Indifferent

Stirling work BKK90210.

The comments arn't surprising. But (IMHO) the only one with a bit of common sense is 44-from Changmai.

If the lawyers wern't hungry yes men going all out to take the money (with 0 accountability) then it really wouldn't be an issue. They are really the only ones that can set this system up (you can do it yourself but you still need a lawyers signature and copy of thier licence or ID card I believe. the actual cost I think is less than 1000 THB).

A lot of the company nominees are actually employees of the (dubious) law firm (secretaries, delivery boys etc). Punish the lawyers for duboius pratices (not only this example) by removing their licence and fining them and I think we would see more firms with integrity and actually offering sound advice based on the law and not how to circumvent it.

While I'm ranting about this.....same goes for accountants.

Again I ask: what percentage of Thai baht transactions are just short term investments by speculators such as mammoth hedge funds? 90%? And these speculators aren't looking at the fundamentals?

It's a difficult one to assess. Only BOT would really know. But the reaction of BOT indicates that Thailand is being targeted.

Speculative Attacks

The worry factor for me (living on US pensions) is that I have lost over 12% of my income in one year. So, I'll tighten the belt (I need to lose weight anyway!). The directors of BOT are not worrying about farang pensioners.

The worry factor for Thailand is that many exports are denominated in dollars. Right?

Wrong and right. Most exports (rubber etc) are in Yen. Computer stuff etc is in dollars but this represents only 40% (still considerable) of exports in quantity but only 20% in yeild value per item. The yield in dollars is much less now since it used to rival Tiawan for electronic goods. But the mainstay of thailand exports is still Rice and rubber and we all know the current government reduced rice export prices recently because of this. (much to the consternation of farmers).

"good old great britain is the biggest investor".

I don't think that much that is invested here by the City of London has been deposited in the British banks by the old and great British.

It will mostly be Middle East money (derived from oil) and Chinese money (derived from selling consumer goods to the US), methinks.

The Thailand Government would do well to put a tax on capital inflow and outflow and reduce the baht's vulnerability to excessive movements.

Likewise, a 'Tobin Tax' on all currency and derivative swops would have reduced the excessive bubble pressure that the whole world is now going to have to cope with.

This strengthening of the baht is just one symptom of the problem that we have been building up ever since we were led to ignore the message of the early seventies (rise of OPEC, America's oil production starting its decline and so on). Reagan and Thatcher have a lot to answer for.

There's always one...isn't there. I said I couldn't be bothered to google it..but here you go anyway

Direct Investment

I can also give you pretty graphs etc if thats not enough. But please. If you have any other info to the contrary then please give me a link/pdf etc.

In the good old rules of science, it only takes 1 example to disprove......so give it to me!

You will also note that I said investment. Not imports/exports (i.e buying and selling) which, as I said, Japan is the major importer form LOS. And yes I CAN give you proof I never post anything without personal experience or research. Something you should bear in mind.

Oh. and by the way, tax on inflow is also (indirectly) called "interest rates" which Thailand has chosen to reduce (another option to control the baht) but is still an option to increase!

And what bubble???? A few years ago the baht was a lot less than it is now with worse deficit and it did OK until the speculators seized their opportunity. Now they have much more control over the baht than before and they've been doing pretty good so far.

Look before you leap.

Like most people...lots of naresaying...very little proof.

Lucky the neighbour was a foreigner. Common sense prevailed (or at least reason).

I had a similar incident with a Thai family. After lots of pleading and talking I eventually waited until they built it and then went along my boundary with a chainsaw and let them take me to court.

They never took me to court

But when they built the extension..it was far further back

Treat a death in the family as it was your own. that siad...if they think you will pay for the funeral then they will probably expect you to pay for it.

Go by your g/f's reaction. If she doesn't give a ######..then why should you. If she is upset and needs condolenceses..give her all the support she needs and just do the polite stuff to anyone else. After all most people at the wake (for 3 days) will be getting drunk and probably don't even know the persons name.

As I believe I said on another thread.

Watch the exports.

If the exports die then the value against the dollar means a ######..if not, then it doesn't mean jack sh*it. Opec and China are looking to move their base reserves to the Euro instead of the dollar...then Thailand needs to worry.

ALWAYS in these situations. Tell your g/f to go sit in a corner and face em yourself (angry Thai owner, immigration, policeman or other).

Force their hand and make them speak english (you are the one that is paying) or make them speak Thai to you (if you can speak Thai).

I have ALWAYS found I achieve more on my own (I do speak pretty good Thai if the need arises) than if you have a subservaint female to negotiate.

Thais are pre-conditioned to believe anything that another (percieved higher in class) Thai says to them. Women especially are bad negotiators since any man is higher (generally).

Examples:

G/F says I cannot have bank account after talking to clerk. I talk to Manager...no problem.

Landlord says I owe telephone bill of 8,350 THB. After going to TT&T (alone) it's only 540 THB.

Irate man wants 2,500 THB for damage to his car (which I had no knowledge of). He buggered off after he knew I knew I could speak Thai and I started to phone police.

Policeman (in his very broken english) wants me to pay 1000 THB for no helmet. After asking him why (in Thai) is it only farang that have to pay more than everyone else who was paying 200 THB (hinting at racism and double charging) ..... my fine was 200 THB!

Farang have money too much!!!!!

Well..Lets put this into perspective.

Japan is the biggest importer of Thailands goods And good old great britain is the biggest investor (yes I can give you links...but why should I since you are too lazy to google).

Currently..the Yen is doing very well against the dollar and so is the pound. so untill further evidence that the dollar is making an impact (apart from cheaper petroleum) then Thailand is doing OK.

The big impact will be if/when japan actually raises it's interest rates above 0%.

Good...Hit em where it hurts. Lets hope they follow through.

I use True Move (forget which promotion package) but it is damned cheap.

I have a real problem using all the credit up before expiry. My phone credit is now 2400(ish) baht purely because I have to re-credit it to get the extended time. Also everytime you re-credit you get extra free credit making it even more difficult to use up

7/11 are aslo doing a special promotion at the moment. When you buy stuff you get little stickers/stamps.

5 stamps=free true move sim card which also comes with 30 THB credit.

Maybe all the students are working at 7/11 and using their 5 fingered discount:P

I agree 'serves you right' works well as a basic translation.

To clarify for anyone who is in the process of learning Thai script, it should be noted that the สม (to befit) here has nothing to do with ส้ม (orange). They are two different words as you can see by the mai thoo tone mark over ส้ม which gives 'orange' a falling tone (high class initial consonant + live syllable + tone mark mai thoo), whereas 'to befit' has a rising tone (high class initial consonant + live syllable + no tone mark).

The สม in สมน้ำหน้า means 'to befit; to be appropriate'. Perhaps you were just using 'orange' as a mnemonic though?

A mnemonic indeed. Apologies. I should have clarified.

It was the first phrase that I learnt and already knew the words for orange, water and face (which you learn pretty quick from 1 night in a bar) and this was just an easy way to remember.

They came up with 10???

I can only think of 2.

1. Pay bribe.

2. Don't give them lip about paying bribe.

Flippancy asside though.

There are a couple of things that you should realy not do (like rolling a joint out of 1000 baht bill and setting light to it etc). But really, I've always found Thai people to make allowancies for foreigners far greater than foreigners do in thier own country.

Too much analysis.

Serves you right is correct.

Use it as you would in english........

You had accident???? You were drunk??? Som nam na.

You buy a house in wifes name????. Wife leave you??? You live in youth hostel????Som nam na.

If you said your mother has died??? som nam na. Then the reaction would be different.

Laterally speaking..the way I learned this phrase was "orange water face" and have used it many times with friends, policemen and (well basically) everyone. ......I've never been arrested or had any fights. It's the way you tell 'em (to coin a phrase).

I still maintain (as I always have) the safest thing to do is buy a property in your own country and live off the rent. I've looked at owning a several houses here and (to be honest) I can rent cheaper over 30 years than I would pay to buy.

It amazes me that people go to such lengths with so much uncertainty just to have some bricks an morter (or more appropriately concrete) that has a high probability of dissapearing when they can have the same in thier own country and (if they decide to sell) make a profit.

History of the World: Part I

One of my all time favourite films

[caveman drawing on cave wall]

Narrator: And of course, with the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth - the critic.

[other caveman urinating on drawing]

Roman Senator: All fellow members of the Roman senate hear me. Shall we continue to build palace after palace for the rich? Or shall we aspire to a more noble purpose and build decent housing for the poor? How does the senate vote?

Entire Senate: <deleted> THE POOR!

Marcus Vindictus: What bait must I use to catch your love? I am your servant.

Empress Nympho: Ah, but the servant waits, while the master baits.

Empress Nympho: [to her litter bearers]

Could you *please* step on the same foot at the same time! My tits are falling off!

I don't know what company you run in Thai, you don't know what my company is.

We are just protecting ourselves from staff crossing the road. Highly specialized, long and expensive training that they have to undergo.

On the other hand, you are right. The company has set up big, almost billion $ venues in India and China. That's where the programmers are, in addition to what we have in the US.

Customer facing staff can not be easily, if at all, outsourced.

I have no dealings with programmers (although I was one). Only "Customer Relationship Engineer", "Solution specialists", "Solutions Architect", "Implementation Specialists" and other revenue generating or revenue supporting staff.

Only in Japan, support is worth 120 mil US$ a year. Then, services come atop of that. Then sales.

Or the sales come first? It's a chain, hard to distinguish who is the chicken, who is the egg.

give us a job then

The local currency had strengthened in the same direction with other regional currencies.

Songpol Cheevapanyaroj, an executive in charge of the capital market business group at Kasikornbank, said the baht had strengthened because the US dollar had weakened against currencies in Asia.

USD/Japanese Yen

USD/Baht

Hmmmm......doesn't look like it to me. Looks more like a continuing trend whilst other currencies are pretty stable.

This makes for an interesting read. A bit outdated (September) but explains one of the other theories behind the bahts continued appreciation.

Full Article

Since the topic of this discussion is the fact that governments consistently lie and can not be trusted, let’s take a quick look at possible reasons why the baht has remained strong against the dollar despite the dollar’s strength against other currencies. The sale of Shin Corp. brought the Shinawatra family 73 billion Baht. My guess is that the Shinawatra family is in the process of greatly diversifying this huge windfall of Baht into other currencies, including Euros and possibly Yen. A weaker Baht would translate into losses of millions of baht in foreign currency exchange transactions for the Shinawatra family.

They may live to regret not freezing Toxins bank accounts.

BOT ready with steps to stop baht speculation

BANGKOK: -- The Bank of Thailand will soon introduce new measures to block speculative capital inflows - the "hot money" speculators bring into the Kingdom to influence the baht, which has risen at too fast a pace over the past few days.

The central bank also admitted yesterday that it had been intervening in the foreign-exchange market occasionally over the past week to stabilise the baht.

It depends on what exactly the intervention was.....but if it was buying baht then....

In an unsuccessful attempt to defend the baht, the Bank of Thailand used the country's reserves of foreign currencies to buy up the excess supply. But in the process, foreign reserves began to dwindle, while the speculative attacks continued.

Our foreign reserves were also being used to bail out financial institutions such as the Bangkok Bank of Commerce and 16 other finance companies which had massive 'non-performing' loans - loans that they could not collect, most of which were made to the real estate sector.

Full Article

Hmmmm....Wonder if the new airport is one of thses 'non-performing' loans.

And is thaksin the George Sophos of asia. He probably has more money than Thailand has in thier bank account

Maybe. When about 95% of the country can be described as "upcountry" then we have a problem...

The Thai press is so "Bangkok-centric" in its reporting and attitudes. They would try and impose their well-educated pie-in-the-sky morality on the rural Thais, yet would hate to pay any extra taxes that might equalise development in Thailand; or indeed actually share anything with those pesky, dark-skinned Isaarn people. Education for the majority of this country is always last thing on any government's budget too.

Thai people are a bit like water. They always take the easiest path towards any goal, be it driving a car or motorcycle; promotion at work; exam results; etc.

Basically they have historically never had to try too hard to achieve anything; everything you could eat grows here; no Winter; no crop rotation; war (of any real import), famine, pestilence, disease; etc.

In short, their culture is based on having plenty, and not having to tighten their belts, plan ahead, get tough on wasteful corruption, etc.

Its only by living in a culture like this that sometimes you have some perspective and appreciation of your own culture

Spot on. This is my view too. I remember reading an article a while ago which pretty much said this was the reason why most of the developed countries tend to be away from temperate zones. It basically said people had to be more inventive and use better planning to survive in harsher climates where food was difficult to cultivate. I think it goes a long way to explain a lot of Thailands idiosynchracies.

Maybe. When about 95% of the country can be described as "upcountry" then we have a problem...

The Thai press is so "Bangkok-centric" in its reporting and attitudes. They would try and impose their well-educated pie-in-the-sky morality on the rural Thais, yet would hate to pay any extra taxes that might equalise development in Thailand; or indeed actually share anything with those pesky, dark-skinned Isaarn people. Education for the majority of this country is always last thing on any government's budget too.

Thai people are a bit like water. They always take the easiest path towards any goal, be it driving a car or motorcycle; promotion at work; exam results; etc.

Basically they have historically never had to try too hard to achieve anything; everything you could eat grows here; no Winter; no crop rotation; war (of any real import), famine, pestilence, disease; etc.

In short, their culture is based on having plenty, and not having to tighten their belts, plan ahead, get tough on wasteful corruption, etc.

Its only by living in a culture like this that sometimes you have some perspective and appreciation of your own culture

Spot on. This is my view too. I remember reading an article a while ago which pretty much said this was the reason why most of the developed countries tend to be away from temperate zones. It basically said people had to be more inventive and use better planning to survive in harsher climates where food was difficult to cultivate. I think it goes a long way to explain a lot of Thailands idiosynchracies.

So will someone please please please enlighten me as to why none of the estate agents (including the high profile one who sells property and sponsors TV) want to own a property in the market they are trying to sell in?

Because they do the sensible thing and invest in thier own country where they are protected by legislation, property values accumulate and rental prices are more than a mortgage

Hmmmm.

She said the trend was towards more firms moving outside the central business district (CBD) as they could not afford the high rents in grade-A offices. Therefore, office rents outside the CBD are likely to increase by 11% or more next year.

Meaning that BKK office and shop prices are inflated?

Caroline Murphy, JLL's head of markets, said another 307,300 square metres of office space, including 42,000 sq m occupied by owners, would be added to the market next year. It is expected to be taken up quickly as average annual demand in the past four years has been 250,000 sq m.

Guess where all the new developments will be located....CBD maybe?

can't help to noitce thi .. and

seem like what Amercia BUSH is doing in the middle east .. is far worst then Taksin .

i am not speaking for anyone . or supporting anyone ..

but hey look .Thailand had less drug dealer .. after the killing in thailand ..

but look at Iraq .. There is more Death , rape , and murder . now in Middle 100 time more before BUSH Went in ..

Taksin would be happy that BUSH will be hangjing beside him .. if CRIME aginst HUmanity is what the world is Up to .

Not at all. It is just 100 times more publicised.

And this Chowna dude. Please supply me links to posts that you have actually contributed in a positive way to a thread rather than just asked for evidence that a poster isn't telling porkies. I havn't seen any yet, but then again, I don't read every thread and I'm too lazy to search Thai visa for your name to find out.

There is not "free" healthcare system.

Symantics.

Most people with a modicum of intelligence know that all things have to be paid for some way. But to not pay at point of service is regarded as free (at the point of service).

This expression, this ideology I should say, is really misleading.

Nope. It is an ideology. Look the word up on Wikipedia.

An ideology is an organized collection of ideas.

Public healthcare systems in western countries are monstruous, and out of control, as for the budget they consume.

Yes they are. The size of the budget is irrelevent as long as it is well funded and doesn't result in a deficit (if you compare it to military budgets then I think you would find a stark contrast.

The reason most public healthcare systems are under strain is that they are a victim of thier own success. People are living longer and less are dieing because of the system and the balance to those that require it and those that are funding it has become unbalanced.

To scrap the 30 THB fee is, I think, a big mistake. A psychological one. It will make thai people to think that healthcare is free.

And why not. If a Thai girl has a farang then they think EVERYTHING is free

I've never heard this 'Pai dor?' to mean 'Pai nai?' Are you sure it's not 'Pai tor?' 仵èÍ meaning to continue.

Maybe the latter which may make sense. Perhaps it is the soft t (dt) which I always have difficulty in differentiating between.

I usually hear the sentence bpai "(d)(t)or" but what was confusing was it only seems to be certain people :blink:AND I''ve only noticed it recently which made me think that maybe it was slang because everyone else says bpai nai or (for issan) bpai sai.

I've already asked them what it means and they say its the same as bpai nai.