nigelforbes

They should do that to all Travelodge hotels.

I haven't done that for a while but I admit I would do the same thing again today, but that's just me, I like the security of having all my banking in one place and am willing to pay for such things.

I never said they do, I said in Thailand (at times) but mostly other countries. I've been married to a Thai for over 25 years and have encountered hotels, mostly in tourist areas, where the hotel has asked me to pay more because of "my guest".....it's been fun at times responding to such requests! But in neighboring countries such as Laos it is illegal for unmarried foreigners to share their room with anyone other than a spouse.

I strongly recommend Rutnin Hospital in Bangkok, the cost is not that much more than many of the alternatives but the quality if so much higher and more assured. I've had some really dangerous encounters here with an Ophthalmologist in a private hospital, someone who was supposed to be an expert and a senior person at a university. In this example the doctor substituted a student who used her name whilst she took the afternoon off. Unfortunately, the student missed a torn retina which the so called expert spotted two weeks later during a follow up visit. A second encounter related to the same incident where a doctor wanted to perform extreme laser surgery that was completely unnecessary. When I recounted these stories to Dr Roy at Rutnin he shook his head and said he'd heard similar before. Be careful.

FWIW I pay about Roojai 9k per year to insure a 2.5 Vigo 4 door, (2013), Class 1 insure, the underwriters are Krungthai Panich. You can spread payments over three months at no cost. Generally I'm pleased with it all except renewal messages do start very early sometimes, often 3 months before hand.

If you trust neither governments, central banks or individual banks, I can't help you any further in this debate.

The amount outstanding on Consumer Loans is a fixed amount whilst the value of GDP has fallen, that is why the ratio has increased and made it appear that Consumer Loans are increasing....they are not. NPL's are under 3%, an internationally accepted level that is acceptable in finance terms. Level 2 loans or "Watched Loans" are at 6%, also an acceptable level. "Wars, rumours of wars, high energy prices, dead-ish tourism"...is just noise, nothing really to do with Foriegn Currency Reserve values. "Savers will get the shaft" - savers usually get the shaft, this is not new, it's the way banks work.

One significant feature of Thailand that I have seen repeatedly over the past 30 years is the ability of the population, the economy and the government to adapt to changing circumstances, they do it quietly and without fanfare. When tourism from one country drops off, for whatever reason, a new country is found and pursued, pretty soon it's citizens are flavor of the month. Two years ago it was the Chinese, before that the Russians, before that the Arabs, a long long time ago it was Brits. Today it's Indians, next month it may be the Welsh, who knows. And when one source of employment dries up, people shift en-masse to something new, the fail safe is to retreat to the villages and resume farming over again. Over 95% of new business start ups fail every year in Thailand, closed shops and businesses is nothing new, it's just an opportunity for somebody else. As for the banks balance sheets....they are plenty strong, plenty, the rules are all set in their favour so they should be.

As said previously, condo owners own a share of the management company which means they own a share of the freehold/building. Apartment blocks are owned by the real estate development company or similar and leased or rented to tenants. Condo's can be sub-leased to tenants but this doesn't change the ownership rights. "Operation, size and facilities" have got nothing to do with the way they are differentiated.

I completely disagree, regardless of which country we're talking about.

BOT's Foreign Currency Reserves report below, just for info. THB/USD was 36.46 on 2 September, on 30 September it was 37.879 (which only accounts for some of the fall) https://www.bot.or.th/App/BTWS_STAT/statistics/BOTWEBSTAT.aspx?reportID=94&language=ENG

Yes of course, a company can be an individual owner of a condominium. But the difference is that apartments are only ever owned by companies, not by individuals. This is about the building (not the units) and how many people share in its ownership.

You do understand that Vietnam's GDP is half that of Thailand's and that the country has no infrastructure per se? Most importantly, China wont do business there because of the friction that continues to exist between the two countries. This so called loss is not really a loss at all.

Whilst we're at it we can establish reeducation camps and rebadge Parliament as the Central Committee, comrade.

Must be exact.

BOT has not been buying a lot of Baht, they have merely been smoothing out the peaks and troughs, which is what they are obliged to do under BOT's managed floating peg rules.

That is not a forecast, it merely extrapolates todays rate forward. It is simply not possible to forecast any currency pair forward more than a few days, not with any accuracy, the idea that a pair might be forecast months or years ahead is nonsense.

Historically, elections and their outcomes haven't had much influence on USD value. Only the uncertainty of the outcome causes volatility which is typically short lived.

Isn't that the truth, it's pure UK political distraction and theatre.

https://tradingeconomics.com/thailand/gdp

Some old data but still indicative. I can't be bothered spending too much time trying to confirm what I already know to be fact, if others feel the need then please have at it! "For 2011-12 it is estimated that 0.8%, or £1.2bn, of total benefit expenditure was overpaid as a result of fraud. This is far lower than the figures widely believed by the public, as revealed repeatedly in opinion polls. A TUC poll recently revealed that people believe 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently". https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths I don't know about anyone else by 1.2 bill. seems like a shed load of money to me.

Against which standard is he being measured, OK compared to whom?

I partially agree, however, suppressing the fraud I described works very much in favor of the rest of the population, especially the poor. But I also think that more effort should be put into confirming circumstantial evidence such as the fraud I have described. Around one in ten UK citizens live overseas. Around one million pensioners are expatriated, approximately half of them in countries where the state pension is not uprated.....the potential for fraud is massive and the amounts involved huge. https://www.narpo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/International-Consortium-of-British-Pensioners-overview-of-pension-freeze-issue-for-British-Pensionsers-living-abroad.pdf

The question was rhetorical CH! But there was a time when I was, years ago and there was a time when many many other expats bragged about the fact.

Thinking of UK benefits fraud....how many people reading this thread are living in Thailand whilst claiming they still live in the UK and claiming some sort of benefit such as pension increases, heating allowance, etc etc! Yup, I thought so!