tropo

2 hours ago, Crossy said:

A bit low ^^^ for the average user, see the PEA tariff and calculator linked earlier.

 

Actually the domestic rate is nearer 4.3 Baht per unit, but depends upon usage.

 

As the resident expert on all things electric, what do you have to say about the 17.8% discount on kWh that appeared in my recent bill. Do you have any information on that? Is it a one off or will it continue for awhile?

It a discount for me of just over 700 baht. With the addition after tax 3% discount, I've saved more than 800 baht on my current bill.

28 minutes ago, GalaxyMan said:

The BBC has an article that specifically states that your chances of dying are higher if you're given that drug.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52779309

I see the BBC is getting in on the anti-Trump agenda too. The drug been around for 65 years, when Trump was 8 years old. The BBC need a piece of him too. The article is not worth reading due to its obvious political bias. I don't read or view anything from CNN and some others, so I now have to add BBC to the list.

BBC should focus on their own domestic Covid-19 disaster - currently the worst in the world.

On 5/21/2020 at 11:00 AM, spidermike007 said:

Probably to a cinema, and for sure will be eating out alot. But, the more important points about opening up are that it will take some time to see how this all shakes out, but it is my opinion that the economic fallout from the inane economic shutdown, is going to be 200 times worse than Covid itself, and the recovery "ramp up" will be long and excruciating. Far longer than they say. It will not just bounce back. In the history of the world, as far as we know, there has never been a deliberate worldwide economic shutdown. It is light years beyond dumb. The "slowdown" will last well into 2021, for certain. And some industries may never come back, or will be a pale shadow of their former selves. No doubt homelessness will skyrocket in the US. Tourism in Thailand will never recover to even close to it's former levels, and that leaves millions out of work.

 

What about concerts? Will people be willing to hang out with crowds of 20,000, at a cost of hundreds of dollars for a crappy seat? Same with sports. Will people be willing to go into a stadium or an arena with 20,000 to 100,000 people close together, and pay crazy money for a seat? Movie theaters? Cruise ships? Will the hordes just start descending on restaurants again, and pay inane prices for a gourmet meal? The list goes on, and on and on. And in the end, hundreds millions worldwide could end up far poorer than they were before. And tens of millions could end up starving to death, compared to perhaps 300,000 or so total deaths worldwide from Covid. OK. The rich stay safe and financially secure. And the rest of us? And those of us who are self employed, without fortunes in the bank? There are so many unanswered questions, it boggles the mind. One thing is for certain. Thailand will be feeling the effects of this for a very, very long time. So will the rest of the world. 

 

I agree with all you said except one thing. I don't think you'll be going to a cinema. To see what? By the time cinemas are open most of us have probably watched all the recent decent movies up until production stopped in March and all the B and C grade movies they usually bring out at the start of the year. Even the next season of your favourite TV show is probably going to be delayed for a year. Did anyone see the season finale of The Blackist? The season was planned for 22 episodes, but they made episode 19 the season finale and had to film it half real and half animated as they had to stop filming in March and couldn't complete it. It was a disappointment, but better than nothing.

30 minutes ago, ThLT said:

Thanks.

Regarding your bill, หน่วย is "unit." 
You used 932 units, and was charged 3228.32฿. Fees and all (and reductions)—and counting the 932 to 766 units as a discount—your electricity is at 3.46฿/unit (3.19฿/unit base rate). EDITED: Standard base rate (without fees, taxes or reductions), you seem to be at 4.13฿/unit. 

I think you have the better deal, haha.

At the first place I stayed here for nearly 5 years I paid a surcharge like you are. Not as high as yours, but that was 15 years ago. I had bills over 4000 baht even back then.

I vowed never to move into a place again that had this surcharge. My landlord back then used to justify it (landlord from the UK who should know better) that I'm using his electrical appliances, so it covers wear and tear and replacement costs. Of course they are liable for those costs whether you pay a surcharge or not. To add insult to injury, I complained about the high usage of one air conditioning unit that wasn't working efficiently, but he never did anything about it. I suppose the more I used the more profit he made, so there was no incentive to replace it. I had some bills go over 5000 baht, and that was circa 2008, in a small apartment.

I found out he lowered the rate AFTER I left due to complaints from other tenants.

too late to edit: The above "4.268 baht per kWh" should read 4.368 baht per kWh. That's my normal charge per kWh after the 7% tax has been applied. This number will be a bit lower if I use less. Also, the adjustment factor (-0.1160 in my bill above) can vary from month to month, but that's a very small fraction of the per kWh rate.

18 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

"“We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion."

Don't know how to spend on own infrastructure and affordable medical care though.

What is more important in this world filled with rogue nations and totalitarian regimes? Would you prefer a bumpy ride or national security, given a choice?

However, the infrastructure has been deteriorating for decades, so let's not make this all about Trump too. He's been working hard on medical care and trying to get money for infrastructure, unfortunately the Democrats have quite a bit of say about how money is spent.

9 minutes ago, ThLT said:

I'm at 8 baht/unit right now. So if 3.4 is the current rate, they're charging me me 2.35X the legal rate. Basically taking advantage of the pandemic as well, by not reducing the unit price.
 

Do you know where I can find an official/government announcement of the reduced rate because of COVID (Thai is even better)? I could present that to my landlord.

I edited my post after you replied and added some important information. My current per kWh rate is still about 4.127 baht, but they gave me a 17.8% reduction of kWh in addition to the 3% discount on the whole bill after tax.

Of course your landlord will be pocketing this discount, in addition to his surcharge, so doing really well. My normal bill, without special discounts, after tax, works out to about 4.268 baht per kWh. It varies slightly depending on how much I use, so your landlord is nearly charging you double.

Someone posted the official government website awhile back, but I can't find it. Perhaps someone will have that and post it here.

This may help you to get an idea of current government charges, in Pattaya:

I had a pleasant surprise on May 20. The per kWh rate of my current bill had been substantially reduced this month.

March: Usage: 760 kWh: 3134.59 THB: 4.124 per kWh

April: Usage 844 kWh: 3505.97 THB: 4.154 per kWh

May: Usage 932 kWh: 3161.07 THB: 3.392 per kWh

The adjustment factor was the same for all 3 months at -0.1160

3% discount after tax was applied on my April and May bills.

With a 0.762 baht lower per kWh charge this month I have saved around 700 baht on my bill.

Edit:

On looking closer at my current May bill, it looks like they have given me a discount of 166 kWh.

(Could someone who can read Thai translate the text in the blue boxes.)

Taking into consideration the 166 kWh discount, 766 kWh: 3161.07 THB = 4.127 baht per kWh. about the same as March and April.

13 hours ago, earlinclaifornia said:

Oh gee I thought you might have known that NYC is probably the worlds most traveled of all cities. duh

Oh gee, that's the excuse Cuomo keeps using to explain his disastrous response... in daily briefings.

NYC is number 8 on the list of most visited cities. London, Paris, Bangkok and Singapore are higher.

The point was, that if you take out one state from the calculations, the state with the most confirmed infections and deaths, the US is doing much better still. 8 of the top 10 states with the most deaths are governed by Democrats. About 61% of all covid-19 deaths so far. Your own governor in California is one of them. Number 7 on the list.

But let's not play with numbers. Only 0.029% mortality in the entire USA is not bad considering the Democrats are fighting politics while the president tackles the virus. Democratic governors all over the country have by far the most blood on their hands.

20 hours ago, earlinclaifornia said:

Many of us are thankful for the stimulus checks she provided. Even if you were left out.

She provided them? Please explain.

15 hours ago, simple1 said:

As I said playing with stats. The pragmatic measurement is the death ration of those infected by Covid, not population numbers, The other measurement of meaning is test, trace, isolate which I understand currently USA has not achieved sufficient numbers for Covid mitigation purposes, ergo deaths will continue at a fairly rapid pace, soon to be exceeding 100,000. Sadly the current number of Covid deaths in the US is 95,000. Thanks for the interest, though off topic, Australia has currently 'only' reached 101 Covid deaths with mitigation efforts achieving good results. Australian government has documented and published a three stage normalisation process which currently is on track.

 

Personally I would say trump has by far exceeded the Dems with misinformation / conspiracy nonsense regards Covid. Come to think of it what misinformation / conspiracy stuff have the Dems put in the public domain re Covid?

I did not play with the statistics at all. I took the mortality on a per capita basis and applied equally to all countries.

I am Australian, so it is of interest to me too. I put it forward as an example of how using population density of the whole nation is meaningless. An extremely high number (around 99% without looking it up) live in cities. The rest of the country is empty. If you made a comparison of which country has the highest population density, considering only where they live, Australia would be ahead of the US that has a much higher rural population.

You can play with stats, of course (I gave an example above - New York State where 24% of all deaths occured), but the raw number of deaths is about as good a yardstick as we have. Yes, it can be debated due to questions over cause of death, but to spin the USA numbers in an effort to make them appear worse than most other developed countries, and then use those figures you've spun to diminish Trump is exactly what the Dems are trying to do.

Trump was busy restricting air travel while Democrats partied in China Town, SF... and then had the audacity to come back with statements that Trump was slow to react. Even Dr Fauci, way after restrictions were first introduced, was telling the nation that all is well - don't worry - Americans are not in danger. World experts, his personal advisors, didn't realise the gravity of the situation, but you expected the President to know what the experts didn't know. You didn't see Birx or Fauci wearing face masks until quite recently.

Seriously, the Dems should quit all the bs and try to find a sane, intelligent candidate to challenge him, because the way it looks to me, the Dems have many years of whining left to endure as Trump holds the White House for another 4 years, and retakes the House or Representatives too.

I would strongly suggest the Democrats stock up on tissues as they will be in high demand after November. You never know, some of the (privileged) citizens who promised they would leave the US if Trump won in 2016 will finally hold good on their promises and leave.

3 hours ago, simple1 said:

It's easy to play with statistics e.g. US population density is 94 people per square mile, Italy is 532 per square mile therefore one can assume Italy has a higher per capita death rate from Covid. Additional testing numbers are meaningless as a standalone figure, only when testing rates per million is it useful, plus of course follow up by way of tracking for which the US is currently way behind the eight ball. It is beyond doubt trump's delays is coming to terms to implement necessary policies to combat the spread of Covid and resultant deaths and so on is his ownership. trump's denials do not stand up to scrutiny as has been proven by published time lines and his responses to Covid.

 

I can't wait to see how many confused and sad reactions this post gets.

 I'm giving the numbers straight (mortality/population). You're playing with them to spin the narrative that the US is worse due to blah, blah, blah... and follow it up with nonsense that the Dems have been spinning for months.

Try your population density trick for Australia. They have hardly people living in most of the country, Yet the cities are as dense as most cities in the US. 

Here's some useful number playing... New York State reported 24% of the US's covid-19 mortalities, with only 5.8% of the population, making the morality rate of the whole US outside of New York State much lower still, from 0.029% down to 0.023%.

2 minutes ago, Don Chance said:

He would be better off in Portugal, Costa Rica, Ecuador etc. where they have free health care.

He'd be better off in many countries, including his country of origin, but he's here.

10 minutes ago, newnative said:

      I don't see the 'sex industry' disappearing anytime soon.  The western sex tourists may be diminishing but their numbers are being somewhat replaced by men from Asian countries, the Middle East, and India.  Supply and demand will take care of the number of bars and go-gos Pattaya will end up with and I think it will continue to be marginalized to certain areas of town.  

      I do see Pattaya becoming more and more of a regular seaside city, with a rakish element for those who want it.  The new, fancy hotels in north Pattaya, Wong Amat, Naklua, and other areas were attracting more regular tourists, mostly Asian, than sex tourists.  Some with tours but many also independent travelers and families.  I think this trend will continue as international travel slowly resumes.  Pattaya is also attracting more domestic visits, especially from Bangkok folks, and this should also continue as Pattaya's reputation and what it has to offer continues to evolve.

I'd say most towns and cities on earth have a sex industry of some type, so there will be one, but it won't be anywhere near what it used to be. Lest you forget, it was already in rapid decline in Pattaya before the outbreak. How long will it take for sex tourists to return. How long can the existing bars and gogos hold on while waiting for their return?

It's a classic chicken and egg situation. Without the tourists the bars can't open and without the bars, the tourists won't come... We're already heard that the bar industry will have to wait a long time before they are even allowed to open. They will be the very last to get the green light.

9 minutes ago, GAZZPA said:

A lot of sense in what you say. The only considerations for landlord though is for how long will they get no income from the property? How do they make their own ends meet in the meantime? They will be blinded by these issues so they won't think it through so clearly.

 

If you are a person renting and have had your income hit you are in deep trouble if you are a local. If you are a foreigner, probably time to go home I guess.

 

Impossible times for everyone, very sad. stay safe

 

They won't get replacement tenants, so they should be without income longer than their tenants, because even when businesses eventually open, they will need many months to get to a situation where they can afford to pay rent.

I suspect that the majority of bars and discos will shut up shop permanently unless the landlords forgive rent payments for a long period.

21 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

horrible where you lose your freedom and your rights.

And worse if you go bankrupt with no freedom or rights.

I can't believe that landlords are not trying their best to keep tenants. It's not like they will get replacement tenants anytime soon (or ever), so they have absolutely nothing to lose by not charging rent until things get back to some type of normal. They have a much better chance of having tenants when it is all over if they do their best to keep their existing ones. Are the landlords here tyrants that live in a bubble, oblivious to what's going on around them? In the end they will be the biggest losers if they don't start helping out.