nigelforbes

35-36 would have been an epic dive, not a soar.

I suspect this is what is being refered to: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=THB&view=1D

Yes, '70's not 80's, my how time flies! I rolled out an ATM network for the bank I worked for around 1979 as I recall, the business case for us at the time was reduced staffing and branch costs. Those savings were never realised of course. In the UK today, branches are closing at a rapid rate, fifty years on the savings are being realised but the cost of digital outweighs those savings, alledgedly. Most people expect products and services to increase but the cost of them should be borne by the people that use or buy them, not by the people who want a safe repository for their savings. I keep low to mid 5 figures in my UK account, I don't get interest, I don't use any services other than to check my balance from time to time and to ensure funds have been recieved. If my bank can't make a decent turn on the funds they are holding on my behalf and also want me to pay a fee for them to do so, well, what can be said!

Mine also, very good indeed.

I also had an appointment cancelled at a significant Chiang Mai hospital because the doctor wasn't comfortable consulting with foriegners. That message came from doctor to nurse, nurse to my wife and on to me, that was a first for me. What's espcially interesting is that hospital advertises health care for older people on their Facebook page and the doctor in question is one that is listed.

Kanokkwan Eurviriyanukul, M.D. at RAM can prescribe.

We went from 10 breakers to 18 and we're now out of slots but almost anything with any pulling power has it's own home. But we're running 3 outside pumps, five air con, three 6k water heaters. electric gates, plus the usual stuff.

No, it's a six breaker box, that's it. A good point about the breaker capacity but I don't have that info to hand.

We're shortly going to instal a water tank pump at MiL's house, this has led us to examine how the current breaker box is configured in order to grab a circuit for the pump. (we're not going to do the work but we want to understand the required conguration so we can monitor the sparky). It's a small two level house with only a couple of occupants. The Safety-T-Cut consumer unit was installed 17 years ago and contains six breakers. The Sparky spread the load at the time across all breakers, this was not optimal because it means one breaker has only only a single light and socket. At present, one breaker is spare but the remaining configuration is cause for concern, because of the ad-hoc bolt ons that have magically appeared over time! Ideally we need to reconfugure the consumer unit, this is what I think it probably should look like but will appreciate any guidance: B1 - Upstairs lights/sockets - perhaps 10 lights and 6 sockets, no heavy load devices (It would be optimal to split these across two breakers but that means buying a new consumer unit). B2 - Upstairs Bathroom water heater B3 - Underhouse lights and sockets - perhaps five lights and three sockets, no heavy load devices B4 - Downstairs Water Pump (150 watt) plus washing machine power point. B5 - Kitchen - Refrigerator, light and socket - no heavies B6 - small shop - refrigerator, light, fan Seem reasonable?

My guess is that you either haven't been in Thailand long enough, or, don't have enough experience of hospitals here to be able to make that point accurately. Nurses, like doctors, must pass an English proficency test before they graduate. As we all know, many Thai's are reluctatnt to speak English, typically for fear of making a mistake and becomming embarressed. My experience of every medical facility I have ever visited here in the past 30 years is that they all contain English speakers to some degree. Granted, they may not be to some peoples conversational standards but it is easy enough to communicate with them, with a little pacience and effort.

"Even an English speaking nurse in Bangkok Hospital is rare". To be fair and also truthful, many nurses in Bangkok Hospitals speak English, in fact, many nurses in every hospital do.

Because USD has long been the common currency that all trade bills are settled in, it's a neutral currency that let both parties accurately define their financial halves of the deal, when two other end currencies were being used (buy/sell). If one party is selling goods priced in shekels and the other party is buying in peso's, converting both to USD normalises the financials to a common denominator.

The rationale for adopting ATM's in the 1980's was to reduce branch costs. Today we have ATM fees and increased branch costs. Now we're going digital and there's going to be a digitial charge because of the increased costs. Everyone bend over and take your punishment for using a bank account.

It's been helpful thinking this through and checking some of the detail. Despite living here for over 20 years, I still hadn't properly understood what is what regarding Maharaj. In summary: Maharaj and Suan Dok Hospital are the same place, it's just another name for the same hospital. Maharaj is NOT the District Hospital and it's NOT a governement hospital, Maharaj is the University Hospital. The Distict Hospital is Nakorn Ping in Mae Rim, that is a governement hospital. Sriphat Hospital is the private wing of Mahraj University Hospital, it has an in patient location in the old building near Maharaj and an OP department in the new building to the West. Maharaj has a large 24 hour ER facility as well as helicopter facilities.

The volumes are becomming significant, RCEP trade represents over 60% of Thailand's exports, from the link above: "Thailand’s trade with RCEP countries from 2016 to 2019 was worth US$269 billion per year, or about 60 percent of the country’s total trade".