Longwood50

I have not had it fail to pay but some months ago, loading the app and running transactions took several minutes. I would stand by an ATM to do a withdrawal or pay as I checked out at the supermarket. I also maintained an account at SCB and their SCB easy was instantaneous. So I stopped using Bangkok Bank for my digital payments.

You can not open an account at the Bangkok Bank in New York. It is not a conventional retail bank. It is for trade purposes. You can transfer money assuming you also have an account with Bangkok Bank Thailand. Its cost of doing so however is not cheap. As to staying within the regulated US banking system, Wise is a company and it maintains its accounts as Community Federal Savings Bank also called Evolve. So transferring money to Wise would be no different than transferring it to Bangkok Bank in terms of both being inside the U.S. regulated banking system.

Very simple cost of retrofit. Buildings in Thailand are for the most part cement. Unlike in the USA where you can take out drywall and put pipe in easily, I can't imagine the cost of attempting to retrofit pipe into the walls and ceilings made of cement.

You would be one who if they found a dead body in the trunk of Hillary's car with a gun with her fingerprints on it would blame Trump saying the evidence was planted. He did not release 5,000 militants the Afghans did. One way or another Biden refused to heed the advise of his military advisors that they needed to stage a withdrawal out of Afghanistan. He just left, abandoning both military equipment and U.S. citizens. He was the one driving the bus at that time. Not Trump. If anyone deserves severe blame it is George W. Bush. He was the one who pushed the U.S.A. into Afghanistan for absolutely no reason and with Zero chance of "winning" . There is no "winning" when you occupy a country whose citizens don't suport you. Korea and Vietnam already proved and so did the Russian experience in Afghanistan Unless you are willing to occupy a country indefinitely and control it with military force you can not control the will of the local population.

I don't agree. The sellers on the internet have to recognize that there are limitations to the ability of a purchaser to determine the quality, color, size etc of an item that they have never tried on seen. Just like a brick and mortar store hast to expect that in the normal course of business there will be a certain amount of product returned. That cost of returning product is just one of the costs that merchants must incur as normal. Seeing a product first hand and then returning it because "you don't like it" is an entirely different premise than returning one you purchased based on the representations of the seller on Lazada which I have found often are misleading or downright deceptive. As to Amazon, yes they make returning easy. Why? Because they know that if customers find they are receiving products that they don't like or want and can't return them, that it will deter purchaser from buying online in the future. Same with Lazada, if they make it too difficult or restrictive to return unwanted items people will say, well I got burned before so I won't buy again.

Maybe electric cars are the future. However I suggest all the problems associated with them have not been discovered and they will have some very unintended consequences. 1. First off, to be successful there has to be a replacement technology for Lithium based batteries. Lithium is a precious metal whose price has skyrocketed. It is also extremely enviornmentally damaging to mine it. It takes 500,000 gallons of water to extract 1 ton of lithium. That is enough to make about 90 cars on average. Less if they are long range or large SUV's or Trucks 2. Electricity comes from someplace. Right now the vast majority of electricity is still generated from Coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear. Only a small amount is from Wind, Solar, or hydro electric and even those renewable sources have enviornmentally damaging characteristics, Wind Turbines are enviornmentally damaging to build and erect, Solar panels again use materials that are enviornmentally harmful, and hydro electric dams alter the fisheries. The wind turbines, solar panels and even dams have a life expectancy and their disposal creates enviornmental waste as does the electric wire, and insultion used in the wire to transmit the electricity. 3. Cost, the cost of electricity will rise with demand for it. There is already a shortage of elecricity in many areas and using todays cost to charge is probably not indicative of what it will be going forward. Also the price of an electric car is already significantly higher and will be even more so as the price for lithium rises. Insurance costs on electric cars is and will become increasingly unaffordable. Tesla's are being totalled in the USA with under 15,000 Kilometers on them because of the exhorbitant cost to repair an electric car. The vast majority of that cost is the replacement of the battery pack. 4. Resale value on a electric car plummets precipitously. This becomes even more pronounced as the car reaches the age or mileage where prospective owners recongize the limited time left on the car and the cost of replacing the battery pack. 5. Lithium batteries are recyclable however at present most are not. The cost of recycling the battery is greater than the cost of building one new. Hence there will be unless this is solved a huge problem with what to do with spent batteries. If electric cars were such a great alternative you would not have to have governments mandating their use and prohibiting ICE in certain regions. If they were such a cost effective alternative, you would not have to have governments giving rebates and subsidies in order to sell them. The public would flock to them recognizing the value of them. They don't and why because the financial cost of an electric car at least today both to operate and purchase does not stack up well against an ICE. The only people who will financially come out ahead are those who live in urban areas and drive a huge amount of mileage each year. Taxi Drivers in Bangkok or elsewhere would be a good example. The typical driver putting 15,000 to 20,000 km per year will never reduce their electric vs. gasoline cost enough to offset the higher cost of purchase and depreciation on the EV.

Perhaps Joe could suggest that Ukraine contact Afghanistan. Joe left a few billion worth of U.S. weapons there.

I am not sure how good a translation you are looking for and whether your documents need to be authenticated. However, if you have a cell phone, you can use Google Lens to view the document, translate it, and then print it. You can also capture the text off the documents, paste it to a Word Document and Word will translate it. Finally there are a variety of programs that will view document images and translate them. I use Babylon. It is by far the most accurate. There is a free download of a trial program online. If you are translating only a few documents, that is what I would first try.

Again, you seem to have trouble "thinking" Just where did those people who paid the taxes get their money from. Unless your neighborhood had geese that laid golden eggs, or had money trees, they got that tax money from working at a job provided by some entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs if successful become wealthy. If they didn't become wealthy they would not take the risk of their own money in the venture. People buy lottery tickets because of the hope of a big payoff. Same with those in business. They are willing to gamble, and risk their money in order to obtain more than they otherwise could working for someone else. Money to pay for roads, schools, bridges, police etc is generated businesses. They pay their workers and those workers pay taxes income, property, sales tax etc. Remove the business and you have no workers, and no income to pay any taxes. So it is the wealth generation by business that improves society. The more businesses there are, the more successful they are, the more income they generate and the more employees they hire. That sir is what provides the income for societal benefits.

Utopia? No that would be the end of society as we know it. Also as mentioned assuming that robotics could provide all the labor to produce everything mankind needed, no one would have a job with any income necessary to purchase anything. Unless you believe in a magic lamp where a genie gives you everything you want, it isn't going to happen.

Will robotics change employment yes. You will no longer have menial repetitive jobs performed manually. However consider this. If machines were able to produce everything required for mankind, food, clothing, shelter, cars etc. NO ONE WOULD BE ABLE TO PURCHASE THEM BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT HAVE ANY INCOME SINCE THEY DIDN'T HAVE A JOB. Automation will reduce the need for human labor but increase employment in the robotics industry. The robots don't build themselves. Also labor will be shifted from manufacturing industries to service industries and more highly specialized jobs that require education. One way or another common sense you want to encourage people to be successful. You want them to expand their business, start new ones. Very simple economics, you tax things you want less of. Cigarettes, gas guzzling cars, coal burning plants and you subsidize things you want more of, major USA subsidies include agriculture, housing, farm exports, electric cars, and health care. So confiscating the wealth is stealing the seed corn and you will get less of it. Subsidizing by redistribution to others means you will have more with their hands out. You do not create wealth by taking from one to give to another. You create wealth by job creation that allows the person to earn their wealth rather than it being given to them from the work of others.

Ah the Elizabeth Warrent disciple. And those roads, schools, and bridges that the public paid for, just where did they get the money to pay for those? Did they inherit it, do they have a money tree in their back yard, or did they get a job and get paid. Ergo, confiscate the profits of the company and rob it of capital to expand or start a new venture and guess what there are fewer people with jobs to pay for those roads, schools, and bridges. You are a classic example of class envy. Its funny, people applaud those who can dunk a basketball, throw a baseball, or stand on stage and sing. However let a person be successful in busines and they are evil personified when in fact without them society would crumble. As to the wealth that along with many others comments of yours is ridiculous. The very fact that the wealthy despite paying the majority of taxes still accumulate wealth is testimony to them doing the right thing. Also did it ever strike you that the wealth they create comes AFTER THEY HAVE ALREADY PAID THE MAJORITY OF THE TAX BILL. In communism the government owns everything and they dole out to those whatever they deem fit. You would have it that it is an even more evil system where the private entrepreneur risks his/her money and if a failure takes the loss but if a success the government confiscates the majority of it and gives the owner again only what it thinks he should have. You of course make this unsubstantiated comment about the wealthy being good at hiding their money. B*** S**t. The only money you can hide is what is in your pocket. Invest it in real estate, stock, precious metals, commodities or foreign bank accounts and there is a paper trail. Even if what you say was true which is is not, it does not dispute the fact that the top 1% after all their evil deeds still pay more than the bottom 90% pay in Federal Income Tax. It seems to gall you that someone becomes wealthy. I say, SO WHAT. The world is infinitely better off because of the contributions of Steve Jobs, Bill, Gates, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Sam Walton, Elon Musk and many others. It is a very simple concept that you seem to lack the intellectual capability to understand or your envy blinds you. You want more billionaires not fewer. Society is better off with successful people than unsuccesful ones. Jobs are created by successful people who do so to become wealthy and without jobs society is hurt. The more you "punish" people for doing productive activities to create jobs the more you hurt the very people you say you are trying to help. Finally, you seem to be of this mindset that this wealth goes on to eternity. One only has to look at the Bill Gates giving the majority of his money to the Gates Foundation and Warren Buffet already has said the majority of his fortune will go to a foundation. They both recognize that retaining that money to do good things is preferable to having the government confiscate it through inheritance taxes. So after paying the majority of the taxes via earnings during their lives, they accumulate wealth that again the government will confiscate another 40% of it at death and somehow you think that is fair. The siren song of from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs continues attract fools despite each and every example of it being shown to be a disaster. Even China recognizes the folly of "communism" and in 2020 created more billinaires than the rest of the world combined. They have learned the folly of confiscating the wealth of the successful. One only has to look at the China has a long term 9% GDP growth rate versus the USA at 3.1%. Now this is a very simple concept but then again I have to be mindful of who I am talking to. That GDP growth rate creating wealth and hence wealthy people, and it means that China is creating jobs and jobs help the average person. So you would have it that to soothe your class envy you would sooner punish the wealthy than benefit the average guy. Pretty Sad. https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2022/03/china-is-producing-new-billionaires-faster-than-any-other-country/

You still miss my point. Business will always seek efficiency since they keep what is left over. And would you prefer that the buggy whip business was still around or that you staffed elevators to keep the person who staffed the elevator in decades past was still employed. Capital kept by an entrepreneur will go to other money making ventures. Those replace the jobs lost to automation. Failure to encourage the creation of and expansion of those new ventures means that the remaining businesses will in fact seek to reduce the numbers of employees and the more you tax them the greater the incentive to move their operations overseas. You want more business, you want existing business to expand, you want the business to survive through difficult times. The more you confiscate from them the less ability they have to do any of that. Taking money from Peter to pay to Paul does not increase the wealth or prosperity of the country. If anything it is a disincentive to Peter to earn the money in the first place. Encourage Peter by letting him keep more of his money to start or grow his business and create jobs for Paul and everyone benefits.

I have a Toyota Cross and originally purchased a genuine Toyota car cover. It lasted about 1 year before the sun weakened the fabric to the point that it started to shred. I then did some research and purchased a heavier duty 3 layer fabric called Sensiron that was suppose to have a three year life. Well it is less that 1 year and it to has become brittle started to crack and separate. The car is under a car port roof with only the rear of the car getting sun throughout the morning. That is exactly where the fabric is damaged and shredding. Is there another fabric that someone is aware of that will hold up better to the Thailand sun?

I would say that perhaps it is a situation where someone is being held as the sacrificial lamb. That "might" be dangerous in that McGonigal probably knows things that the FBI would really not want to be known. If I were the Republican's I would somehow put him in protective custody. You know many people like McGonigal suddenly find themselves so depressed that the "commit suicide" particularly when the guards fall asleep and the security cameras dont work.

As I said, one would have to be be blind to say that 28.6% is "reasonable" That is 50% higher than historical norms. Also try this, using a calculator. Since I am guessing you don't remember how to calculate it, take the $6.8 trillion put that on top, that is colled the Numerator. Put the 23.32 GDP on the bottom that is called the denominator. If you then use that magic calculator to divide it will tell yo that amounts to 29.15%. Now some put government spending at $6.6 vs. $6.8 trillion. One way or another if you find that REASONABLE as a percent of GDP or per person or per family, you must be smoking some really potent stuff. The federal government spent $6.8 trillion in FY2021 — or $20,634 per person.

The money can always be spent better but remember there are only 4 ways that money can be spent: 1. You spend your own money on yourself. - You care very much about what something costs and you care that you get the best value for what you purchase. 2. You spend your own money on someone else. - You care very much about what something costs, but less concerned over the value since it is the other person who receives that benefit. 3. You spend someone elses money on yourself. A company paid trip, means you care nothing about what something costs, but you are very concerned to get the absolute best for yourself. 4. You spend someone elses money on someone else. - You do not care how much somehting costs and you don't care about the value of the purchase since it goes to someone else. THAT IS GOVERNMENT. Giving the government more money is the surest way to guarantee that it is mispent. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Throwing more money at government will only continue the waste, fraud, and mismangement.

Yes it is far easier to encourage people not to have children than to have them. However, perhaps things like government sponsored day care, special consideration for better jobs, special consideration for better schools and even free college for those with multiple children could persuade some to do it. One thing is for sure, you want to encourage the best and brightest of your citizens to have children. The way it is working out now, those with the least education and skills are having the most children. That is a sure way of guaranteeing a less desirable future for everyone. I would envision a program that is exactly the opposite of China's one child policy. Instead of their penalties for having more than one child, having benefits for having two or more children.

That is true, however you miss my point. The answer is not to make the rich poorer but to make the poor richer. You do not accomplish that by taking the capital that the wealthy use to expand their businesses. That is akin to robbing the farmer of his seed corn to make bread to feed the people. Sounds humanitarian but next year there is less corn. Jobs create wealth and wealth is created by people risking their own money to start and expand businesses. Take the money away from them does two things. It diminishes their incentive to be in business and it robs them of the money to expand. Like it or not, the best way to increase wealth is to create jobs and in order to create those jobs you have to encourage not discourage those who create those jobs. So what that Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos are wealthy. They employ hundreds of thousands of people all earning over $100,000 per year. You want to encourage rather than discourage manufacturing jobs that can employ those with limited skills. Instead we tax them encouraging them to move their plants overseas.

Yes and just who could believe this McGonigal was one of the point persons who spearheaded the Russian Collusion hoax and the wiretapping of Trump Campaign staffer Carter Page which in turn allowed for the surviellance and wire tapping of anyone connected to the Trump Campaign. Gosh who would have thought. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/retired-top-fbi-counterintelligence-agent-led-trump-russia-probe-arrested-own-ties-russian-oligarch

So your solution is to cede your country to others. A country is defined by three things, borders, language, and culture. What you are suggesting is for the Japanese who have built their nation into one of the most powerful economies in the world to pass that inheritance on to those who did nothing to build it but enjoy the benefits. The solution lies with encouraging rather than discouraging people to have children. Society has placed huge financial burdens on those who chose to have children. Basic law of economics, you penalize something you get less of it, you subsidize it and you get more of it. The Chinese with a population explosion problem imposed a 1 child law. They severely punished those who had more than 1 child robbing them and the children of benefits. The Japanese should do the opposite. Preferential benefits going to those in Japan that choose to have families. Now this would be really controversial but those who are the best, brightest, and most successful should receive the largest incentive to have children. Do you want to poplulate your country with the progeny of two parents who are both cardiothorasic surgeons, or two parents who are high school drop outs living on welfare.

Yes and so what. That means they are doing the correct thing. They are being productive. As said, taxing them is a punishment for being productive members of society that give back more than they receive. They pay 38 times the rate of the bottom 20%. This notion of taxing those who are successful , productive, and job creators to redistribute it to those who are unsuccessful non productive and have not job is ludicrous. You want as a nation more Bill Gates, Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos, Sam Waltons, and Larry Ellison's not few. Does it not dawn on you that JOBS come from somewhere. That is what benefits the typical person. Those jobs come from entrepreneurs who are willing to take the risk of their own money. Would you buy a lottery ticket if you knew the majority of your winnings would be confiscated. The more you tax those who are successful the fewer successful people you will have. That robs them of the money TO EXPAND. Now if they get wealthy in the process so what. That is like telling the car salesman that he is earning too much because he sells too many cars and taxing him to reduce his earnings. This mindset of taxing the wealthy is nothing more than a different term for Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto. From each according to their ability and to each according to their needs. Now that may sound like Nirvana but it does not work. If I was the government and I took from you the majority of what you earned from your salary just how incented are you to work or work more. Do you really thing that doesn't apply to business people at all. The fact is that the best way to spread the wealth is to make more people engaged in making money. That is jobs. Jobs come from entrepreneurs and you want more of them. You take steps to encourage those who provide jobs not rob them for being successful in accomplishing that.

Some of the drawbacks mentioned in the article are not applicable to Thailand. However, I suspect that all of the drawbacks have not been fully recognized. Here is one that no one considered when purchasing their Tesla.

Again, the top tax rate is irrelevant. It is how much that is paid not the rate. Note over time the USA despite the wailing and knashing of teeth about paying "their fair share" has become more confiscatory to those at upper income levels not less. That is why when they complain about tax cuts only benefiting the wealthy they are being deceptive. Yes any tax cut benefits the wealthy more. They are the ones paying the most and the lowest tax bracket tax filers in most cases pay zero or even get a refund on taxes not paid in the form of what is really a reverse income tax called an 'earned income credit" This chart by very liberal CNN very clearly shows the progression where the upper income groups now bear an increasingly large share of the federal income tax revenue. https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/12/news/economy/rich-taxes/

Yours are non existent. As pointed out. The top 1% now already pay more than the botton 90% combined. The top 1% pay an average tax rate of 32% the bottom 20% tax bracket an average of 32%. How much do you favor? What is progressive? I think 32 times is really progressive. Now I am going to try and make this simple for you. Money comes in the door that is revenue. It does not matter how that money comes in. Money goes out for expenses. It does not matter what that expense is. If I pay $10,000 for gas from my supplier that cost has to be factored in when I calculate the price I am going to sell that gas at. If my gas price from my supplier doubles to $20,000 I have to adjust my price. Now if my gas price stays the same at $10,000 but the government imposes a tax on me of $10,000 THE EFFECT IS THE SAME. Businesses keep whatever is left over after all the expenses and taxes are an expense is left over. You talk about income inequality like a true liberal. The fact is that occupations that are "successful" earn more than those that are unsuccessful. You seem to think it is a moral outrage that some business person invests his/her own money, sells a product that is valued by consumers, and earns money. However you seem to indicate that somehow the person who drops out of school, has zero skills, and earns a pittance is the fault of the wealthy person. NO IT IS NOT. The marketplace not bureacrats dictate what the public perceives has value and rewards it. Bill Gate became wealthy providing the world with an unsurpassed way of increasing productivity. Jeff Bezos at Amazon became wealthy by increasing the scope and providing a copetitive landscape for people to buy products internationally not just locally. The marketplace voted and they were rewarded FOR BEING SUCCESSFUL. What you suggest is that no we should tax those that are successful and subsidize those who are not. I say you have it reversed. You should encourage those who are not successful to improve themselves not discourage those who are. Money does not grow on tree. Take money in the form of taxes from wealthy entrepreneurs and they have 1. less reason to risk their money since they know a larger portion of what they earn will be taken away. 2. They will then have less money for that company expansion or to hire more workers. 3. They redirect their investments from job creating activities to tax avoidance. 4. For those that can, they move their operations to lower tax jurisdictions. One only has to look at the busiensses fleeing California for Texas as evidence of this. Somehow the media has for year promulgated this notion of that the wealthy "successful" should pay more. The best answer I ever got was from a congressman who when I queried him, said no taxing the wealthy was not fair but that is where the money is. It has nothing to do with fairness. Do you favor a card with your tax bracket tht you have to show where if you go to a gas station or grocery store you pay more for identical items "because you can afford it" Like it or not, if no one is successful everyone by default become failures. Simple example is the lottery. Make the jackpot $1 million and you sell a few tickets. Make the jackpot $1 billion and you sell lots. The same is true for entrepreneurs. Make the reward of taking the risk small and you get few takers. Make it huge and you get more willing to gamble. It is the successful people who create jobs. Amazon employes 1.5 million the average wage is $101,000. Google employes 150,000 average wage is $123,000. Microsoft employs 221,000 people and an average wage of $123,000. You seem to be of this mindset that rewarding the entrepreneurs who become wealthy is just a pot of gold that really belongs to the public and is there for the plundering. I suggest that if I asked you to risk your money on a venture and if you failed too bad you take the loss but if you were successful that I get to keep the majority of it, you would say that is a no win situation and decline to take the risk. That is exactly what you are proposing. I don't understand the class envy. I could care less what Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Bill Gates make providing that they got that wealth from providing goods and services that the public wants and create jobs from their activities. This is from Thomas Sowell - Senior Fellow Economics Stanford University.