then see how NATO would respond, if at all.

I recall that some years ago there was a similar story in Thailand with someone finding a money bag and keeping it at home. The police found the person within a day or two. The person claimed that he/she was planning to go with the bag to police later when he/she had free time. He/She was still charged with the theft by police. So much for finders/keepers law in Thailand.

All these drug seizure statistics are publicly available. The curious fact though is that the fentanyl border seizures started reducing significantly since November 2024, i.e. few months before Trump took office 😄 You can filter the data in the below site by the type of drug and the region and see the graph. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics

I did it there last year. It was organized well enough although it still took like 4 hours (including lunch time in between) to finish all the tests and receive the results. I thought the review by doctor was quite good. She explained in detail all results that were out of the optimal range and suggested the follow ups too.

I would take this with a grain of salt. I just recently heard of one school where some teachers without work permits got caught and deported. I have no idea though if it happens often or was just an unfortunate coincidence.

It might have to do with the government led campaign AGAINST zero-dollar tours and low cost Chinese tour companies in Thailand. This has been going on for years and the claim has been that such companies have unfair advantage against Thai-owned tour companies and do not contribute much to Thai economy anyway. I recall that some years ago a number of such Chinese companies were forcibly shut down and their assets sold without even a court decision reached yet. So, I guess this might be another reason for much less Chinese tourists nowadays. You reap what you sow.

Indeed, there was some statistics quoted in Thai media that the actual average tariff rate that Thailand charges on US goods is just 9%. It does not leave much room for negotiation. However, for example, for wine they have many different fees and additional taxes that are applied on top of the the initial tariff. It might mean that the actual average tariff rate is much higher.

Curiously this has been proven to be another lie promoted by Fox News and Trump. Imane Khelif has been born a woman and has always been a woman. She has never changed her gender and there is nothing that would qualify her as a man. She might be masculine looking but that is true about many women in sports.

There have been numerous reports that Russia has used such weapons in Ukraine already on multiple occasions.

I have never truly understood how this Bolt Taxi fee calculation works. I have booked Bolt Taxi option a number of times and it usually shows some fee range, e.g. 190-290 baht. Then taxis actually never switch on the meter and every single time I have ended up paying the highest quoted fee, i.e. 290 Baht in the example. Does not seem to matter if there is more or less traffic and there is no explanation on how the calculation is supposed to work in the app itself.

About three years ago my Samsung TV stopped working after 8 years of service. Their technician said that it would cost 10,000 Baht to replace the board. Bought a new Android TCL instead. For TCL the problem now is that the response seems to be getting slower and slower, and it needs restarting occasionally. Seems to be some Android problem. Will have to do some research on this soon as this is getting annoying.

I agree. It is quite good and have also Dunkel and IPA varieties. You can still buy it at Villa Market.

Out of curiosity I checked the listed selling prices of your mentioned units. Similar sized units in those buildings are for sale for 57-85M. Thus the annual rent thus is only 3-4.5% of the value. I have rented here for many years and my experience is similar that usually the annual rent has been in the range 4-5% of the value of the condo.

Indeed, some years ago it used to be possible to buy booze at 30% cheaper than in the city so I sometimes bought while waiting for luggage. Nowadays, the prices are about the same in duty free and the city. They have also stopped selling the cigarette brands that I liked and which I could not find in Bangkok. There is no point for them to exist anymore.

Same here. I am about the same size and it seems impossible to find long chinos in Bangkok, not even in online shops. I just ordered ones from US Amazon.

They managed to do this in Georgia back in 2004. It was deemed that the entire police force was too corrupt to reorganize. They fired most of the existing police force, hired new recruits and reduced the police force size by half. At the same time they started offering much higher salaries for police, thus attracting more qualified candidates. It was largely deemed as the most successful police reorganization exercise worldwide and police corruption decreased tenfold.

Grab is often 50-100% more expensive than taxis in Bangkok, i.e. compared to taxi meter price. Bolt can be cheaper or around the same as taxi but impossible to get during traffic hours. Bolt is ok for off-peak hours or in some more remote areas of Bangkok though.

54% import tax seems to be correct but, as your quoted article states, there are multiple other taxes added on top of it, i.e. 160bt per bottle excise+local tax + 10% consumption tax for better wines + 7% VAT . Still, even considering all these, I also do not understand how the wine prices here can be averagely 3-4 times higher than in Europe too. And not only on good wines but on cheap ones too. Furthermore, the 54% import tax should not even be applicable for wines from Chile and Australia. Either way, one can hope that proposed reductions in import tax and excise tax shall result in some reduction in prices eventually.