Jingthing

Whatever the level, chances are it'll still much more affordable to live in Thailand than in the U.S.!

Thanks for sharing.

Agreed. Don't bring up the topic with Thais. The fact is that China is much closer to Cambodia than Thailand.

Yes and no. Actual last minute would be impossible to fully fix. Relatively speaking to fully fix it and avoid a cut, we're getting close to the real last minute.

The cut would be a (severe) percentage of your current benefit at the time of the cut so not a set number for all.

Yes and no. Nobody would be cut off now about this. Cutoffs would happen next year. But I agree with you as we know this hasn't been sent to expats anywhere in the world and we know they are saying it is delayed, it's totally jumping the gun to take ANY action at this point.

I think that's a bad idea. Very dodgy. Altering a government form. The legit thing to do would be to cross out what you think should be changed, put in your change, and put your signature initials in each place you do that.

Trump should pay from his own money.

Exactly.

Trump is a big bully. The immigration policies of other sovereign nations are NONE of his business.

That's ridiculous.

I don't believe you. I'm sure the majority of Brits understand the threat of Putin's Russia goes way further than Ukraine. Even the majority of more isolationist Americans support helping Ukraine.

It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. I guess you haven't been paying attention to what's happened to the U.S.

Cult?

What a crock! Totally false equivalence. That was about promoting a political policy about the environment. It had NOTHING to with Biden's personal profit.

Foreigners are now being justifiably advised to only bring burner phones into the U.S. I think returning Americans will also be more subject to phone searches. Is there such a thing as burner phones for sale in Thailand?

I said this conflict has nothing to do with western expats in Thailand or Cambodia and I stand by that. However, the end result of this in the sense that the Thai side of the conflict reflects an internal power/money struggle in Thailand may indeed have an eventual impact on how western expats are treated by the Thai government. So we're spectators but that doesn't mean we're totally immune to the eventual consequences.

Wasting many millions of U.S. taxpayer money to promote his personal business interests in golf courses in Scotland. What a sleazeball! The most corrupt American "president" in history and it ain't even close.

Suggest we focus on Thailand vs Cambodia here. There are plenty of other places to talk about Russia vs. Ukraine

In my opinion you are completely wrong. Western expats in Russia and Ukraine are mostly highly engaged in that war. Even sometimes to the point of fighting. That war has deep Implications to the west. Thailand vs. Cambodia almost none.

Yeah if it becomes a national thing beyond only the border expats will be forced into this.

Well your point is worth noting If looking at this localized conflict in a wider world powers geopolical way it is true that Thailand is somewhat more closely allied with the USA or west and Cambodia is closely entangled with China. But keeping with my thesis here I don't think western expats are much engaged in that. I think a long term American expat in Cambodia is still going to identify with Cambodia in this conflict. Of course if it becomes much bigger and different than it is now that could change.

I won't call it a "war" yet and hopefully calmer heads will prevail very soon. However, they might not and right now it's rapidly headed in a very bad direction. So I've been thinking about the situation of western expats both in Thailand and Cambodia especially if this drags on and on and gets much worse. My opinion is that expats should be as invisible as possible about all this. We're not Thai and we're not Cambodian. It's really none of our business. It's not like Russia vs. Ukraine which has very specific meanings to very many westerners. Whatever the political narratives are on both sides, it seems to me that they have nothing to do with us. It occurs to me that NATURALLY long term expats in Thailand are going to side with Thailand just out of affinity and that expats in Cambodia will naturally do the same. Not because of believing or not believing the opposing political narratives, but just because we are here and they are there. That's kind of an odd situation, don't you think?

In some case, perhaps. In any case, even for those that think such cruel and unusual inhumane conditions are ever justified, they certainly should only be reserved for the most extreme criminal cases. The Trump regime has not done that at all! All decent Americans are appropriately disgusted with this. Trump's strongest issue was immigration. A winning issue for the magas. Even on that, he is far underwater on approval. That's what you get when you take things way too far.

Don't ever forget what he is.