The Cipher

I was thinking more a general visa class open to the world, since Thailand's is a freely available option. But even if they only opened it to Thailand I imagine there'd be a fair few takers. 25,000 isn't that much money to secure an backup plan if things go pear-shaped locally. Most investor visas cost way more than that. Yes? I was responding to a post that suggested that other countries should adopt reciprocal measures to Thailand supposedly because the requirements would be seen as being too onerous. But in fact, a ton of people would jump at a visa pathway to your home countries with identical requirements to Thailand's. I think stuff like 90 day reporting is stupid af, but it's more of an annoyance than anything to really complain about. Especially given how many complaints are directed at it.

You think that people from pretty much anywhere should be able to enter developed countries on easily attainable and indefinitely extendible visas as long as they agree to put like 25 Gs in an account and report their whereabouts every 90 days? Pretty sure the tsunami of people who would take that up offer won't be complaining about the unfairness lmao.

You know, I think this is probably in the eye of the beholder and might also depend on the locations where you spend time. Because there are other places on the internet where the exact same question is being asked in reverse. Might just be a matter of taste.

But do you believe that Asian immigrants or Asians born in Western countries can understand Western minds?

The exact same reasons that local women in local lands prefer to as well. ????

I'm gonna be real for a second. A lot of posters here don't know any rich people and man, it shows. So many oft-repeated notions here seem to come right out of movies and media and not real life experience.

I'm not really familiar with the retirement extension because I've never been eligible for it. But based on the little I understand there are some programs O-something-or-other(?) specifically for retirees or seniors over a certain age looking to retire in the country. If my above paragraph is correct, then I don't see see the new visas as being in competition with the dedicated retirement pathway. In my case I'm looking at the proposed new residence visas for folks earning an active income elsewhere. Besides the elite visa, there currently aren't a ton of above-board options for me or people like me (I know numerous people who don't fit neatly into the current buckets but would fit into the newly proposed ones). So I see this as the opening of new paths for different types of foreigners without any real cannibalization of the existing paths. And when it's written that way, isn't that kinda exactly what they said the program was for?

Not sure if the quoted post was satire, but it's a viewpoint that I see expressed around here from time to time. There's, dare I say, quite a degree of entitlement in expecting that things will always be as they were and then blaming nefarious externalities when they turn out not to be. Thailand's trying to attract skills and capital - who isn't these days? - and to move beyond their seedy image. They might succeed or they might not, but can you blame them for trying?

I read a few of these articles because I'm curious about whether I qualify and would want to apply for any of these (I'm still not sure). But I didn't see it written on any of those that the existing residents or their visa avenues would be impacted by the new move. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it sorta just feels like a case of bruised egos.

This isn't unique to Thailand. Many countries have, or had, immigration options specifically targeted to folks with capital. Canada and Singapore are two developed countries that immediately spring to mind. Do the new visas explicitly say that those angry folks inherently aren't eligible? Not as far as I know. They just might not meet the criteria at the current time. It is what it is. Complaining doesn't help. Figure out a way to meet the criteria or keep on keeping on. Existing visa pathways aren't closing, so I just don't see how this affects a lot of the folks who are angry about it.

There's a lot of negativity in this thread but I, at least, am potentially interested. Need more details on qualifications for this special remote work visa, and especially on tax treatment. The opportunity to flip employment income tax residence to Thailand at a lower flat rate would definitely be something I'd take a long look at.

And yet that was primarily its function. Just in an indirect way. I really shouldn't hit the 'Submit Reply' button at this point, but ah well. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Well deserved. I've been to a lot of shopping centers and Iconsiam is definitely up there in terms of coolness. Lots of neat little features all throughout.

It'll be fine. I worked remotely in Thailand for 8 months earlier this year. Will do so again in the future. Canadian firm paying to my bank account in Canada. Didn't get asked about it even once and I never got the impression that anyone cared at all.

Just to chime in, "Unicorn" in investing is slang to refer to a private company worth USD $1billion+. More full definition here. What the PM is probably trying to say here is that he wants Thailand to be able to incubate and nurture startup champions. Which I think is a good goal, but is easier said than done.

Sure. But its helpful to place the actions of this institution in the context of broader global trends. The article is about a university beginning to act more like a business than an institution concerned primarily with education. But Chula isn't pioneering any new ground here, they're just floating in the direction the winds have been blowing for years now.

Stan Chart released an Ethereum investor guide this week. It's a little more technical than discussion on here has tended to be, but just thought I'd share in case anyone finds it to be interesting reading. The link is here.

Lol. Which university is not trying to maximize revenue these days? Schools in North America have been doing it for years.

There's no sure thing, but I like to at least try and figure out where in the game we are. Helps me manage my exposure. So my thinking is that you'd expect this community to be made up of largely late adopters (reduced dynamism due to age, unfamiliarity and mistrust of technology, generally NGMI outlooks on the world etc.). But anecdotally based on comments I've read, the participation rate has been higher than I'd have expected. I've also noticed that besides the big two tokens, a lot of the coins that AseanNow folks mention that they're holding are radically different than what I see on other more crypto-focued communities, and rationales for holding and/or understanding of projects also tends to be different. This is a generalization. But I can't help wondering if the above two paragraphs indicate something more meaningful about the market than I've been able to appreciate atm ????.

Just musing to myself here. It's a common mantra among those in the know that we're early. And when I look down the rabbit hole of the metaverse and, after having had the misfortune of spending time in a bank branch this past weekend trying to direct a wire transfer, sure. It does look that way. But then I come on here and see that a very different generation and type of investor is already speculating in crypto markets, I can't help but feel there's an important takeaway here. But I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

Boy is this guy in for a shock.

I just saw this. Disclaimer: I still think everyone should get vaccinated and that restrictions of any kind are unnecessary, but in a vacuum this is pretty funny (link).

I was gonna write a sharp witted reply, but I try not to do that on here anymore. Given the nature of the forum demographic, it just doesn't feel right. So what I will do instead is actually try and provide some value here are a couple of studies (literally just the first two I could grab) that suggest vaccination is effective in reducing virus transmission - although they aren't even close to preventing all transmission. And - one additional thing to consider is that if they are highly effective at symptom mitigation, it almost doesn't even matter if transmission occurs. Covid is only presumably only scary (or well some people think it's scary lmao) because of the negative health effects it causes. But if those negative effects are significantly reduced via vaccination, thereby decreasing the threat of the pathogen, why would it even matter at that point if Covid was still transmissible among the vaccinated? So generally, vaccination takes some of the bite off the pandemic via both of the above avenues.

One of the key things I have learned about Thailand from spending time on this forum, is that: (i) the nebulous and sinister Hi-So have absolute control over anything that involves Thailand in any way at all; and (ii) unlike the elites of every other country, the Hi-So always act with completely unified intent to advance their nefarious goals. Fascinating.

Heh. I'm 30 and I literally think that the response to Covid has been the single biggest mass overreaction in the history of mankind. Yeah I'm aware that Covid is mostly a danger to older and/or already unhealthy people, and yeah, younger and relatively more healthy people will probably be fine without a vaccine. But they should still get it anyway, and here's why... My pro-vaccine argument isn't really based on telling people that they need a vaccine for medical reasons. It's just based on a practical approach to the problem. Rightly or wrongly the general world has decided that vaccine saturation is the key benchmark for reopening. And you could argue about whether or not that's valid, but from my perspective it just is an immutable fact. I can't change it right now, so I just accept it as given. My goal has always been to get life back to normal as fast as possible. I like to think that's a shared objective for most of us. And so practically, getting vaccine numbers up seems to be the surest way of doing that. I mean, I guess I could fight the authorities, but I just don't see how that would be a quicker way of achieving the goal in this case. And it's not like vaccines are doing any real harm to people. I get that these ones have a short track record, but on the balance of probabilities the chances that they'll have material negative effects in the future is pretty low, and the act of getting vaccinated isn't really too inconvenient. The other benefit of vaccines is that we know that they've been extremely effective at reducing serious Covid cases, and the less serious cases there are, the less likely that people will fear the virus enough to lock down again in the future (if you can't tell, I really fking hate lockdowns). Anyway TLDR: if you're a healthy young person do you really need the vaccine? Probably not. But should you get it anyway? Yes. The non-medical benefits are worth the inconvenience.