Orac

When taking a measure of a nation's financial stability and financial risk it is also necessary to take into account the political stability.

Now while the UK Parliamentarians are grabbing the headlines with the 'scandal' over expenses (measure that against what the Thai Politicians get up to at some other time) the bottom line on political stability in Thailand is not at all rosy.

One might argue that the Pound is going to loose it's value, but when the political situation is taken into account then sticking your money into Bht/Thai Banks/Thailand based assets is not such a good bet... especially for the British.

Thaksin might well return (he might be the only viable option or even the most desirable option when the inevitable occurs) - He has a great deal of unfinished business with that Green and Pleasant Land.

Life and life savings in Thailand is all your eggs in a rather weak looking basket.

An advantage of money in the UK (for Brits) is it’s a boat to back home if and when you need to go back there.

Never ever forget - You’re a guest here.

If you really believe the pound is shakey then that would be an argument to put money in a spread of currencies - life and life's savings in Thailand.... not a bright idea.

Yes I agree. But the answer to the questions I have posed about relative currency and economic strengths will determine the percentage of my investments I might be prepared to leave invested in one currency or the other. As ChianMaiFun pointed out the other day through his personal example, it makes no sense to remain nearly wholly invested in Streling when Thailand is your long term home and you are spending Baht on a daily basis but a 50/50 split or similar would provide a good hedge and de-risk the problem.

CM,

I am curious as to why you seem to have an either/or strategy regarding GBP/THB and do not consider looking at other global markets/currencies. Surely, as GH has suggested, in such an uncertain time you would have less risk if you had a spread of currencies rather than relying on two economies which could end up with major problems as have been highlighted already.

SCOTSMAN

and his mates that have to pay a salary to their wives each month have been asked several times on this thread to predict what would happen if they stopped paying for their wives.

Not one reply.

They know dam_n well what would happen. What's that song?...

"Hit the road Jack, and don't be coming back no more no more no more no more..."

Surely you could rewrite the same statement above as what would happen if they stop providing for their wives (you say wives not GFs) and I assume children in some cases so that they have more money to blow on booze and cheap women.

I certainly would expect to be be thrown out and rightly so though it appears from some of these posts that I might have more support from some parts than I would deserve.

Not quite...she is an Ex-banker... ... I never asked her to keep a set of books, it was something she did all on her own, and the set of books mean d*ck sh*t to me as they are all in Thai.. ...does she give money to the "family" every month..Yes... exactly the same amount she was giving the family while she was working..

Personally I think keeping a set of books makes good financial sense, something I and not very good at and has nothing to do with lack of trust or providing proof

Reading it this way I can see where you are coming from - I am hopeless with money hence my reliance on my wife to do any saving.

Maybe the OP should've asked...

How much money do you have to pay your wife/gf to stay with you each month?

Honestly, these posts sound more like a business arangement than a loving relationship

You people really do need to ask yourselves:

"what would happen if I stoped paying my terak?"

If you have to "pay" your wife/gf every month then the answer is very clear.

You would be out the door quicker than you can say "but teerak jaaa, I love you!"

Thank Jesus H Christ I don't have those kind of problems.

After trawling through numerous pages of droll on this thread....the above posting IMHO is the one closest to the truth...

Personally my wife has my ATM card, draws what she needs for the bills and herself and has a full set of books she reconciles every month, in a relationship its called trust

I hate to disagree but surely the keeping of a full set of books indicates a lack of trust and need for proof.

"He wondered why the Australian owner of the Aussie Bar would allow a dispute to develop with a fellow Australian. " Quote from phuketwan.com attributed to the Govenor of Phuket. Sure the bar owner isn't feeling too comfortable now after the Govenor making a public statement concerning his action in the case.

I would assume that he has the CCTV footage of the event which could potentially clear his name if he needs to use it - unless the police have 'lost' it of course

having looked for the subject, i have to report i can not locate this in tory party documentation. whilst i am fairly sure that i didnt dream it please take the pension comment as "it is rumored" etc

poll still worth it though!

I can't help but think this is a very controversial rumour you 'may' be starting here and I am amazed that, particularly on this forum, that nobody else seems to have picked up on it.

I used to always vote Tory however I haven't bothered for the last few elections, however, if they were proposing such a move on overseas pensions I would certainly vote for the party most likely to be able to stop them.

edited to sound a bit less negative!

Hopefully now she will go back to Australia and put all that has happenned behind her and let the story die a natural death.

I assume that somewhere (probably with the bar owner) is the CCTV footage of what actually happenned which, since I believe even her own lawyer admitted she was in a drunken state,

would not be pleasant viewing for either her or the police and would probably tarnish the hard done by mother of four image being portrayed.

The silly cow deserves everything she gets except the cash handouts from the Australian media.

Yeh...you are soooo right. Do you have your halo permanently switched on??

The reaction is completely out of proportion to the "crime" commited. Have the TIB (Thugs In Brown) taken anyone of the murder cases of foreigners to devote time to this womans horrendpous crime?

U really don't get the big pic do u? It's the Oz media that has blown it up to be a big story - without them this wouldn't have any newsworthyness and no-one except maybe the thief if she was sober would have noticed.

Agreed - the media have sensationalised what is pretty much a non-event here. Possibilities of theft, resisting arrest, drunkeness and abusive behaviour leading to somewhere between 48 hours and 4 days in jail (if you were arrested late on a Friday night and released Monday morning you could technically call it 4 days when it is little more than 48 hours) then released on police bail while investigations take place - there has been an alleged crime remember - followed by a trial where on pleading guilty she received a minimal fine and suspended sentence.

The problem is, as happenned in the recent Laos case, the press highlight the maximum sentence possible even when it very unlikely to be applied - in this case 2-5 years in prison actually became a small fine. in the Laos case they were going to hang a pregnant lady.

I would be surprised if similar cases/events as happenned above did not happen at least on a weekly basis in Australia, Europe or US without anyone raising an eyebrow.

My wife is far better at looking after money than me so I put money into her account once or twice a year and she lets me have money as and when I need it without any questions.

As far as her having a job - I take the old fashioned view that her 'job' is to bring up and look after our daughter and mine is to provide for the family. With regards to giving money to her family I leave it up to her but I have found that she is fairly strict with them.

One of our biggest fall outs was over her brother who lives in a tin shack with his 3 young children, wife and MIL directly opposite our house in the village. During the heavy rain a couple of months ago they all got soaked as you can see right through their 'house' and I insisted with my wife that we do something to help. Her argument was that they hadn't done anything to 'earn' that help and weren't asking for it anyway. In the end it cost the princely sum of 41,000 baht to make their house watertight.

Maybe I am gullible but when we married I was accepted by her family and she by mine and if I were to deny help and support to what I now see as MY family I would have to take a long hard look at what sort of person I was.

Apart from the sweeping generalizations, can the OP explain his claim that no children under 13 have HIV???

lol. not claiming that, just that when you look at broad numbers like 2% of people in Thailand have aids its pointless because that includes all demographics. it makes more sense to look at the rate of the demographic your partner comes from.

In that case I suggest some maths lessons.

By using made up figures and over the top generalisations you are inviting ridicule on what is a very serious issue.

Apart from the sweeping generalizations, can the OP explain his claim that no children under 13 have HIV???

Hi I spend around 4-5 months of the year living in Thailand and live in namphong, a town 50 kms from Khone Kaen........I tend to travel quite a lot when here and find my little 125 scooter is not up to it! so.....I was thinking of bringing out a vehicle and a motorbike from the UK, does anyone out there know of any rules or regulations regarding import/export? ..................many thanks Mike

My mate in town was looking at bringing his classic jag over from the UK. 100% import duty was quoted to him.

You need to be very wary of duty rates being mentioned as the duty will be assessed on what customs value anything at rather than the value you put on it and there almost certainly be a huge difference.

Ray,

Would I be right to assume Ban That is a place then ??

Cheers

Orac

Is this another protest?

What shirt colour is required????

Erm - what exactly were you expecting to hear at a lecture by a christian group specifically talking about other religions?

I have read and re-read the OP and i just don't quite get what the girl in question has done wrong here. She has fleeced you apparently (thats not an Embassy issue) for which you must be to blame , no-one else. Not nice , but whats that to do with her visa application?

As i read it , she has really upset the OP, found someone else and gone off on holiday. Happens all the time , nasty maybe but not a reason to deny a visa is it?

Listen , you would struggle to find anyone more anti the British Embassy than me , but on this one occasion , i don't see what they have done wrong. Hurts me to say it , but i don't.

Have to agree here - for a visitors visa she needs to show funds to support herself which both you and her new boyfriend undoubtably are supplying, and reason to return which should be straightforward since she has a child still in Thailand and property.

I would be more concerned about the welfare of your son.

I don't know the OPs financial situation but I can only speak for myself in that I would pay for the simple reason that I can.

MY family that I have been lucky enough to gain through marriage have been good to me despite being very poor and if they can give their time in any way to help me they do - i mentioned to my wife a couple of weeks ago that it would be nice to have a shaded sala thingy outside and was then woken at 6am the following morning by the whole extended family who knocked one up in a day for me.

typically what do the Speedboats charge to Koh Larn ?

Haven't been for a couple of months but it used to be THB.2000.00.

Pheu Thai threatens to boycott tripartite reconciliation panel

The Pheu Thai Party Wednesday threatened to boycott the tripartite committee to bring about political reconciliation and study charter amendments.

Witthaya Buranasiri, chief opposition whip, said the Pheu Thai would not send it representatives to join the panel if the Parliament does not set up a panel to review the political violence during the Songkran holidays.

The tripartite panel is supposed to have representatives from the government, opposition and Senate.

- The Nation - 2009/04/29

Why would PTP want a panel to review the hours of live footage of their guys rioting and threatening to burn places down? Why would PTP want a panel to review their leaders inciting riots on TV? Or is this panel not meant to look at those things but to discuss disappeared bodies?

Hopefully if a panel is set up it will be impartial, it will look at what all sides did, it will stick to corraborated evidence and not inuendo and rumour and preferably it wont be a panel of polticians.

Be interesting to see in the coming days if those who control team PTP really are interested in talking or thwey just want more instability.

So true. How disgusting are these crooks? Abhisit's gov't wants cooperation from every side to look into the matter fairly and transparenty, and these crooks refuse to cooperate. I really don't know what to say about this. When it was their reign back in Oct 7, they didn't even bother to ask anyone to join the investigative panel they set up. Now this gov't wants it to be transparent so that everything can be accounted for. And the crooks' response is not to join. Hmmm.

Spot on the Somchai government set up a panel including a blind guy who said he didnt know why he was on the panel and wasnt capable of doing the job assigned. Maybe that is the way ahead ofr the government. Just say well do exaclty as PPP did and assign our own panel. I rememeber when Somchai did that the soft red supporting English language blogs all argued to see the results of this panel before jumping to conclusions on what happened on Oct 7 so I am sure they would all have exactly the same line for a similarly set up panel by this government.

Reality is PTP do what Thaksin tells them and he needs the country to stop functioning. Be interesting to see if any of PTP actually will break ranks with supreme leader

I may be reading this all wrong but I cannot see how PTP can be accused of refusing to cooperate with Abhhisit's gov't to "look into the matter fairly and transparently" when it is the Abhisit gov't that, so far, is not setting up a panel to review this in the first place. I am sure PTP are just playing politics here but the story seems to have been 'spun' into the opposite of what was being said in the first place.

I especially admire the 4 (so far) who never vote in polls who forgot who they were for a moment and inadvertently voted - do they need to change their votes now???

Cambodia is not really one of those places you go and have a stroll and come back across the border in one piece everytime, you know?

I beg to differ here - I know many people who frequently go to Cambodia but I do not know anyone who has come back in more than one piece

[

Pattaya is not a family city and never will be until they get rid of the sex tourists. They will have to do more than just offer free rooms to get decent people with families there. Who is going to spend more a family of 5 or one sex offender.

It depends on where you stay with the family , theres a lot of activities for families in the Pattaya area , just avoid the bars and you'll have a nice family holiday.

I'll second that if you remain in the Jomtien/Bangsarey area.

so you are saying a family has to stay in one area because it is to dangerous to move around ? That is exactly what I have been told and that is why you do not get the families going there just the sicko's

For someone who has never been to Pattaya and clearly doesn't know the geography you seem to have some strong opinions.

sale of Shin Corp for 76bn baht "without paying tax".....This was so misleading......I still meet people who don't realize that stock market main board transaction generate no tax because there's no capital gains tax in Thailand for stock market transactions.

Thaksin's children, the legal owners, were eventually charged with tax on buying Shin shares off the market at 1 baht value and then placing them on SET at market value, two days before the sale to Temasek.

So yeah, I sitll meet people who think that Thaksin was taxed on Shin sale itself.

Like many Thailand people, I thought Thaksin (himself) bought the company for 1 Baht. He (Thaksin himself) than sold the company for 76 bn Baht. So he made 75,999,999,999 baht, right.

Since he make so much money, it would note hurt if he pay half of it in tax (37,499,999,999.50 Baht). This will show that he has spirit. This will show that he is sporting. This will show that he love Thailand. There is nothing wrong in paying tax even if you don't have to. It is called "Tam Boon" in Thai.

The big question would be who would end up with the money if he paid it in tax. To show he is sporting surely he should be able to distribute it to the poorer people in Thailand since he is no longer a politician so it couldn't possibly be construed as vote buying

Your naivety and lack of understanding on these things seem at odds with your previous posts regarding divorcing your thai wife of two years less than a month ago???

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/findpost-p2637869.html

In a normal government, various legitimate processes can take place that can shift the balance of power, such as byelections, alliances, internal voting an so on, which can of course lead to the replacement of the PM and other representatives, and change policy. This is not what happened in Thailand - far from it. The point that I was making in my original post, the one that you are ignoring in your response, is that most, if not all, Thai politicians are blatantly corrupt, but only one side gets prosecuted for it in a deliberate move to change the government, and the prosecutions abrupty stop when that change was completed to the satisfaction of the PAD minority.

The military coup, disbanding the TRT, then expelling fom office one after the other PM who was affiliated with the TRT via mob rule or judicial pretext, left those remaining in parliament no choice other than to join whatever was left, and so Abhisit was installed as the largest remnant who was acceptable to the PAD and others in the old guard establishment.

Without all this interference, the government that the people had originally elected would most likely still be in power today.

Aren't you ignoring that while it is true that nothing was done to stop the Yellow Shirts to occupy the airports, this was the decision of Thaksin's puppet and brother in Law, not of Abhisit.

And aren't you forgetting that Samak and Somchai were kicked out of office, not be politicians, but by the Court. They were caught doing illegal things, such as vote buying in Somchai's case.

And aren't you forgetting that the prosecution of the Yellow Shirts (as well as of the Red Shirts for that matter) is in the hands of the Police, district attorney and courts, not the government anymore. I would certainly agree that the Thai Police is as corrupt as it goes, (combined with total incompetence), but again, that's not the "politicians". Unless of course, you define "politicians" to include the Police and the Courts.

So far we have not heard of any corruption of Abhisit, whereas when you look up "corruption" or "cronyism" in the dictionary Thaksin's face pops up right next to the list of members of TRT or PPP or whatever their name is right now.

I would venture to say that right now we have the least corrupt government since ... since ... well since Thaksin entered the picture.

Would you prefer his family to run the country?

You are correct here in saying that it is not the 'politicians' here that are now responsible for dealing with the corruption and cronyism of the past but herein lies the problem as unless these 'non-politicans' deal with past issues evenhandedly there will be repercusions against the current government as, if they do not intervene in some way or set clear guidelines will be seen as puppets. Any goverment should lead and not be seen to be led and Abhisit needs to make it clear that he is in command.

Another point I would like to make regarding double standards, and I know I am sailing close to the wind on this one but hope the mods let it stand, is that Thaksin is been accused (rightly in my opinion) of trying to overthrow the goverment and, in the past, one of the main reasons for the yellow protests was to stop the previous goverment from making changes to laws that would exonerate MPs from previous misdeeds, however, all this happenned a few months after the military DID overthrown the government and rewrite the constitution to give themselves more control and exonerate themselves from legal action. Since it has been made clear from both sides that the monarchy was not consulted on this beforehand surely there is a huge double standard going on here which is virtually being ignored.