Nid_Noi

People should get a full refund. The cruise was a “repositioning” trip to Ushuaia so with or without passengers it had to be done. On top of that 20 days across the south Atlantic without sight of land deserve a compensation for boredom.

We have a pond with fish.

No close neighbours at this time…

But there is a direct flight from Vancouver to Bangkok with Air Canada used by many residents from the Seattle and northwest areas. Thai Airlines used to have a direct flight from New York to Bangkok 20 years ago. The aircraft was an Airbus A340. Service and food were exceptional but Thai was losing money (apparently too many royals and top government officials and families were frequent fliers…on points).

Who gains for the price of real estate? The government with all the taxes charged on acquisition and ownership. In Canada developers have to pay huge amount of money to develop the land and finance the infrastructure, making the price of housing obscene. Land by itself is cheap, ask the farmer whose land has been repossessed by their creditors and sold at auction. Municipalities and regional governments are the main culprits. Who needs a sport complex, a performance arts center, a stadium or a top of the art library in a 10,000 inhabitants town? Native people have been excluded from the economic environment by lack of education and opportunities and also mismanagement. Casinos have only benefitted a few. Federal funds have been associated with smuggling or other criminal activities. Many reserves have no running water and sewage system but huge casinos and other gambling outlets.

Exactly, there are so many countries where foreigners are landowners and can leave something valuable to their kids. You can’t even donate a 30 year lease to your kids. It will be on the edge of expiration.

‘Thailand needs to change. Cheap tourists and backpackers are the only ones coming to Thailand. Thailand does not smile anymore. 5 star hotels offer discounts to compete with 3 star hotels. Entire main streets have their stores closed with garbage piling up in the small adjacent sois, resorts are surrounded by slums and street vendors selling Chinese junk. No more Thai artifacts to buy, no more souvenirs to buy.

You don’t need 3 rai for decent house. We have a 400 square meter house on one rai of land. Enough land for 60 square meter pool and 1100 square meter garden, enough to keep a gardener busy 3 days a week. The car port on the edge of the driveway is enough for 2 small cars.

Land like everything else is managed by supply and demand. Why would Thailand be different from other countries? Thailand is for sale with so many acres of unused land without any maintenance. For sale signs are growing like mushrooms without any offers for years, keeping the landlords in poverty. Wealthy Thai families dictates what they are willing to pay, in fact not much. This is why you see so many developments unfinished. Concrete does not make nice ruins, luckily a rapid growth of vegetation removes any trace of these failures and its mountains of garbage. Many wealthy thais have more money than brains and are the worst culprits for destroying the landscape. Maybe Thais could learn how to develop their land harmoniously if they had competition from foreign investors. Zoning and architectural regulations should be implemented to avoid these modern slums. I have seen too many foreigners building beautiful Asian houses (for their Thai wives I suppose) being totally ruined by the construction of garages, poultry processing plants or dozens of slums harbouring migrant workers right to the edge of their properties. Their investment is not even worth the price of the land. Is Thailand able to become a country where the rule of law primes? That’s the million dollar question.

As the article mentions they are several workers from Myanmar.~ Families lost their only source of income. I hope they get some financial help.

Thailand does not smile anymore. The new generations have no knowledge of hospitality and they have no work ethics. 40 years ago more people spoke English, now almost none. Even with their smartphone application they can’t make a sale. Rama 9 spent so much money to educate the Thai, one wonders if this money has not been totally wasted.

All over the western world (based on my experience) all these documents issued by banks, department of finances, brokerage firms, etc…are sent by mail, usually with a return envelope but never by email. Some banks or other tax departments have an internal encrypted messaging module you can use after logging into your account. I still have one bank which prefers faxing confidential documents through landline’s connection with a proof of « received » transmission. I don’t know about Thai post but the couple of times I used Thai post my letters never arrived to their destinations. SoI’ll drop the forms at my K branch and get a receipt dated and signed.

Nothing to be excited about. I receive the same documents (and more) from my foreign banks (US, French, Spanish, Thai) where I have or had accounts. I declare to the Canada Revenue Agency I own foreign bank accounts. In 40 years I never received any request for additional informations and never paid any taxes on my foreign holdings. Canada does not care about what you own overseas as long as you don’t make an income from your overseas holdings. Many « snowbirds » own properties in the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, etc…and they list their properties for rent on internet or through real estate agents. For decades these landlords did not declare the rental income or got paid in cash. Now they need to prove taxes have been paid to either the country where the rental unit is or to the Canada Revenue Agency if Canadian resident. I think this is the next step for foreigners being home owners in Thailand. Do you get any income from your home or condo? Regarding the IRS forms they are standard reporting forms if you receive income, dividends, etc…from a US corp. Either you chose to add these incomes to your Canadian declaration or you may chose the withholding tax by the IRS. Not a big deal as long you can prove taxes have been paid. In conclusion these procedures were the results of wealthy foreign investors (either European but mostly Chinese) buying big chunks of properties, land, houses and condos and getting rental incomes in order to pay the local taxes, maintenance fees and mortgages. But they did not declare the rental incomes. It started by housing relative students studying in North America; once the students graduated, they would rent the units to other foreign students (or fake students) through a network of very elaborate connections. They would even « sell » their cars to the next wave of « students ». If you are not part of these « suckers » nothing to be worried about.

I haven’t been to the UK since the early 90s. Are they still speakers at Hyde Park Corner?

Why not Lampedusa? Free ferry service to mainland Italy.

He is not talking about Canada?? Read again after me BarraMarra’s post: « I am sure you wouldn’t like Canada to walk into the US take everything you had smash your infrastructure….. »

Trudeau invading the USA…with what? Canada is broke, can’t pay its 2% gdp to NATO and euthanize its veterans because it can’t afford to take care of them. Worth watching this report about Trudeau’s army.

…while the driver was texting and another toddler squeezed between his father’s legs was handling the steering of the bike???

Are you talking about the Energy, the worst and ugliest condo development in Thailand. Only in Macau or New Territories can you find this type of development. We are not talking brown kraft envelopes but ocean freighters.

It’s like a scratch on an old vinyl record which keeps playing the same groove over and over…and over…

Not only safety is at risk but waste of energy is tremendous. Adequate cable resistance and short circuitry is the golden rule. To avoid voltage drop due to cable resistance, intensity has to be increased then adding amps generate heat in the circuitry and loss of power. It’a vicious process. Who pay for this waste? The consumer.

« A grant of asylum does not convey a right to remain permanently in the United States and may be terminated. The date of the asylum grant guides the termination procedures. Fraud in the application pertaining to eligibility for asylum at the time it was granted is grounds for termination regardless of the filing date. The USCIS may terminate asylum if USCIS determines that the applicant: - no longer meets the definition of a refugee, - ordered, incited, assisted or participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, - constitutes a danger to the community of the USA, if convicted of a particular serious crime, - committed a serious non-political crime outside the USA prior to arriving, - is a danger to the security of the USA, - ….and many more clauses…like: -termination of asylum status for a principal asylee also results in termination of any derivative’s asylum status. Of course procedures and dispositions can be amended by vote of the congress. If there is a will there is a way to execute the termination of the asylum. As you may know or not the customs and immigration officer has the authority to decide of your entry or your expulsion.

It’s easy to change the procedures to expedite hearings and deportation. Many countries are doing it or have done it.

He did a lot during his first mandate considering he had the senate and other agencies against him. On top of that he had to deal with two impeachments procedures. No war, good economy, low unemployment, energy independence and the Abraham Accords. For the first time since the creation of Israel Jews were allowed to travel to the Arab Emirates and do business and the Emiraties allowed to visit Israel and open trade delegations. He should have received the Nobel Peace Prize. What the last administration has done? Nothing, rien, nada except laundering money at taxpayers expenses in Ukraine and kissing Zelenskyy’s feet. Trump can deport illegal migrants and false legal migrants as easy as Thailand, China or Japan do it. Some EU countries are starting the process as well as the UK. Sanctuary cities may be one a thing of the past. Even Mayor Adams is complaining about the illegal migrants, their violence and cost to the taxpayers. The federal government has created the chaos and turned its back to the municipalities hardship.

These candidates had already lost the elections in 2020 and the next ones in 2024. Don’t tell me Biden got over 81 million popular votes. Biden the backbencher with nothing to his credit and Harris the Marxist-Leninist had nothing in common especially in terms of policies and achievements.