Drumbuie

On 11/30/2023 at 3:06 PM, connda said:

The world economies most of which are fueled on debt are all on the cusp of "Economic Crisis."

When i first arrived here, the price of gold was 12K THB / baht-weight.  It will be 36K (if not more) by the end of 2024 (maybe the end of March 2024).  Current value of 23 karat Thai gold per baht-weight is 33.5K THB which is up 1000 THB over the last month.  Gold is up from 29.2K THB over the last year.
Does this mean that the value of gold has tripled?  Nope.  It means the value of Thailand fiat money has been discounted by 65+% relative to gold, and you CAN see this in the inflation of prices over the last 15 years.  The value of gold move inversely to the value of debased national fiat currencies.  Governments lie about the real value of their debased currencies and real inflation.  The value of gold relative to currencies does not lie.

The debt bubble will blow - not "If" but "When."  Highly leveraged and indebted nations will fall.  Read history.  The Depression, and its effect on the global economy.  And when the banks and the economy collapse?  Well, read up on one of the most recent collapses in Argentina 1998 to 2001.  Find some first hand accounts.  It's not pretty, especially when a nation and a people are forced down to the bottom of the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

What's at the end of the line?  World War, imho, that will support Neo-Totalitarianism in most countries and the rise of Neo-Fascism in many of what are currently referred to as "liberal democracies." 

 Hmm. No need for another world war with the inherent danger of going nuclear - the oligarchs know war is good for business but nuclear war is absolutely not. 

Meanwhile the rise of neo- fascism and totalitarianism is coming along very nicely, assisted by the use of social media combined with the abuse of its vast datasets, plus a captured mainstream media which prevents proper discussion of the accelerating erosion of freedoms in what *used* to be liberal democracies. 

I used to use Sage for my business because my accountants wanted me to. When I handed the business to an agent, I built a personal finance spreadsheet on Open Office. (Including a cashflow forecast, because how does anyone ever manage their finances without one? It must be both exhausting and nerve wracking. )

I tweaked it when I moved here to allow for extra bank accounts in different currencies. It produces a rough tax return which I double check before submitting. Never being surprised by a bank balance makes life so much more pleasant.

If I hadn't started out using VisiCalc in the 80s, I might have used an off the peg programme - but it wouldn't fit as well. 

3 minutes ago, Ralf001 said:

 

I dont do shopping malls or places that target tourists.

Mr DIY doesn't target tourists - and nor does our little mall, it's there for local residents. Even our weekend street market has Christmas stuff! PS We live in Bangkok, but in what you might call the suburbs. Not touristy at all. 

On 11/30/2023 at 8:10 AM, Ralf001 said:

 

Do they ?

Yes. Our small local mall put theirs up in November, before Loy Krathong which, like Diwali, is a festival of light (as was the pagan festival Christmas was grafted on to). Mr DIY got the Christmas stock out at the same time 

Do you not go out much? 

14 hours ago, Thailand said:

Unlike the TM47 you do not get a receipt of notification by doing the TM30 online  so I guess you would have to get the hard copy to be able to get cert residence etc?

Once the TM30 is successfully registered online, it is accessible online. You can screenshot it and print it out.

PS When I first applied for my visa extension on the grounds of retirement, it turned out my landlady hadn't done a TM30. ( I'd asked her for one, she sent copies of some papers, at the time I didn't know what one looked like...I do now. )

I was in Immigration at CW so I messaged her agent, he applied for it online, messaged a screenshot, printed it downstairs and everyone was happy. Took about half an hour. 

16 hours ago, swerve said:

I don't know how Thai Immigration catches deportees when they pull a fast one, and try to return early.  Like with a name change passport.  But, they do catch many of them and it doesn't go well.  Maybe your friend doesn't need to be in Thailand.  There are other warm countries he can go to and wait out his 5 year ban should he wish to return.

How do they catch them? Simple.  Biometrics, databases and facial recognition software. Deportees deserve to be caught if they haven't bothered to keep up with the technology, because Thailand's Immigration Dept certainly has. 

"Smarter than the average pier, Booboo" 

From UK, to Thailand  Wise's reasons for transfer are: 

Sending money home to family

General monthly living expenses

Rent or other property expenses

Tuition fees or studying expenses

Travel expenses

Medical expenses

Charitable donations

Property purchase

Pay for goods

Pay for services

Funds for long term stay in Thailand. 

Nothing about visas. Usually if I tick the last option, the transfer is marked as a foreign funds transfer but before I went for the extension ( based on 800k) I printed all my bank statements for the year, took them to the bank, asked them for a letter verifying that all the transfers came from overseas. Which they did. And that went down well at CW, possibly because it made their job just a little easier. Can't remember if they charged for that but if they did it was only 100 baht. 

Btw, it helps if you treat the bank people as fellow humans. One of them told me I was the first farang who'd ever been nice to her. All I did was commiserate over the previous customer who'd been petulant and rude. 

15 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Yes, but I don't recall seeing such as 'To meet overseas Visa requirements' as suggested above. The options I have ticked are either "Pension payment" or "Living expenses" - but I don't rely on income transfers for my retirement extensions.

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

It is beyond rational, that Thailand has not done this already. For the movement of cargo, if nothing else. The highways are clogged with trucks of all sizes, due to a lack of planning. And the trains here are quite an embarrassment. Even if you decide to travel by train here on the antique cars, you have to deal with consistent delays of 30 minutes to 3 hours. I gave up using them. 

 

Thailand desperately needs high speed rail, for people and cargo. The lack of planning is an abomination.

 

The rail projects should be accelerated. Thailand is 40-60 years behind the curve, when it comes to public transportation, with the exception of Bangkok. The railway here is sickening. I recently tried public transportation, from Hua Hin to Samui. Took a 5 hour express train from HH to Surat. All good. Except the train was 3.5 hours late between a 2.5 hour delay in arriving, and an additional hour added, on the way. Unacceptable. Then I took a VIP bus back from Samui. Left the pier at 6:45pm. Arrived in HH at 4:00am. Even at 11pm, the traffic was a parking lot, due to the main north south artery for the nation, reduced to one lane, due to road construction. One hour spent going 5 kph. Unacceptable. 

 

It would be so much easier, and more efficient to use the rlhigh speed rail. Typically, the average person spends at least 3 additional hours with a domestic flight, when you factor in travel to the airport on the clogged highways, waiting, security, delays, etc. And time at the destination airport too. Any nation that wants to call itself developed, needs high speed rail. The US being the exception to that rule, as the vision, and will was never there to get it done.

 

45 minutes from BKK to Pattaya? Brilliant. Which airline runs that route? How about Bangkok to Hua Hin, or Chumporn? Right now, it is a nightmare journey by road, unless you leave Bangkok at 5am, which I usually do, to get past the insane road work in Samut Sakorn. How about getting into Bangkok, from the north, or the south, during the day? I have spent three hours just traveling from Saraburi to BKK. 

 

Eventually, the entire nation may have two deck highways, like the new one from BKK to Korat. Upper road is a toll road, and trucks must be forbidden to use them. Some progress please. Any progress, is better than moving backwards under the regressive and toxic army.

 

At least train travel here is cheap. In the UK it's phenomenally expensive but equally unreliable. The Eurostar service has been truncated by Brexit, and the appallingly expensive and destructive HS2 that was supposed to connect London and 'the North' now, er, won't. 

That'll really help to reduce CO2 emissions. Not. 

On 10/21/2023 at 11:31 PM, bignok said:

Death at 60 be good enough

If I'd died at 60, I'd have missed the absolute joy of grandchildren. 

Now I want to live as long as I'm able (in both senses of the word) in order to see how they turn out. 

Get a maid. Cheaper than a gadget in the long run and more environmentally friendly 🙂

On 10/22/2023 at 2:16 PM, Chris Daley said:

Makes me wonder how dirty a floor can get during the night with no one walking over it.  Maybe an army of marines came in during the night.  Clean it once a week.

Floors get dirty during the *day* - every day. Clean it when it needs it and if you're cooking and eating in a place it gets dirty surprisingly fast. Plus people shed small amounts of hair and skin cells as they move around, dust falls out of the air 24/7 and if you have a pet....😱

Live and study in Ayutthaya,  take the train into Bangkok for entertainment at weekends. 

19 hours ago, herfiehandbag said:

If I may quote the inimitable Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, from their seminal work, "A Song of Patriotic Prejudice":

"The English, the English, the English are best
So up with the English and down with the rest!
It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad
It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!"

 

They of course were condemning our European neighbours, (all those years before Nigel Farage as well

!) but in these global times I think the sentiment can be applied universally.

They weren't condemning our European neighbours, they were satirising the peculiarly English arrogance that Farage later amplified (for his own benefit). Judging by the responses to this thread, it is still thriving. 

If you were still in the UK and a load of economic migrants ( for that is what many farangs are) fetched up in your home town and started strutting around like they owned it, complaining about the way you did everything, getting drunk and sh*gging your female relatives whenever they could...how would you feel about them?

As  Burns wrote, "Oh would some god the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us"

20 hours ago, bob smith said:

yep. if theres one thing the thais love its a good gossip, especially about a foreigner

 

their lives must be so empty.

All waiting staff in every country in the world gossip about customers, good and bad. The bad customers are the ones who are demanding, rude and don't tip. Let me assure you that there are ways of wreaking quiet revenge on bad customers. Good customers get the best service in places they eat regularly. 

Waiters and waitresses are people earning a living doing a pretty boring job. Treat them likrfellow humans and they'll treat you like one too. A smile costs nothing, for a start. 

2 hours ago, blazes said:

Dublin is preferable to Belfast, where "now"  is pronounced "noy".  

A different thread perhaps, but which is the absolute worst English regional accent?

After Belfast, I'd vote for Liverpool and Yorkshire.  (Sorry if I've offended anyone here.)

I don't know whether you've offended anyone here but you've definitely advanced the cause of Irish reunification a notch or two. 

Most folk tales and most religions say so. 

Let's put it another way ; if you lived your life being unkind to people, what would you expect to happen? Would you feel good about yourself? Would you expect other people to help you when things fall apart?