IsaanT

Do we think this is a partial cave-in...? It's certainly not holding the line defiantly, is it? Apparently, Peter Navarro (and his alter ego Ron Varo... ) have been sidelined in the White House and Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury (and a rather sensible-sounding chap) is the main contact negotiating international tarriff agreements and advising Trump now.

Hi @Crossy. Is there some way to contact you offline? Thanks.

The 80% majority appear not to understand the enormity of the issue, nor the personalities and cultures involved in this scenario. China will not blink first. China also appears to be selling US bonds overnight from its massive stockpile. China selling U.S. bonds = higher interest rates, more expensive borrowing, and possibly slower U.S. economic growth — like putting a little brake on the US economy. Trump has picked a fight with the wrong guys. China doesn't like being bullied so it appears to be retaliating. And there's nothing the US or anybody else can do to stop them.

Does that fact support the approach to not get married to one's Thai partner in the first place?

An usufruct agreement is a good thing to have for the foreign partner/Thai house-owner situation. A Thai usufruct agreement is a legal arrangement that grants a person (often a foreigner) the right to use and benefit from a property—typically a house—owned by a Thai national, without owning the land itself. Under this agreement: The foreigner (usufructuary) can live in the house, rent it out, or otherwise use it for their benefit. The Thai landowner retains ownership of the land, but must respect the usufruct holder’s rights for the duration of the agreement. A usufruct can be granted for the lifetime of the foreigner or for a set period (often up to 30 years). It must be registered at the Land Office to be legally enforceable and to provide real security of tenure. This arrangement is commonly used by foreigners in long-term relationships or business partnerships with Thai nationals to secure long-term use of a property without violating Thai land ownership laws. It's very simple to arrange.

"Zero-dollar" refers to investments or business activities that bring little to no real economic benefit to the lcoal Thail economy, especially to its people. This term often implies that: The capital or goods involved are entirely controlled or supplied by foreign entities (in this case, Chinese), without significant local involvement. Local resources, labour, or services are minimally used, so the money generated doesn’t circulate within the Thai economy. Profits are repatriated, meaning they're sent back to the investors' home country instead of being reinvested locally. A related example is "zero-dollar tours", which refers to Chinese tour groups where Chinese-owned companies manage every part of the trip - from travel to shopping to accommodation - so Thai businesses don't benefit, even though the tours occur in Thailand. In short, "zero-dollar" investments and exports are seen as a drain rather than a boost, because they generate economic activity on paper but don't help local communities or industries. That's why experts are concerned - it’s growth that looks good in stats but skips over the people.

My weekdays always start with getting our adopted three-year old boy off to school. Then we return and I play with his nearly two-year old brother, and think of the next thing to teach them both. We're starting our house build later this month. There is never a dull moment (I think my brain would atrophy if I spent all day on the beach or in bars but each to their own).

Be fair chaps, it must be very tiring for the OP who is clearly suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (formerly known as multiple personality disorder).

Borrowing money from friends and family is the normal way of things here in Thailand. Here in the rural northeast, I notice signs this year that family incomes are getting squeezed. Around half the locals are involved in rice farming. Last year India decided to start exporting rice again so the price of Thai rice has been depressed and farmers are hanging on to their stocks as long as they can because early season prices are low because of the huge supply, then improve as the supply thins out. Twice in the last two weeks we've been openly approached at the local market to ask if we want to buy another rice field. I've lent money to three separate members of our extended Thai family and haven't had any back yet. They are good and kind people - they've done all sorts of things to help us - but they now aren't in a position to repay the loans. They are not big amounts and I am pleased to have helped them but I have told my partner that they'll be no more loans until the original ones are repaid, so she can propogate that message out to the relatives (the main loan was to be repaid at harvest time but, as mentioned above, they are hoarding their rice, waiting for prices to improve). Lastly, I didn't add any interest on the loans but I am aware of one Thai widow who has made some personal loans to friends and charged them 20%. She's also not getting any repayments. Overall, it's only going to get worse.

When it's done, it's done! 🙂 If you do ask for comment I'll be careful what I say so nobody loses face. I hope it goes well for you.

You're right. This topic reminds me that George Bernard Shaw once said that America and the UK were 'two nations divided by a common language'. It seems apposite in this thread. BTW, most people think it was Winston Churchill who said it but that's incorrect.

Personally, I think Americans should accept responsibility for their deviations from the King's English and call their language American. Then you can spell colour whichever way you want and nobody will get upset. Just don't call what you use English because that irks those of us that use our language correctly (and thus pronounce the 't' in often...). 😉

We get the same thing out in the sticks every year, leading up to Songkran.

There may be a mix-up in terminology here, or I've misinterpreted something. What we're looking at in your photo is a swarm of bees. There's no honey to be had from a swarm (honey is only ever stored in the wax honeycomb in a hive). Now if the hive from which the bees swarmed is nearby (it should be within a few hundred metres) and its location is known, that's potentially an opportunity to get some honey, although there will be a small colony of bees left in the original hive and they probably want to keep it. 🙂 The only other possibility I can see is that the bees have been in the tree for some time (several weeks, minimum), and made a nest there. If so, there may be wax and honey.

Hi. I am an experienced beekeeper. Unfortunately, I'm down in Roi Et otherwise I'd come and remove them for you. The chances are that they are apis mellifera, the European honey bee (your photo certainly looks like it). Your climate there suits them and most Thai honey is produced in your region; unfortunately, it's slightly too hot for them here. I used to collect local swarms for our bee club members back in Cambridgeshire prior to emigrating (we would re-house collected swarms in members' hives). The method is very simple. Put a large box or container (plastic dustbin) under the swarm and give the tree branch they are hanging from a hefty knock. The bees will fall into the container. Obviously some will fly around but the magic now occurs. The chances are good that the queen (who is in the swarm somewhere) falls in the box. The bees in the container will stay there, even though the top of the container is open. The workers (all the other bees in the swarm) are attracted to her pheromones and, if they're not already, make their way into the box to join her. Have a cup of tea. Typically, after 30-60 minutes, all the bees are together in the box. Put the lid on (or close the flaps of a cardboard box) and then transport it away. You will be able to find videos on YouTube if you look for 'swarm collection'. Usually, despite their intimidating appearance, swarms are actually very docile. It sounds like your bees are agitated so anyone attempting this does need to wear a bee suit. p.s. I recently acquired two hives of miniature stingless bees (apis melipona). They're slightly smaller than house flies but, as the name suggests, are totally harmless and are great pollinators. 995THB for each hive, on Shopee.

The claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was prepared to sign a peace agreement with Russia in 2021 but was dissuaded by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson lacks substantial evidence. Notably, in a February 2025 interview, President Zelenskyy addressed and dismissed such assertions, labeling them as "illogical." He emphasized that there were multiple approaches involving ultimatums from Russia, none of which received his approval, and stated that Boris Johnson had no influence over his decisions regarding negotiations. While reports suggest that during his April 2022 visit to Kyiv, Boris Johnson advocated against negotiating with Russia, citing the need to apply pressure on President Putin , these discussions occurred after the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Therefore, they do not pertain to any potential agreements in 2021. So, there is no credible evidence supporting the claim that President Zelenskyy was willing to sign a submission to President Putin in 2021 or that Boris Johnson influenced him to abandon such an agreement.

Credit where credit is due - we agree on something.

Others will possibly have other definitions but my view is that he has a delusion of his own, and Russia's, importance in the world. He wants to grow the Soviet Union back and he can't stand the fact that he's been frozen out of international relationships (except with fellow dictators and corrupt regimes in BRICS). He can only strut his stuff within Russia but, even then, he has to be careful where he goes. The only thing people take notice of is when he threatens to use nuclear weapons, and he only does that because he hasn't got any other tools in his box. The EU (we can exclude Hungary and Slovakia, for obvious reasons) want nothing more to do with him. He lost that gamble and Russia's economy is paying the price. He's now a political has-been with no route back. Eventually, Russia will realise that they are better off without him.

Is that the same as "We've formally adopted the five invaded regions of Ukraine so they're officially ours now?" logic? Don't you recognise sabre-rattling when you see it? More bluff and threats. It happens every time someone puts him on the back foot - it's all he's got left. We all wonder when his oligarchs will have had enough of his antics. His neck must be so sore from continually having to look over his shoulder...

There was an interesting article in the UK's Daily Telegraph yesterday by John Bolton. I quote from it below: I worked for Donald Trump. This is the key to understanding him. It's not about America, and there's no connection to the real world. (John Bolton served as US National Security Advisor from 2018 to 2019 during the first Trump administration). What does Trump really intend? What is bluff, braggadocio, and bargaining and what is not? Because he does not have a philosophy or a national-security strategy, and often doesn’t seek pre-conceived objectives, observers from left to right are often confounded. Trump is the very epitome of “transactional,” his one immutable focus being himself. Accordingly, assessing such aberrational behaviour, what’s really happening inside his head, can be nearly impossible. Media, politicians and businesspeople alike frequently persuade themselves he is simply posturing, but are continually surprised by what he does. Consider Ukraine, Nato, and tariffs. Trump, many said, would never embarrass himself by a Ukraine settlement that conceded too much to Russia. During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly boasted that the Ukraine war (and the Middle East war) would never have occurred had he been President, thereby criticising Biden’s (and, later, Kamala Harris’s) weakness. However, neither Trump supporters nor opponents perceived his obsession with resuming his personal friendship with Vladimir Putin. To Trump, good personal relations between leaders signify good relations between their countries, an enormously oversimplified view of the world. Putin said he wanted peace, and Trump accepted it. That is why Trump has made so many concessions to Russia, and why Volodymyr Zelensky rightfully feels so beleaguered. This is the personal motivation so many observers missed, speculating instead on “policy” reasons why Trump would not change America’s Ukraine policy. He had no desire to vindicate Ukraine’s freedom and independence, and felt no imperative to show strength against Russia’s unprovoked invasion to deter, for example, China’s irredentism regarding Taiwan. Moreover, starting in his first term, Trump has wanted a Nobel Peace Prize. He envied Barack Obama’s award, in his first year in office for no apparent reason, and felt he deserved one too. Accordingly, Trump saw resolving either Ukraine or the Middle East as possible paths in his second term’s opening months. This is likely the reason Trump often bragged that he could resolve Ukraine on his first day in office, or at least in twenty-four hours after getting Putin and Zelensky alone in a room. It also explains why, in his March address to Congress he called the war "senseless". Obviously, such a war is easier and quicker to end than one where real issues are at stake. This is a man in a hurry for his Nobel. Those who believed Trump would not undercut Ukraine or, even worse, shift sides to support Putin, were repeatedly surprised. They took comfort, for example, when Trump named long-term advisor Keith Kellogg as his chief peace negotiator. But Moscow objected that he was too “pro-Ukraine,” and he was swept aside, purged one might say. Kellogg showed Trump unwavering fealty, but that was, as always, insufficient for Trump. The record of a given staff member is not a safe predictor of how he will act. On Nato, observers said, Trump was merely bargaining when he declared America wouldn’t defend members not meeting the 2-per-cent-of-GDP military spending target. And so too, they said, he was just bargaining when he raised the target to 5 per cent. But Trump means what he is saying here. Nato is not safe from US withdrawal, especially if allies fail to grasp that the potential for withdrawal is still top-of-mind for Trump. Then there’s Trump’s fascination with tariffs. The damage Trump has caused Ukraine and Nato pales by comparison to what his tariffs will do to America’s economy and the entire international economic system. If Trump had acted on April 1 instead of 2, he could quickly have said it was all an April Fool’s Day joke, thereby saving the global economy trillions of dollars of damage when markets started heading south. Unfortunately however, Trump is totally serious, a fact evident long before “Liberation Day.” Here too, “experts” and anxious businesspeople steadfastly ignored Trump labelling “tariff” the dictionary’s most beautiful word. Tariffs, they said, will be targeted, carefully calibrated, and he’ll do deals quickly. It’s all a bargaining tactic, Treasury Secretary Bessent said in October, 2024: “escalate to de-escalate”. Even as global stock markets drop like rocks, experts are still rationalising what his “strategy” is. Wrong again. Trump is more likely to win the Nobel Prize for literature than for peace. As with Ukraine, Trump listens primarily to himself, not to others. He creates his own world, this time an imaginary trade world, and then lives in it. Trump isn’t lying so much as he is ruling a parallel universe, like a boy’s tree house, where numbers mean what he says they mean. He doesn’t react well when the real world’s numbers don’t match: after all, who’s in charge here? Trump can’t tell US friends from its enemies, either politico-militarily or economically, and doesn’t seem to care. What matters are Trump’s friends and enemies, which are manifestly not the same as the America’s.

I don't think there are too many complaints about the Russian people, per se. It's their despotic delusional President and his corrupt regime and cronies that is the issue. The Soviet Union is lost, Putin is vainly trying to restore it - in his own words. In a documentary in December 2021 he said "It was the disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union." The west had no malicious intentions towards Russia because, until the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia wasn't a threat to the west. Anyway, let's not forget that it was the pressure from the mothers of the deceased soldiers sacrificed in Afghanistan that forced Russia's withdrawal in 1989 after its ten-year invasion. Perhaps more than 500,000 angry mothers might have reason to protest about the same sacrifice in Ukraine (Russia's Mediazone claims 100,000; Ukraine reports it's now 839,000). And, if it's so important to you, perhaps some of the draft dodgers in Pattaya and Phuket could go back and help the cause instead of causing trouble here.

Just for the sake of clarity and context, would you like to declare your nationality? I'm English.

The Russian food supply chain is under pressure. The wheat harvest was poor last year so exports have been limited to prioritise domestic supply. And the Moscow Times reported that food price inflation to December last year was 22.9,%, apparently triple what it was the year before. That is making life hard for poorer households, wouldn't you agree? BTW, do you condemn the 'special military operation'?

Help me on one point please. Given an EU-wide distrust of Russia and an avowed intent to have energy independence from Russia, who would be the customers of gas from a re-opened Nord Steam 2 pipeline?

I guess we're going to have to take Anton's word for it, whoever Anton is. I've noticed that Russia denies everything recently, so if they something isn't happening, it most certainly is, and vice versa. It smacks of concealed panic and desperation to me because the top brass know Putin has screwed his own country, almost depleted their strategic currency reserves, killed a good proportion of the national workforce and ruined their oil and gas export markets. Oh, and the general populace are suffering food shortages. Not a glowing record, is it?