realfunster

“…needing hospitalization.”

Regrettably, as it was a lengthy 300m drive from his taxi rank to the police station, the standard charge of THB 400 was applied to the wallet en route.

Can Thammanat deliver death blow to teetering govt in censure debate? Allegedly….

True, but do we know who is behind this move ? Maybe they are even more influential or even amongst, ahem, the most influential people…

From the linked article : “He also said that the government hopes that this measure will increase the number of foreigners owning residences in Thailand to about one million” Once I had finished rolling around on the floor, I attempted to drink my coffee but even several minutes after reading this, I still spat it all over my desk. Absolutely hilarious but also so very sad that these incompetents are in charge….

Here, here ! Actually, we should all make the effort to support these shops as much as possible. My "local" is pretty grubby and somewhat limited for choice compared to the 7-11 just 200m further down the road but I try to pop in there as often as possible for basics. Better to support a local independent business than simply sticking even more money in the CP coffers. They really shone through during the ridiculous alcohol sale ban (2020?) and agreed to deliver a case of Leo to my house. I could hear the bottles clinking from a distance as they approached for delivery and was amused to see they had the whole pick-up filled with boxes of beer. Clearly, the entire neighbourhood was thirsty !

I’m looking forward to the independent public inquiry on this. I am aware that will be a very,very long wait… People might be thinking this is a relatively “harmless” corporate issue but many individuals, like myself, had some money in THAI via RMF/Provident Funds etc etc. At that time it was (I assume) seen as relatively failsafe investment with the 51% government ownership. Obviously, that was then changed by the current administration.. I am still waiting for my monies to be returned, at present it has been written off in my RMF investment. The whole saga is a great example of banana republic behaviour…meanwhile, the very same Government that walked away from THAI, are now trying to tempt people with a 40 million investment to buy a rai of Thai land.

Got any numbers to support that 7% GDP claim ? I checked 2011 and 2019 THAI financials/Thai GDP and my data suggests around 1.6% and 1.1%….

A little bit OT but I still vividly remember meeting a friend of a friend during the Pheu Thai days and she was an estate agent in London. When I mentioned I was based over in LoS, she told me she had not long sold a London townhouse to a Thai government minister for several million pounds…

Well, if one has 40 million knocking around. I would expect they are astute enough to get 8-10% returns on that money on global investment markets. That’s 3.2m+ a year, excluding compounding. Locked into a 3 year Thai government bond or debenture would give you, being generous, 2% return. That’s 0.8 million a year, excluding compounding. (Doubt SET will come into play based on previous schemes). I make that a -7.2m “opportunity” cost, excluding a bit more for compounding. Not looking quite so attractive now is it ? There’s also forex risk involved. Those who will be interested, are those looking to park their money away from prying eyes, likely bent government officials and criminals from across Asia-PAC. If I was a multi-multi millionaire, (which you need to be for this scheme to even be vaguely financially viable) whilst a nice villa on Phuket might be of interest, ultimately, I think I might prefer to park my money somewhere where rule of law is honored and quite frankly, a bit more upmarket..

Oh behave yourself- Thailand "a competitive free market" ????. Someone has beat me to it, noting the 83% CP market share in convenience stores, for starters. Highly doubtful any "serious" free-market country would have allowed that to happen. Communications market heading a similar direction when the True/DTAC merger fails to get any proper scrutiny and is approved. Let's face it, Thailand is an oligarchy. If your face. political view and social standing fits, you get the necessary government concessions, licenses and regulations interpreted in your favour. I note the stock photo references to King Power, another member of the anointed ones. I suppose you think they are business geniuses as well ? I propose my dog could probably run just as successful a duty free business operating under near complete monopoly.

Renovations and upgrades complete a week before the match - what could possibly go wrong?… I recall these stadium improvements were stipulated by the clubs as part of the deal, will be interesting to see what, if any, comments they have post-event.

All you need to know from the article, any responsibility is hereby publicly absolved....

That’s good news. Happy she is home safe and sound. Did the family check all her gold and jewelry were still on her person ? According to recent reports, it’s a mugging hotspot down there on the Thai Riviera.

Wasn’t having a go at you, I was just passing broader comment on the article and THAI. Sorry you took it that way. Enjoy your weekend.

Aside from the visual and aural irritation of the Tinglish tag line used by THAI - obviously they got rid of the English speaker in the company during the restructuring - that doesn’t appear to be a particularly attractive offer for most. I am still waiting for my RMF to recover after taking a write down a couple of years ago, as they had invested some of the fund into a Thai airways debenture. As the writer of the article notes, this “Time to Gold” (????) offer appears little more than a short-term cash grab and you should enter at your own risk…

Average age of death with or of COVID in UK is >80. There's a nice Excel spreadsheet on the UK government website detailing statistics from March 2020- present date.

There’s only one solution, increase the military budget by 1 trillion baht, we must be protected from the heathens over the border! Seriously, I’m amazed they even noticed, MH370 slipped through south Thailand with no bother at all…

I got hit last year, I am 90%+ certain the card details were taken when paying for a bill at a restaurant, as that was the only time I had used the card in the preceding few weeks, the card was out of sight for a few minutes and the fraudulent transactions started the day after. It's about time Thailand started using those roaming card readers, like you see in Europe, so payment can be made at the table. Some transactions got blocked but it appears the scammers knew some websites that didn't use 2F authentication and targeted those. All transactions were ultimately reversed/cancelled by Citi and no loss for me.

If you look ahead to August for LHR-BKK, compared to the July quotes provided (which seem reasonably accurate) better deals are to be had in the mid-upper THB 30k range. It's a supply and demand issue, as airlines and airports (many issues with the latter) ramp up operations again, whilst more travellers are coming back into the market. For a while at least, the days of booking tickets a few days or weeks before travelling are over (unless you have money to burn..), and you will be advised to be booking a few months before travel to actually be able to get a ticket and potentially one at a more reasonable price.

Or do you reckon she might just be a familiar face whose job it is to sell them to the public..

Well I was considering it but then I had a spliff and can’t be bothered now.

Sad but utterly predictable. CP are amongst the anointed ones...

Well, that’s an interesting development which puts a touch of relatability on the events. I haven’t read ole’ Stickman for a good while now, thought he had disappeared from the scene… I never partook of the the offerings at Eden club but the reputation of the club and Marc was very well known. Having now read the Stickman piece, Marc appears to have lived a very “colorful” life. A shame it ended in such an undignified manner for himself and even more so for those he dragged into his dramatic final scene…

Your response is representative of modern dogma. Similar to religious text (which it perhaps replaces..) it provides no logic or reason but only a cut & paste prescribed and binary response to an event, without engaging in any critical thinking. For some, the absolute morality "imposed" by religion has to be replaced by other value systems and they immediately shoot things down with no argument but rather insults. E.g "are you from the 1950's" "Victim blaming" has, in modern times, become a meaningless trope. Even if I personally believe a victim has acted recklessly and endangered themselves, this has no relevance as to how criminal law responds and what punishment of the defendant under criminal law follows. A nuanced view, rather than binary or dogmatic evaluation, is much more valuable for humanity but, requires some effort. Be careful what of kind of society you are creating, when people reference " rules" or "dogma" as assumed truths (sounds like a religious or behavioural dictatorship or cult to me...) and classify some things as being not "allowed" to be said. If I was to walk through Klong Toey slum late at night, talking loudly on my brand new THB35,000 iPhone and displaying numerous gold necklaces, if I get mugged, have I in any way contributed to this ? Possibly ? Am I to "blame" -no, the perpetrator is but would would any sensible critical-thinking adult with an understanding of Bangkok say that my actions were a contributing factor ? Could I have better engaged my critical faculties to avoid a dangerous situation ? According to your "dogmatic" response of avoiding "victim blaming" under all circumstances - then absolutely no individual circumspection or responsbility is apportioned to me in the above example or any "victim" under any situation. I think we can do better than that simplistic evaluation. Being able to do what we like in absolute safety is a noble ambition for society but not reflective of human reality.