The Cipher

Fair and well said. The lifestyle you described is basically what I would expect for a household with $1-3M in net assets spending a material part of each year (3mths+) in Thailand. Assuming you and your friend group are relatively well put together I do agree that the country would benefit from more immigrants like you who would be willing to to commit year-round and put down roots.

Fair enough point. I wasn't aware of the number of Elite holders and would've expected more holders. I do think that the proposed visa options are more attractive than Elite, but don't think that they are 10x more attractive. If the quoted Elite numbers are accurate, then it does seem that 100k would be a stretch.

So actually I agree with this. But the thing that I think many forumers miss is that they assume that the nebulous 'wealthy foreigner' will not also find the Thai experience charming. That's why you see so many posts here about how 'wealthy foreigner' would never put up with Thailand's idiosyncrasies. Which I assert is false. In fact, one thing I like about Bangkok is that I can have multiple different lifestyle experiences even within the span of one day. Have said this a bajillion times, but wealthy people aren't a uniform population. Thailand will appeal to some percentage of them, the only question is how many will want to commit in some way to the country? The one million people assumption the gov makes works out to about 2% of all millionaires. That's probably too high. If you assume they'll convince a quarter percent or half a percent of all global millionaires to pick up one of the new visas, that's 125,000-250,000. Intuitively that feels a like a more realistic range. Sure. But I guess the point I'd argue is that from the perspective of the gov, these guys would still have the ability and probable willingness to contribute more to the economy than shoestring pensioner? I can understand why the gov would view them as a more desirable demographic generally also, regardless of finances.

Guilty as charged. I wrote that. I'm pretty glad to see that the poll data so far doesn't support my statement. But I will give myself a pass for writing the quoted comment ????. I - and others before me - have noted that the sentiment in general on most threads seems to be super pessimistic. And this relates to like, pretty much any topic that seems to come up. Maybe it's just a vocal minority, or maybe retirees just like to gripe as an activity, I don't know. Maybe it's just reflex at this point ????‍♂️ I do think there are some broader macro trends that Western retirees in Thailand find themselves caught up in, through no fault of their own*. And it's understandable that the effects of those trends would kinda stoke some bitterness. Still, we all only get one life. Better to spend it happy than unhappy.

I've been confused about this also. A large portion of the forum seem generally unhappy but it is also rare that I come across a post of someone taking action to improve their situation. But having read the litany of other people's complaints I asked myself well, why am I here? So this post is just me articulating my inner monologue that I'm about to have with myself. Here goes: I get bored easily. No matter where in the world I am, I start getting antsy after a few months in any one location and feel the need to travel. Having just turned 30 this year, with a reasonably successful career to this point, and now newly remote-ish thanks to the fallout from Covid, I'm in a position where it's started to make sense to move to a dual city living setup - something my parents and many of their friends have done for years. Always seemed like a good life to me. For various reasons major Asian cities were the only options that made sense for me. I've spent meaningful time in quite a few Asian cities, but it was easy to narrow down four options for consideration: Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul, and Hong Kong. Crossed Seoul and Hong Kong off the list pretty quickly. Bangkok and Singapore left. Ultimately Bangkok won out because the lifestyle offered was similar but at a much lower price point. Choosing Bangkok over Singapore has allowed me to transition to a dual city lifestyle while still managing to save a significant amount of my paycheque each month, and that's worth tens of thousands of dollars to me on an annual basis. Genuinely, my day-to-day lifestyle in Bangkok is not worse than Singapore (a place I find many posters on here mythologize), and the opportunity cost of foregoing those savings - and more specifically the investment compounding of them - would be worth literally millions of dollars over the 35 year time horizon until my hypothetical retirement at 65. So on some level, I suppose I chose the country for financial reasons similar to other posters? But at the same time not really. I've genuinely enjoyed my time in Bangkok (lockdowns notwithstanding) and expect to continue to enjoy it as an Asian home-base for at least the next decade. Value per dollar spent on lifestyle experiences is fantastic, there's a ton of cool stuff to do in the city alone, and once travel normalizes I fully believe that it will be a great staging point for inter-region excursions. Is it a perfect place? No, of course not. As with many on here, I also have my gripes with certain policies. 90 day reporting is dumb and the car import tax is a pet peeve of mine. The language barrier is also something I have to grapple with from time to time. Besides that stuff, I am a little sad that networking opportunities in Thailand seem to be pretty bleak - especially compared to Singapore. As evidenced by some of my interactions on here, I find it hard to relate to many of the existing foreigners who have settled in Thailand and I do wish that there were more people with backgrounds and outlooks similar to my own. Nevertheless, I'm cautiously hopeful that some of the new visa classes and post-Covid shifts in the nature of work begin to bring foreigners that I am more readily compatible with. Oh well. Can't really complain. Have had a great time so far, and hope that I will not have cause to become jaded as the years roll by. I think spending a big chunk of my year outside of the country should help with that. If you're still reading, thanks for bearing with me as I dumped out my stream of consciousness onto my keyboard. Cheers. ????

But no, tho. I literally wrote in my post that Thailand was a bad place to buy luxury consumer goods. Asia in general is a bad place to buy those goods. Anyone who actually has wealth knows that (i) intercontinental travel is a multiple-time per year activity. You can take advantage of price differences during travel that you were going to do anyway; and (ii) you very quickly run out of consumer goods to buy so that the relative price matters less anyway. You don't even have to be particularly rich to understand the above paragraph. Like, pretty much anyone who has been a six fig earner for 3+ years will know that it actually gets harder to spend the money on consumer goods as time goes on because there's just less that you want/need to buy. Also, luxury consumer goods in Thailand were never cheap. So they wouldn't even be relevant to folks who are complaining that the country is no longer cheap. I will agree to join you in hating on the car import tax tho. Still waiting for someone to tell me how to get around that (not a joke). Thanks. I appreciate the good-faith recommendations but am not thinking about retiring for some time yet ???? --- I would never suggest that someone stay in Thailand if they are happier elsewhere. But I also won't pretend that the country doesn't still offer good value per dollar spent. One of the main reasons I decided to build out a second home in Bangkok was specifically because I had an equivalent-or-better lifestyle to what I'd enjoy in Singapore, Seoul or Hong Kong (the other options I considered) but at a significantly better price.

Debated whether I should write this comment. Decided to do it. A lot of posters seem to write that Thailand isn't cheap anymore, and I don't know where this idea comes from. Like, can you live luxuriously in Thailand on a minimum gov pension? Maybe not. But why would you expect to be able to do that anywhere? Rather, here's a basic example of how I see it. Let's say I have $2,000/mth budgeted to spend on rent. What would my money get me in other global cities I enjoy vs. what would it get me in Bangkok? The difference is huge. Like, it's legit enormous. You can apply that same comparison framework to pretty much everything except for lux consumer goods and cars. Dining out, going to the cinema, consumer services, utilities, public/hired transportation etc. That list could go on for a long time. At pretty much every level of quality, you are getting better value for your dollar.

Good. As long as they subscribe to my posts, policy will improve.

The Thai government definitely makes some mind-boggling decisions sometimes. But you know, as a person who is the target market for a couple of the new visa classes being mooted, I don't think that they are bad per se. I anticipate applying for one these visas myself, pending the release of finalized details. I think many of the forum posters occasionally get lost in the mystique of wealth and let that mix with an anti-Thailand bias in general. It's important to remember that there's a pretty big difference between the guy with $3B in net worth and the guy with $3M. There are a lot more of the latter than the former, and I believe that the latter segment is more what Thailand is after - and also what they're better positioned to pursue. And I can tell you with certainty that Thailand does have appeal to folks over $1M+ net worth. However, I do think that their goal of a million 'wealthy global citizens' taking up their visa offer is unlikely to happen. Per Credit Suisse there are approx 50 million millionaires in the world. If Thailand were to get a million of them that would be a 2% take rate, a percentage that strikes me as overambitious.

It depends on what 'wealthy' means. Can Thailand outcompete Singapore for UHNW individuals? Unlikely. Can it outcompete Singapore for folks in the $1-10M asset range? It's possible but will depend on intelligently crafted policy. Should easily outcompete Malaysia at all $1M+ wealth levels.

Dude, in order for your statement to be correct the default expectation for any unvaccinated person catching the Delta variant would have to be, by definition, the development a serious illness at a minimum. You can straight up prove that premise wrong by looking at the data. Based on observed outcomes the expected outcome for pretty much anyone catching Delta is that their immune system will defeat the virus. This isn't a debate; literally all of this is plainly visible in the data. That being said, I will reiterate that the data also indicate that vaccination is highly effective at supplementing an immune system's response against the virus and that it is a good idea for people to get vaccinated.

I don't intend to wade into this topic, but every once in awhile I need to call out some faulty reasoning. If the quoted statement were correct, the implication would have to be that either (i) Delta variant fatality rates among unvaccinated people would be well north of 50% or (ii) Delta is largely benign. Ie, that it struggles to kill people whose immune systems are largely ineffective against it. Therefore, based on actual data, we can deduce that the quoted statement must be false. That being said, vaccines clearly do offer a meaningful improvement in protection against Covid. I still think people should get vaccinated when possible.

I would actually like to learn more about this and would very much appreciate more detail. Is there a reliable way to avoid the ridiculous import tax? Asking for informational purposes only, of course. ????

Can't speak for anyone else but, personally, I just don't care about what any other person does or doesn't have in their portfolio (generalization) and don't particularly feel the need to talk about my portfolio movements unprompted.

I feel like this is subjective. I'm North American and think detached houses are the way to go in some cities and condos the way to go in others. I strongly prefer living in a high-floor condo to a house when in Bangkok. I find it has a ton of advantages that are relevant to me. But again, that's just my personal preference. Yeah there is an insane generalization of a billion+ people by a good portion of the posters here. And I know the reasons for that, but nevertheless hope for better cross-cultural understanding between peoples. And yes lol. This has gotten pretty bad and I don't think it will improve soon.

Oh no, not the loss of 0.03% of the adult population of Thailand! Such decimation. How will the work force ever recover???

The tax cut could attract some people, but total net compensation is also very important. Unless Thai companies intend to also offer globally competitive pay to compete for talent, the tax rate alone is not going going to move the needle. Hong Kong also has a 17% tax cap and globally competitive pay. Singapore, I believe, caps at 22%. If competing for top talent employed locally, those are the destinations that Thailand will need to outcompete. That being said Thailand does have some unique features also, and I do genuinely appreciate their efforts to improve diversify the expat mix in general. On an unrelated note to what I wrote above, I've toyed with the idea of running classes to teach investment planning and financial literacy when I'm in the country. Could be as basic or complex as folks are interested in and I'd happily do it on a pro bono basis, but I have no idea how to go about doing so. The language barrier would probably be an issue tho, lol. ????

I answered the actual survey, but... Yes. Targeting early-mid December when professional life quiets down here during the holiday season. No, but it's pretty normal for me to book just 1-2 weeks ahead of travel date. That seems even more prudent now with international travel rules in flux. Not the alcohol ban specifically, but sure, there are factors that might put me off. Restrictions that limit my day-to-day experience would be a heavy disincentive. In fact, anything even sorta approximating lockdown restrictions would sour the idea. If I'm required to wear a mask, I'll grudgingly wear a mask, but other than that life on a daily basis needs to feel relatively normal.

This is just my opinion. Doesn't necessarily apply to you and is intended as a generalization. But... (i) Rolexes are the most counterfeited watches in the world. Replicas can be bought in varying quality from all kinds of vendors. So my default assumption when I see one in public is that it's not genuine. Of course this depends a bit on how congruent it is with the wearer and other factors. (ii) Even assuming that you can pull off the look congruently, Rolxes are boring. Like, they're the go-to brand of people who have no genuine passion for horology but want to buy something that they think will make them look cool, and so go for the brand that they know (see also: BMW drivers ????). (iii) Might be a purchase better avoided. Personal story here, but when I was in my mid-20s a few years ago, I blew part of my annual bonus on a nice watch. I did this for 3 years. Now, in hindsight, that cash would have been a lot better off invested. Sure the watches are cool, but did they benefit my life in any meaningful way? No. And now I rarely even wear them, and don't I expect that to change as smartwatches continue to develop. Obviously if you're older and compounding doesn't matter as much anymore, then opportunity cost won't be as big a consideration. But man, I'm going to miss out on 30+ years of compounding that money, so do consider it. So in conclusion, blowing Gs on a watch is something most people do to flex. And that's fine. Just make sure that if you do buy one, it's fulfilling the function that you bought it for, and also that you won't regret the opp cost tradeoff later.

Dw bro. We're all gonna sell out to cash before the meetup. Or at least, that's what I would do if I still had any coins. But unfortunately I lost my crypto wallet in a boating accident this past summer and now it's gone. ????‍♂️

No. Like I said before, the value propositions for different tokens and projects aren't uniform. Bitcoin's value is based on something different than is Eth's. Bitcoin's claim is something I explained in a previous post. Market participants are actively determining the consensus value of a Bitcoin transaction at all times. That consensus might be different from your own views, which would lead you to not transact or even to short (or proxy short) the asset. The prior sentences can be generalized to apply to all assets of any kind. No. I explained this in the past few posts. If you're curious you can go back and re-read those, because these paragraphs show an incomplete understanding of what I wrote previously and I don't really want to expound. I actually disagree here. The more institutional money that flows into Bitcoin, the less likely we are to see a massive selloff, in my opinion. Moreover large holders actually have a disincentive to send prices sharply downwards under most conditions. At some theoretical future point, large-cap coin volatility should drop off a lot when some threshold level of institutional adoption is reached, and when protocols mature and regulation is stable. That will be the beginning of the maturation phase of the crypto market, but it's still some years away, I believe. No. I do not believe that crypto in general is a zero-sum game any more than I believe any other asset class in general is. You're anchored to the premise that all tokens are inherently useless and therefore valueless. Because you're anchored to that point as your north star and keystone premise, it's affecting your ability to understand perspectives that come with different foundational premises (for instance, that value creation is possible and that something meaningful is being built underneath the noise). However, there are a lot of scams in the crypto space. Those would be more zero-sum. Yes. I believe that speculation drives demand in a lot of the space, and that this is amplified by leverage. I don't know that this is necessarily a bad thing, but we will see. No problem. I get a kick out of humoring you guys on AseanNow (thereby humoring myself lol). I've said this before but will reiterate. Although I pipe up to defend the asset class, most retirees would be best served by giving crypto a miss. The nature of that market makes it a poor fit for most retiree portfolios. It's high vol and speculative, extremely fast moving, and the high-value forums and methods of communication are geared in general towards younger generations. And yes, would be happy to put faces to names. I'm sure we'll be able to arrange something that's fun for all!

This question, and pretty much all of the 'value creation' category of questions, can be answered with a fundamental understanding of Ethereum. It's like asking the value creation prop of the internet. You can also read about Axie Infinity, an online game built on Ethereum with millions of players. It's worth whatever the spot exchange rate is at the time I want to convert, or the time I want to mark to USD. If I wanted to get precise, it'd be worth whatever my realized exchange rate would be, which would include the actual rate I'd get plus trans costs. Steps are underway to fix high gas on Ethereum. Update EIP 1559 rolled out this year and has been very successful so far. Fee issues are known and will come down in time. They haven't stopped the growth of the network so far anyway. In fact, one of the reasons gas is expensive on Ethereum relative to some other chains is because the network is actually seeing volume use. No, that's not what I mean. I'd have to explain the venture capital model and how their traditional funds work in order to explain this point and there isn't time for that. Basically, crypto protocols are publicly floated at an earlier stage than are most companies. So the markets for many of those are inherently more speculative, risky, and built on future projections. Venture Capitalists are used to playing in this space, but the floating valuations are a new wrinkle. It would be like if AirBnB had gone public after successfully proving their business model in a handful of properties in just one city. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how the space develops as it matures.

Lol. And what exactly did Thailand owe you when you moved here? And I mean, if it's that bad now I guess you could relocate? Also, you might want to consider judging people by something other than their race and other immutable characteristics. Otherwise you might find that the person that folks don't want next door to them is actually you ????.

I don't expect to convince anyone. Explaining things in writing helps me make sure I actually understand what I'm talking about by forcing my brain to think through the topic lol. You're free to reuse any of the content if you think it's helpful, but I make no representations on quality or correctness. I'm not a crypto expert and there's a toooon of stuff I don't understand lol. I mostly learn by hanging out on relevant Discords and reading Tweets and Substacks written by people more informed than I am. Yeah this was me! In Vancouver now, but tentatively expect to be back around the holiday period. Will be located in Bangkok. Would be happy to meet up with you individually or even as an 'AseanNow Crypto Bulls N' Bears' group more generally. The latter would probably make for a funny as hell evening.

Rest assured, I'm familiar with valuation methods consistent with finance theory. Here are some quick thoughts re: crypto valuation. Most crypto protocols have valuation parallels with traditional assets. You gotta actually make an effort to understand the differentiating value propositions for different cryptoassets to understand which are applicable. For instance Bitcoin isn't very 'useful' but claims its value proposition as a fixed-supply source of digital gold. You may or may not agree with that demand driver, but gold has traded on a similar proposition for thousands of years. At the time of writing an ounce of gold costs $1,760/oz, a price detached from the real world 'usefulness' of gold. I could expound but it would get too long. Just think of it as something something longstanding cultural norm and established track record with known correlations allow for a pool of buyers/sellers where each feels relatively sure that said pool will remain over time. Some crypto protocols, like AAVE actually do generate cash flow and can be valued by traditional DCF techniques and valuation multiple techniques. Other 'useful' cryptos, like Ethereum need to be spent in order to perform transactions and activities on the network (gas fees), or are are often locked (removed from supply) in order to perform a function. When a network sees an explosion in use like Ethereum has this year, demand for tokens spikes as more users need to access the network and need to bid for Eth to do so. Have said this elsewhere, but a lot of crypto protocols can be thought of as akin to venture capital portfolio companies that trade in real time from seed through to maturity (or death), rather than buried in the private closed-end fund structure of traditional venture capital. Hopefully someone understands the profundity of this. It's one of the cleverer things I've written lately. This explains why you see so many famous VC firms (and VC firms in general) as major operators in the space now. Speculation in the space, as well as leverage, pushes up a lot of assets to very high multiples when compared to more mature companies. The resulting high volatility makes the a dream for certain types of traders. This partly explains why you see so many famous Hedge Funds in the space now. Some investors are making intelligent bets on growth based on research, but others are just aping around and a few tokens have valuations are nonsensical (no, this doesn't mean they all are). That concludes my thoughts on valuation methodologies for crypto and its related valuation quirks. I won't be covering the second part of your post, ie 'what problem does crypto solve and why would anyone want it?'. Nothing against you, but I've done that way too many times on here and nobody ever responds to what I actually write on that topic (although collectively the responses to those posts make for an interesting case study on behavioral finance biases, but I digress).