nigelforbes

I wouldn't know, I've always held a one year visa, not one of those pretending to live here jobs. But what I do know is that you're going onto my ignore list just as soon as I can make that happen, you don't get a third chance, byee

Fund Managers (FM's) and Financial Advisors (IFA) are very different things. IFA's advise people what to do with their assets and are a dime a dozen, the lowest form of life on the planet I know of, second only to traffic wardens. FM's manage investment funds and do the analysis as to which companies their fund will invest in to achieve the best return from the fund. Famous FM names include Warren Buffet, Ray Dalio, John Paulson, George Soros, Neil Woodford. FM's don't typically deal with the public and they don't sell shares in their funds, others do that.

What changed? I'm retired and have been here for well over 20 years, things have become easier if anything. 90 day reports are online but everything else is the same.

Any of the non-bank based currency exchange shops, they all use the same FOREX system to determine rates, only their commission will vary but by only small amounts in the same geographic area.

No it's not meaningless, just over rated. As for packing up and waiting to see if the government would come rushing after us begging us to stay, that's on par with the winning the El Gordo lottery.

Thailand's GDP is about USD 506 bill., 4% =20 bill., not even one month of Thai exports! Exactly what the US GDP has to do with the subject, only you will know.

Seems fishy to me. The BiB will carp on continuously but will flounder trying to find an answer.

You can only grow so much rice and make so many finished goods, selling them faster and cheaper doesn't solve the problem. a) a trained and capable labour force needs time to ramp up, b) imports will cost 50% more which will wipe out the export cost advantage, c) profit margins wont withstand a 50% loss of profit.

If I hold seven funds and each fund contains between 50 and 100 companies globally, that's a lot of room for slop. At any point in time up to two of my funds don't perform at an acceptable level but the other five compensate, I can afford to have Fund Managers who don't perform well but they wont last long, either with me or within the industry where performance is the be all end all of success for them. If I was trying to manage that volume and I didn't do well, I'd have no where to go.

As long as the current account remains in deficit, the Baht will stay weak, the story in the OP talks about USD 0.5 bill......that's not altogether bad news for expats.

Now we know where he lives, let's all go round and surprise Peter, but don't tell him.

The problem here is is the increasing number of vehicle owners who spray paint their license plates white, in order to avoid detection by camera's. It's a prolific and obvious problem that nobody seems to care about, some of the abuse is so blatant with owners saying the black paint peeled off, not that the plate was painted white...horse poo..

The total value of all expat financial activity in Thailand has been estimated to be equal to less than 4% of GDP, that includes all the 800K baht in the bank and average spending at that level. That means if every expat in the country left tomorrow, Thai GDP would shrink by only 4%. Adding new visa's aint going to do the trick, no matter how highly expats regard themselves and their spending power.

As said elsewhere, the foam prevents radiated heat from the roof tiles. As long as the roof void is capable of expelling convected heat, ie hot air, the foam will be of benefit. But without that hot air exhausting ability, the foam by itself wont be useful. Also to add.... we did the opposite of you and painted our roof tiles a very light grey, they previously were dark brown. The change in internal temperatures was dramatic, the cost was around 40k. We no longer need to use air con at any time of the year whereas previously it would run constantly from early afternoon into the evening. Occasionally we run one air con in de-humidify mode to make things more pleasant. Our problem now is that the house is cold during the winter months with absolutely no heat coming in via the roof! Our attic floor is layered with about one floor of rolled fibre glass insulation but even that was defeated before the roof was painted. If you want an inexpensive solution to internal heat, paint your roof with two coats of a good quality roof paint, three years on ours still looks very good indeed plus the roof tiles are almost impossible to dislodge (we've tried to get access a couple of times but the paint is like glue).

It would make no sense to leave Thai interest rates at 1% when USD rates are headed for 5%+, that would just kill capital inflows stone dead. The game is to keep up with the Joneses whilst managing inflation, the quarter point won't do anything for exports, either way.

I'm now back to within 2% of the peak in my investments and am cautiously considering what I may invest in next. I'm solely a funds kind of person. My philosophy is to find the best skilled Fund Manager to do the job they've trained to do, despite knowing what I do I'll never be as good as them so why pretend otherwise. I'm 50% global equities, 25% bonds/other and 25% cash. Sliced another way I'm 43% Wealth Preservation Funds and 33% Managed Equities Funds. I just added 6% Royal London Global Select and am ready to add 5% Fidelity European Trust (FEV), both risk averse and proven low risk equity funds. My equities are currently 18% US, 11% EU, 6% UK, 4% Japan, 5% Asia Dev and 6% EM. Until the Fed settles down and the rate increases pivot and the effectives of recession are understood, it's not a good time to be tweaking or dabbling, Wealth Preservation is where it's at, for the time being.

Sadly, a true statement that applies to the masses. The bigger problem however is the extent to which people who think they are financially literate or skilled in certain areas, in the bigger picture, really don't have a rats arze clue what they're doing. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.

I forgot to add........cold (energy) transfers at a rate about four times slower than heat, this means that insulation against extreme cold is four times more effective than the insulation used to prevent heat transfer. "Just like a hot body, a cold body radiates energy at a rate proportional to the fourth power of its temperature (referenced to absolute zero), so it does it much more slowly". https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/193054/thermodynamics-possibility-of-cold-radiation#:~:text=Just like a hot body,does it much more slowly.

What is nonsense, that sprayed on insulation used in Thailand is not that great protection against heat, really? It doesn't matter what type of insulation is used, the same basic premise remains true in every case. If the heat source is sufficiently powerful and the insulation sufficiently thin enough, the insulation will not be effective, regardless of the R value of the insulation. If you don't believe that basic premise of physics, take some of your Icynene foam and see how close you can get to the sun before you melt! In Thailand, most roofs are covered in concrete tile which are a heat store, the same principle that is used in storage heaters. Once the tiles are fully heated they begin to radiate heat, well after the time the sun has set, typically until the small hours each morning. Traditional insulation of any type delays the transfer of heat, it does not prevent it, only slows it down. For example, three inches of fibre glass insulation will be defeated by a major heat source such as radiated heat from heat tiles, within a few hours. Three inches of sprayed on foam insulation will prevent radiated heat from roof tiles but does nothing to prevent convective heat transfer which must be dealt with using ventilation and other means. This is why houses in Thailand use radiant barriers in conjunction with concrete roof tiles, to convert the heat from radiated heat to convected heat, which can be dealt with more easily by venting. And because nearly all roofs in Thailand use steel beams and not wood, conductive heat from concrete roof tiles often bi-passes all types of insulation and travels down the steel and and concrete. This results in secondary heat radiation transfer, into the living space - go check the temperature of the upper part of the inside walls after 3pm. I am certain that houses in Canada have better standards of construction that cater out of necessity to extremes of heat and cold, plus they don't use storage heater materials on their roofs, neither do they use a labyrinth of steel in them, they use wood. I'm also sure that the spray type insulation used there is applied properly and is of a correct thickness and composition. But that's Canada, this is Thailand! And if you think that sprayed on foam insulation is applied here with the same degree of thoroughness using Canadian standards or similar, you would be mistaken.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Government had always budgeted previously for that increase for EU expat pension uplift, continuing it after the referendum had no negative change on budgets, it was a case of maintaining the status quo, fiscally speaking.

I agree that seems almost unfair but I don't think it changes the picture I set out, we were told. The money needed to fund EU increases was already factored into budgets. The money needed to uprate expats everywhere else is new money that has never been budgeted.

There was never any will by government to end frozen pensions, even in a decent economy. Now that the country's finances are in a dire state, there is even less chance. And whilst my pension is also frozen, I do have some sympathy with government on this point. We were all told up front that our pensions would be frozen when we left, the choice was ours. It's a bit rich to complain after the fact, just because triple lock exists. But, if it's that big of a deal, why not go back to the UK for a couple of years and make the uplift permanent? I did that in 2018 after being away for 16 years, four months later I was regarded as UK resident.....I subsequently returned to live here once again.

I can send and receive between my UOB Thailand account and HSBC UK as well as a bank on the continent, just not the US. I believe it has to do with FATCA regs., at least so I was told. UOB Thailand is not part of UOB so perhaps this was a restriction imposed by UOB themselves.

I have been a decade long customer of UOB Thailand but was forced to finally change banks this year. This was because of UOB's refusal to allow their customers to conduct an transactions, of any type, with any banking, financial or government entity located in the US, they wouldn't even collect on my tax refund cheque from the Treasury!.

It's possible but not certain. I went to pay my CIGNA health insurance premium last week and their bank in Thailand is Citibank. My bank, UOB Thailand, wouldn't transfer funds to them even though they are based here.