old wanderer

A few years ago I departed LAX with almost $250,000. I had to fill in the Treasury Dept form for my bank, (after giving them 2 weeks notice I was going to want this much cash on this date). Befor going through security at LAX it took my over 15 minutes to locate the "office" (which was a small broom closet near the street entrance doors). Got my formed stamed in 30 seconds. Scanned through securtiy without saying a word, went through Japan X-ray with no comments. At that time there were no limit on cash into Thailand.

Went to Super Rich the next day and got these bundles of million baht notes with no problem.

A few later we were at a land office purchasing a farm.

I have come in/out of the USA numerous time with in excess of the $10,000 limit, and always have my form filled out. The chance of confiscation is just to draconian. Many time when operating in 3 and 4th world countries as a pilot we paid for our fuel in cash as well.

I miss the days when we used to have the $500 and $1000 bills here in the USA.

Right now with the reporting requirements in the USA requiring bank acct # and ammounts in each bank, if you have an agragate of more than $10,000 in foreign deposits. Better to just buy Thai gold, and you can convert it almost as fast as you can go to the bank and withdraw money. (keeps me legal, and the wife happy).

Boy you guys are tough. I have not been on this forum for several years, but wanted some info, so was just looking around.

I see so many of you are really jaded and cold.

Connor.....22 years ago, I had a "Movie Star" quality GF, and had built a nice Teak wood house up on a hill side over a lake. I was passing through Bangkok, and planning on catching a flight to my home the next day. I had stopped by some non-descript Thai resturant for some lunch. The waitress could not understand my Thai...Afer repeating the order 3 times, a group of 3 Thai girls ask me...."what you want", I told them in Thai and they repeated it to the waitress. I replied "That is exactly what I said" and they all started laughing hysterically at me.

Just on a whim, I told them I was going to a very nice resturant that night, and I wanted them to come as my "translators". (Turns out they worked in a sewing factory, and one person was the owner). The owner did not want to come, but the other 2 did because they were Thai, it was free food, and also it was a nice resturant. I gave one of the 100 baht for taxi.

They showed up 40 minutes late (Thai custom), and I found out the owner came from Isan, had only gone to school for 3 years, got fed up with being a maid, borrowed a bunch of money and started her buisness. (Paid all the money back in 7 months). She was 27 at that time.

Over the next 2 years as I would pass through Bangkok, I would take her and some of her worker for food..(never anything romatic). They were just fun hard working people. On day when I was at my mountain house, I found out my GF was also getting money from a guy in England,and another in Germany. Somehow when cooking in a wok, the oil spilled down the stove caught fire, and my house burned down, and I left thinking to never come back to Thailand (broken heart...) I got to Bangkok, and was flying out a 6 Am the next morning and called my friends to come have a last dinner with me. (I swore I would never come back to Thailand...ever....ever...ever). The owner of the sewing company started crying ...saying I don't know why Thai people are like that...both men and women....that is why I decided to never get married...I have never had a boyfriend...I see in my village, and in my company what happens all the time.

Well 2 months later after a lot of consideration, decided I had been fishing in the wrong pool. I had always been a trophy hunter. Maybe what I shoudl look at was a really good heart, and a strong work ethic.

I went back, used my "Silver tounge devil" skill and married that girl 20 years ago...and I could not be happier. We live well, plus have accumulated a small stack of Chanotes, that cover some farms and resort property.

So Conner....ignore these guys, sometimes these things do work out. We host what I call "The Thai Mafia" parties at my home regularly with 15-20 Thai wives with farang husbands. I have a large home, with a good karaoke system, wood fired pizza oven large wood deck and a beautiful view of Mt Raineer. Naturally there is a ton of Thai food, and me men sometimes will do the pizza, and BBQ some steaks...Even the Thai consulate has attended a few of the parties when they are in town.

Choke Dee Conner.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

I have been doing my best to keep a chia dee, but dealing with the in-laws and our farm is driving me a bit crazy.

We are farming 40 rai in irrigated vegitables. The soil is a heavy adobe. I wanted to buy a rototiller, but got so much pushback about it was not how Thai people farm. Just need to plow with a disk plow and throw the seed......

I used to have a 5000 acre ranch, and farmed about 600 of it. So I do have some knowlege of this stuff. I used to have a 8' 100 HP rototiller that I really loved what it did.

Been looking for a 40 HP tractor to operate a rototiller. Found a like new rototiller for 30k baht. Finally I told the inlaws, that I wanted to buy what I want, and will use it when I come to do some things. They can just store it for me.

Why they cannot see the advantage of rototilling and having a great sead bed is beyond me.

If I ever pull the plug and move over here full time, guess I will have to explain too them it is MY FARM, MY INVESTMENT, and I will do it my way. (Well at least the wife will have too).

Farm Land sells for about 10,000 to 20.000 Baht per Rai depending on location. Back in 2003 I paid 4000 Baht per Rai for 16 Rai of "Rice Land" or farmland in my Thai wifes name. Now it is worth maybe 4 or 5 times what we paid. However in my opinion you should not be paying anymore than 20,000 Baht per Rai anywhere in Thailand..

My wife owns quite a few rai outside of Surin. The above prices are about right. However we also own 40 rai up in the mountains near Sara Buri. "She" bought this land with a Chanote, from an old lady that was just tired of arguing and negotiating for a discount, then finding the person only wanted a few rai. She finally told everybody not to bother her any more, and when she was gone, the children could handle the problem.

She had been asking 100k/rai. We have property at a resort that sets on 3 sides of this piece. Land at the resort sell for 1.5 million/rai.

After hearing about this for 3 years, I went and talked to the old lady. The only negotiating I did was to insist she pay all taxes and cost.

When my wife bought it, all our neighbors were more than shocked. Then many came and wanted to buy a rai or less, to make tennis courts, or expand their back yard that this land butts up too. When she told them 1 million/rai it was hilarious watching their reactions....

So the premise of no farm land is worth more than 20K/rai I believe is a bit flawed.

A few years ago, when my wife and I were visiting, I had about 1 million baht in my Thai bank accounts. In June 30 each year those of us that are USA citizens or residents, must report each foreign bank account we have if the aggregate amount is greater than $10,000.

I do not like this law very much.

I withdrew the cash, went to China Town, went into one gold store and asked if they had 70 baht of 10 baht bars....they had 5 but if I could come back in 30 minutes they would have however many I wanted. (I think they just cast them in back). No body blinked an eye at a million baht sale...acted like they do it every day. Threw the notes in the counting machine, and handed me the gold bars. They wrote a little note in Chinese, that basically said they would buy back instantly those bars, no questions asked.

I brought the bars home, and traded 5 of them for 3 monster boxes of silver coins (500 oz each)

Took a very small hit because the bars were 23k vs 24k, but I do wish I had traded all 7 bars. (However the wife is happy when she takes them out to play with them.).

Bottom line, get out of currency and into precious metals. Right now I hold almost 90 % of my money in physical silver, 5% in gold, and 5% in cash.

when they again raise the debt ceiling PM's will take a beating.<br />Albeit temporary because after all what has fixed?<br />

Why is that?

Gold immediately started a small sell off -$14.2 as I type.

Gold moved in parallel with Silver. @ 1403 Hrs on Comax somebody sold 10 Billion dollars worth of silver in one minute. This caused a massive drop in the price naturally. But it is all smoke and mirrors. It was 10X the yearly output of all the silver mines in the USA, so it was not a hedge sell. As usually the banksters are again trying to manipulate the market.

Friday the China gold exchange will open, and I do expect some fireworks.

For me, I just purchased some more on the dip.

Several years ago, as I was getting ready to leave, I had a bit of money in my Thai bank account. I withdrew it and bought 5 10 baht gold bars in China town.

I found if you return to the same place you purchased these bars, the price with be a bit better than if you just walk into a random gold shop in China town.

Of course who want to sell?? I am quite happy just letting them sit in the safe, and every few months the wife likes to take them out and play....and ask "How much now??"

Could not have made a better investment, (unless I would have bought silver).

Policemen don't survive prison.

Wealth and power can achieve any nefarious plot... been proven time and again.

If Yingluck is PM, TC will return for the wedding with Isaan's jubilation.

Corruption corrupts.

How true the statements below about the arrogance of many. Have we so soon forgotten "Sae Dang" ??

He believed himself to be untouchable during the protest. That all changed with a BANG.

It could just as easily happen to Thaskin. (I am surprised that it has not already hapened).

YO Flying! do i has to repeat "KEEP DA SILVA MAN!"

mah theory did done workin'... until now

Yep gotta feel a bit foolish now having swapped out 15% @ 47/1

Seeing the ratio now @ 36.39/1 gave up 10oz per on those

Mai Bpen Rai could have been worse....could have sold instead of swapped

Ok no more swapping till 16/1

I moved heavily (90%) into Ag almost 2 years ago. Got tired of people complaining about my "Tin Hat", when I would try and get others to move into physical.

1st of the year when we were at 45:1 ratio, I had some friends that wanted to trade for Au. Might as well have been talking to the wall. They did it. Today we are at 36:1 and sinking like a rock. My link

Yes Ag is a PIA to store, and I will move it into Au starting somewhere around 20:1.

Gold will always be the #1 hedge against the "Zimbabwe" factor. I read an interesting article a few months ago. I talked about how most people cannot conceive of what they have not experienced. The call it the "Normalcy Bias". I now accept this of my friends, and have quit trying to talk about silver unless asked.

I am so glad I moved into silver 1.5 years ago...haven't made any money, just preserved what I have.

how did you manage not to make any money with silver gaining more than 100%?

There are 2 possible interpretations to that statement.

1. Old Wanderer considers silver itself to be "money". In which case, unless one silver coin took another silver coin out for dinner and a movie, closed the deal and made a little baby silver coin in the bargain, it is true that he has no more "money" than he had to begin with. He may have more notional fiat value, but that could be a different thing than money depending on your perspective.

2. As I believe it is always you who point out to us Naam, the only way to make money on collectibles such as PMs is to actually sell said collectibles. They don't pay dividends. Thus, if Old Wanderer has not sold his silver, by your own logic he in fact has not made any money.

I don't think it is smart to get excited about PMs increasing in fiat value. The fact is it simply means you'll be able to acquire less in the future, and the global situation is only going to get worse from here on out. I too feel I have not made any money, despite gold tripling in THB value since I started collecting it. In the long run, I'll be happy if I can just keep what I have now. That is going to be impossible for most of us. As delightful as the previous 2 centuries of ascent and growth have been for the majority, the coming 2 centuries of descent and collapse are going to be dismal.

You are correct in surmising I have not sold anything. I look at the rapidly escalating prices, and while the fiat value has indeed been near 200%, that is somewhat diminished by the 40% increase in most prices.

I always enjoy looking at this graph from Zimbabwe. Look at the Zimbabwe stock exchange that went from 1,420 in January 2005 to 5.4 trillion in June 2008, a 3 billion per cent increase.

I have been accused of sometimes wearing a tin foil hat, however, those residents of Rhodesia, who traded their dollars on a 1:1 ratio for the Zimbabwe dollar, never believed they could gain 3 billion per cent on their investments.....or did they???

Could this happen to the worlds reserve currency as well?

Well I am no mahdoo, (fortune teller), but I am content to let my pile of silver bricks continue to lie here, not making a penny of interest, nor generating one stang of tax liability.

As the bankers sell massive amounts of silver( and gold ) they don't own the price will not stay down /

and if they cannot force it down They derserve everything they are about to recieve /

Have you learned nothing?

The bastards will get bailed out.

There are, IMO, believable ideas that Brown flogged off the UK gold at rock bottom prices to save a couple of banks with massive short positions that had to be covered.

Well Argentina kept taking the banks losses and turning them into public debt. Finally the entire system collapsed. The USA government, took all the toxic debt the bank had, and put it on the tax payers backs, bought 2 bankrupt auto makers, and made that public debt, then loaned unlimited money to the banks at less than .5% interest, which they then bought government bonds at 3.5% interest, so the fed could then print more money.

Gee do you really think this Ponzi scheme will work??

I do not think JPM will be bailed out this time.

I am so glad I moved into silver 1.5 years ago...haven't made any money, just preserved what I have.

I moved fully into Silver 18 months ago. I have a small account I use for trading with Kitco. It has allowed me to ratio trade G/S but it took about .8 ratio change to break even. Since 3 weeks ago, then trend line is going down at a steep angle. I have remained fully invested in Silver.

By monitoring the ratio, and slope of the line, you can get some indication when to do swaps. For the physical I would just leave it set. It is doing nothing but making profit. More than 100$ in the past year. 19 months ago it took 65 oz of silver to buy 1 oz of gold, today it takes 42.

When will I move to Gold? It looks like it will be somewhere below 20:1. In any case G/S have a symbiotic relationship, and the % of gain varies from one to the other. So by moving early or late, will just effect the % of profit, not a situation where one will loose and the other gain.

We are in for one spectacular ride coming into March.

I am heavily invested in Silver, both physical bullion and a trading account. The returns the past 2 years have been absolutely astounding. I am well past 100%. My wife really did not agree with silver, she wanted gold. To pacify her I took 500 oz and traded it for 8 oz of gold. Some months later I laid on the bed 500 oz of silver, and her 8 oz of gold...."How much is it worth now?" Did the same thing New Years...except with my 500 oz I could buy 12 oz of gold....we traded the gold back for silver. Last year gold made 23% Silver 76%. It is the closing G/S ratio and the much smaller pool of players that make silver so dynamic.

I looked at when I will be spending more time in Thailand and how to deal with the silver. My trading account is with Kitco who is a Canadian company. They do currently have an office in both Hong Kong, and Shanghai. They indicated (however no one has ever requested this) if I wished to take physical delivery it could be arranged in about a week at either of those offices. They are considering a Singapore office, and that would be perfect. I have found most Singapore banks offer accounts in multiple currencies, so you can switch balances from one to another on-line at no charge, plus the ATM cards are 6 digits vs 4 here in Thailand.

Better than the ETF's they are perfectly happy to deliver your account holding to you at any time you choose. For a person with just a few hundred oz this is not practical, traveling to China for delivery, but if forced to move some assets, I would simply convert to gold for a short time, then back into my silver.

Well it was quite an experience to watch my wife in action. She come from a small village outside of Surin. They are all Suay people there. After 10 years of marriage, and the death of her father, there came the time to re-do and modernize her mothers Thai house.

She went to a number of people around Surin, and finally got some people in from Bangkok to do the work. We were going to remodel the upstairs Thai house, and then poor cement and build a large room under the house with large windows, and smooth textured wall, complete with nice wood trim. Finally a nice porch/patio out in-front for people to sit a talk and eat sum tum.

This was all her money she was spending saved up from several rice farms she owns. She had started her own sewing business at age 22, so understands how to negotiate, and deal with suppliers.

I just sat back and sipped on my cold beer or coke, and watched the whole circus, She was pushing people, yelling in 3 different languages, (Thai, Suay, and Lao) making sure everything was going to come out perfect.

Amazingly it did. Her mother is super proud of having the #1 house in the village, my wife is proud of bring a piece of the farang world to the village, and most people in the village are happy they have such a nice looking home, except for 1 aunt that went crazy with jealousy, spent 1 million baht (extorted from her children), remodeling her house, and failed to match the quality, or design of my mother-in-laws home, so she left her husband and moved in with some of her kids in another city......

Yep building in Surin is interesting. Glad I have a wife that love style and know how to work with the local people.

I have exactly your situation, my wife has my sir name.

She also has a big stack of chanotes in her farang sir name.

2 ways this happens:

1. I sign a statement that this land was purchased with her money

2. Her mother gives her land. (that maybe she just purchased), so it is an in-family transfer and does not need my signature.

I took a couple of designs to ThaiGem (Thaigem.com) and they did a very nice job. Offices in Chantaburi and Bangkok. Price wAS OK as well.

I just find it stange that non of the people that have commented about this case have mentioned the following fact.

Each country has a right to promulgate any laws within their bordersw they wish. However the USA passes laws that effect people that have never been within their borders and inteded to be with those borders.

I do not feel any country has a right to have such laws.

What goes on within a country is fair game, however the actions of people that remain outside those borders, should not be subjected to the laws of a country they have no contact with.

I have a Kawasaki 2009 KLR 650. They are made in Thailand, but never sold here because of the engine size (I guess).

How would customs and import duty be on something that orinally came from Thailand?

The other dual sport bike I have is the Aprilia CapoNord, but there I can get a temp import paper in Singapore and will be good for a year, then a long ride to get another for it.

Precious Metals Default Scenarios

http://www.bullionbullscanada.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16912:precious-metals-default-scenarios&catid=48:gold-commentary&Itemid=131

Exelent article Churchill. This reflects my thinking almost exactly. One reason I am in 80% physical silver and 20% paper silver.

But what do I know??? Better go shop for a new tin hat. Everybody knows the government will always save the day.

Another intresting headline from China questioning the international currency market and if it is a relic from the past.

Does Karma exist???? Or maybe something else that is the same but by a different name.

How self-righteous so many sound here. On and on about how a woman's children by somebody else should not be your concern.

Now I am an old geezer, and had the pleasure of passing through the 60's with money and a free spirit. It was a life where aids was unknown, and the sex was just a pleasant pastime.

One of the few things I do regret is my lack of personal responsibility back in those days, as I was none to careful in where I spilled my seeds. I was pretty much a silver-tongue-devil, that took delight in winning the hearts of pretty young ladies. Only to leave for the next challenge. There is no doubt in my mind I have heirs that I have never known about. Worse, when I would sometimes get letters, or a word from a friend of a friend, I would just ignore it, as it was 8000 miles away.

I am sure that my background is not unique, so I would find it extremely difficult to pass judgment of how some woman ends up with a few kids. The least I could do now, is to try and pay some of my debt burden I have accumulated in my irresponsible life style some years ago. While I leave a lot of this to my wife, (just so I do not get tempted) we do have people that work for us, that for what ever reason have children without fathers. To give some employment, and provide education for their children is a small price to pay.

..........considering she brings 2 kids from another man to the table.

Is she?

I thought OP proudly announced his wife paid everything for her kids.

This is the thing that gets me most. I don't like the way the OP is basically boasting that he has a great girl that is doing everything the way he wants it and the kids are left with someone else. Where is your sense of responsibility man?

If you find the girl you love and marry her, you not only get her but you get everything, all the bells and whistles. Kids aren't chattels and it is disgusting you are treating them as such. You have her, you have her kids as well. I just can't believe you can live with yourself knowing the person you love is seperated from her children because you are too tight arsed and smug.

It isn't too late, why not step up to the plate and be a man. If you aren't willing to take on ALL responsibilities then perhaps it is best that you found a wife that didn't have children. Set her free, let her have the next 10 years catching up on the lost years of her childrens lives.

Here endeth the rant.

Well let us not be too harsh....I have already stated these kind of threads really disgust me. However maybe my primary basis is wrong.....that basis is.

"You can't take it with you"

Maybe the Swiss miser has found a way???

And for all of you Farang's that have been or have friends that have been "shafted". Maybe you failed to communicate.

Early on in my marriage, I took time to open the wife's eye's about "family and friends". Who is who and how to judge them. Just last week I saw her using these lessons. After a group of 6 Thai ladies were at our house for food and talk, my wife came downstairs and sat next to me.

"Nok no good. She told Pa she would never pay anything for me as I have too much money. I already buy her food, candy, and even some cloths when we went shopping" In my lessons I showed her how real friends share and do what they can within their means. People that are just user will use. She sees this clearly now, and applies these observations to both family and friends.

Many years ago we went to her tiny village from America. She brought almost 70 pounds of clothing. She had always brought some clothing to her village even before we met. I told her to observe and see how many of the people taking things bothered to even thank her....Maybe 30 people were there, only 2 thanked her. Now when she takes clothing, she gives each piece to someone she selects, gone are the days of just dumping a bunch of stuff out on a table and have people grab whatever they think is expensive or they can sell.

It is a responsibility each of us have, if we wish to judge by our standards, then we much teach those standards to our mate and have them see the value in hose standards, or change our standards and adopt another that we find better.

The gorilla in the corner nobody talks about it the ETF market.

10 years ago this did not exist. You bought physical, or you bought leveraged contracts.

5 years ago you did not hear these non-stop adds on TV advertising physical gold. lots of people are buying into the market, or if these adds did not produce a profit, they would not run them.

So what is happening this week is not surprising. You had institutional investors buying into the ETF market as it is non-leveraged. Depending on when they got in, some made good profits, and we saw this when the markets opened back up after the 1st of the year. Then the follow on, with "the price is dropping" scares, which took more money out of the ETF pool.

While I am committed to the silver market, it does track the gold market, but a 2x to 4x to percentage swings. I added to my investment at $28.50 last week, and even if we should see a big spike down, I will hold tight, as next month there will be whole new world out there.

Reading all these post really disgust me. I have been married to my Thai wife for 15 years.

Why does a person want a "wife". Maybe I am a romantic, but in my world it is to "share" love.

All the majority of people post about is MONEY!

The best discussion of love I ever heard was a definition of: Love is a condition where the other persons happiness is essential to your own. And this is the way it turns out for us. Both of fully realize that we would not be near as happy as independent individuals as we are together.

We are certainly not poor, nor exceeding rich. However each has dreams and desires of what we want. We simply discuss them, make a plan, come to an agreement, and work together to achieve each one. My wife has her own money, as do I. She owns a lot of land in Thailand, and a few businesses. I have my work in the USA, and fall into the upper 10% tax bracket. I am sure she would live quite comfortably without me in Thailand, however when WE decided to buy some more land, buy equipment, or build another house, once the decision is made, we are honest with each other about what we can contribute, and go and do it. It has not been uncommon for her to contribute more to the price than me.

It has been more than 10 years since we even had a serious argument. What we have in abundance is trust and friendship.

I would have never expected to end up married and happy 17 years ago, when I met this young lady sitting at a table near me, with 2 of her employees from a sewing company she owned, trying to help translate my poor Thai to the waitress as I was ordering some lunch. She could probably manage 20 words in English (but speaks 3 other local languages). The not so typical Issan girl with 4 years of school, that did not want to be anywhere near a Thai man (father was an alcoholic) so set out to build a little company in Bangkok.

17 years ago, I was a confirmed playboy, that loved to come to Thailand every 3 months and enjoy the pleasures. Now I am monogamous, and certainly do not regret it.

So for the OP, you might be proud of protecting your money, but what have you done about truly enjoying life, and see someone Else's joy at seeing there dreams come true.

My wife has accumulated a nice stack of Chanotes lending money. She give the people about 3 years to repay, and charges a part of the crop as interest.

I never pay too much attention to her business affairs.

When my mother-in-law needed a new roof, my wife asked me if I would pay...I told her when we went this summer I would. I asked her if she had any money in the bank in Thailand, or was it all loaned out...I about fell off my chair when she told me she had over 1 million baht in her bank. And she still has more rice that she has not sold yet.

We reached an agreement that I would give her the money for a roof, and she could put in her bank account here and have her mother take the money from her Thai bank account and do the roof now, before it starts to rain again. Better than me transferring money to Thailand.

We have been married for 15 years, and seem to work things out pretty well.

I would get on the internet and carefully read the history of Iceland. The bank there were giving execelent returns on deposits. The citizens were happy, and investors had thought they were safe.

Right up until the day everything went out the window. The currency became almost worthless, banks failed and were closed. The Icelandic government was so unhappy they even (for a change) put some of the bankers in jail.

I would never commit to having my future located in one central location. The Swiss Franq is very stong today. Look at accounts that you can hold multiple currencies and change on line. Singapore is great for this.

A lot of my friends acuse me of wearing a tin hat, because I moved 98% of my wealth into gold and silver over the past 2 years. Last year silver was up 73% and still going strong, gold was up 23%. So if I have to dress funny to have returns like this on my money, so be it.