expat_4_life

I have spoken with some of the food delivery guys in Bangkok, they claimed they were making

as much as 12-1500 @ day. Long shifts, but they were pretty happy about it.

33 minutes ago, cmrichsw said:

Stop chasing away digital nomads, let them pay a small tax & offer them a special visa.

 

They basically offer this in the form of the Thailand Elite visa program.

It's 500k up front for 5 years, that's around 3k USD @ year.

Is that a small enough tax for you? You can't scrape together 3k @ year

and yet you are going to be contributing to the Thai economy in some noticeable way?

I do have sympathy for people that are independent and not anchored to their home

country and wish to reside here, but look at what they're asking, is it too much?

I'm beginning to think that it's dangerous in quarantine, are they infecting each other?

The fleet that is being retired consists of 60 747-400 and was first introduced in 1989.

33 minutes ago, Grumpy John said:

Anyway, there is a simple way of judging how bad things can get.  The wife being a mango grower the closing of the borders had an impact on the bottom line last season and I am fairly confident it will have an negative impact next season. So lets take mangoes as our measure.  When we had close to 40 million tourists I'll make the assumption everyone had one mango during their stay.  OK, some like me will eat 2 or 3 a day...and some will have none.  Average size #4, yellow mangoes, are 2.5 to 3 to a kilo.  So that would mean somewhere around 13.500.000kg to 16.000.000kg would be consumed by tourists.  13500 - 16000 tons.  Not sure of the export numbers but 10's of thousands of tons are exported.  Around 30.000 ton in 2015.  https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/5.1 Export of Mango from Thailand, Chachengsao Mango Cooperative_Ms. Bunsiri_Kasetsart.pdf  Against a total production of all types that is 2.5 million tons +/- annually of all types it doesn't look like a big drop...but it is!  The price crash of mangoes was because there was a glut and the local market couldn't absorb the extra!  People with no job and little money don't buy mangoes, they buy food to survive.  Food processors are limited to production machinery and available staff no matter how good the price...plus they want specific variety. So just one thing going wrong, the mango glut, can cause devastation in rural areas for people like my wife who lost close to 100.000 baht.  And we have to raid my wallet to make up the difference to pay for the pruning people...18500 baht this year.  Another 12.000 baht for chemi and fertiliser...so far, Plus diesel, tractor maintenance, benzine, etc.  So the point I am going to make is tourism maybe only 9% of the GDP but the impact of the Wuhan China virus has a far greater impact that just bars, hotels and restaurants.  

Correct, the economic impact is not just limited to the tourism industry.

Also, one-third of the tourism industry is a BIG hit. Of course the impact will not be evenly distributed across the entire sector.
The places in close proximity to Bangkok will fare much better.

People say the tourism industry is only 9% of the economy, maybe it's more, I've seen 15% mentioned before.

But the one thing we can't discuss intelligently is what percent of the Thai people support themselves or their families with tourism dollars.  I would guess it is significantly higher than the 9% (or whatever) number.

Unfortunately we have no data to analyze.  Mostly it is just guessing.

Zojirushi makes nice tumblers, available here. I got mine at a department store.

These things are like magic, keeps the beer cold for a long time.

I have the SX-DC45 (available in multiple colors).

300 × 300

https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/sxdb

"Three have been ordered from China but they have been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic."

"Manit Techopichoke of KT Co.Ltd said that the Bombadier Innova APM 300 vehicles would run on a central rail with wheels either side."

I guess Bombardier has willingly surrendered their technology to China.  Not unlike many multinationals.

5 hours ago, colinneil said:

Public opinion sought????? Why those in control here will never take any notice, so why even suggest it?

Those in control everywhere pay attention to public opinion, regardless of their politics.

You may recall the recent controversial alcohol ban, that was on/off at the beginning of the month.  Was that due to public opinion/pressure?  Maybe - but it would be naive to believe they were not paying attention.

Now we have the virus, no groundbreaking therapeutics and no vaccine on the immediate horizon.  We also have an economy that needs to be restarted and a lock-down that will become increasingly unpopular.  No political leader wants to be caught in this situation.  We simply cannot stay in lock-down indefinitely, marching the economy off a cliff, and if things are re-opened then, yes, some people are going to contract the virus and die.

I would argue that public opinion/pressure is important. Leaders are much less likely to face enormous backlash for the decisions they make when public opinion/pressure was with them.  There are tough decisions to be made.

Here is a chart of mail services released by Thailand Post, UK surface only.

Pretty bold now that arrivals are effectively down to zero.

Statistics of international arrivals at Suvarnabhumi:

28 March: 1,834

29 March: 1,795

30 March: 995

31 March: 1,126

Is everyone just going to pretend that this was not reported on April 1st?

OK, he's thankful.

Has he donated blood full of anti-bodies that are touted as a treatment for COVID yet?

It's bad reporting, no matter your political stripes.  Where are the details of the controversial provisions, what do they actually say?

"Republicans said Democrats were seeking to add unrelated provisions, such as expanded tax credits for wind and solar power and increased leverage for labor unions.

Democrats said Republicans were also trying to add provisions that would exclude nonprofit groups from receiving small-business aid, and extend a sexual abstinence-education program that is due to expire in May."

On 3/13/2020 at 8:41 AM, Bkk Brian said:

I haven't seen this one in the statistics yet, perhaps it will be officially announced today.........or not

It was dutifully counted as part of the 11 people that got infected at a Tonglo bar, couple of days ago (maybe Thursday).

He was one of the 11 that made the count jump from 59 to 70.

On 11/1/2019 at 7:47 PM, rak sa_ngop said:

Why not make your own gin. There are lots of botanical kits available on-line (not sure how easy to slip them in by post to Thailand). You can buy cheap vodka, or even cheaper is Thai neutral spirit (40pc ABV only) for about 150 baht a bottle, and infuse your own juniper etc flavours.

 

I tried doing the same with toasted French oak chips that I bought in the UK to make whisky, but the results were undrinkable. Too much nasty wood taste. I will have to try again.

Try Jack Daniels wood chips, they are produced from the casks in which their bourbon is aged.

Adds that Jack Daniels flavor without being simply wood.  I had good results from them with less than desirable basic spirits like we normally had access to in Saudi Arabia. 

Not sure if you can find them here though.

6 hours ago, Emdog said:

I used to live in Bali. On road from Ubud to Denpasar passed shop with great sign: "Antiques made to order".

Reminds me of a large barn I passed by regularly in rural Washington State with a sign painted

on the side that read "Horses New and Used"

4 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Regardless of whether shooters are leftist, rightist or anything else, the common factors in all this are mass murder and weapons of mass murder. That's where the attention needs to be centered first. 

 

I'm not excusing or ignoring the white nationalism elements clearly present in the Texas shooting and Trump's incitement of those extremist factions.... But to me, that a related but separate issue that ought to be addressed on its own, and not allow that to derail and deflect the focus on the weapons of mass murder issue.

 

My post had nothing to do with the Texas shooting?  It had to do with the Dayton shooting.

This story of the Dayton shooter has emerged on Medium from a claimed ex ... no idea if it's true

or not, still early days in terms of knowing motive.  What provokes people to do crazy things like

a mass shooting?  It's certainly complicated.  It's a dark tale of the shooters recent life.  Whether it's

fact of fiction doesn't really matter, it illustrates that these tragedy's have no one variable solution.

https://medium.com/@_adeliajohnson_/my-ex-boyfriend-was-the-dayton-shooter-2b7f2d792b68

How does celebrating our military, troops and the accomplishments of rare human beings ‘divide Americans’?