realfunster

At one stage, during darker days with COVID, I found your statistical analysis interesting and informative, Appreciate your efforts but frankly it is not useful anymore and it just rings of scaremongering, we are entering the end game.... Researching and presenting statistics on a daily increase from 15-30 deaths a day is meaningless. From the OP : From July 5-17, the average number of ventilator-dependent patients increased from 300 per day to 369 per day while the average number of daily fatalities increased from 16 to 21. so around 25%-30% of daily road deaths....look forward to the detailed government statistics and actions on that.. Dr Opas also reported an increase in fatalities among the elderly and those with underlying diseases who received their third COVID vaccination dose more than three months ago. yes, we know about risks for elderly & comorbidities after 2.5 years of COVID. Average age of "COVID" death in UK is >80. Detailed information readily available on UK government website from March 2020-present date. The DDC director-general said people infected with the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants reported experiencing sore throat, irritation and muscle and body aches. He advised those exhibiting any of the symptoms to test themselves immediately and seek medical care at their nearest hospital. I see, that might just explain the increase in hospital admissions might it not ? A typically over-cautious Thai public servant advising presenting yourself to hospital even if no or mild symptoms ?...Pre-COVID has anyone else experienced the cultural difference between a Western and Thai doctor ? Go home, take some paracetamol and lie down for a few days vs let me prescribe you 6 different medicines and admit you to hospital ? One Thai doctor even tried to admit me once for a sore throat, once he saw my health insurance would pay out... The end is nigh, global COVID deaths...

Of course, must protect the trough !

Oh, would be so nice if I could get away with these sort of <deleted> forecasts at work... Meanwhile in the thread immediately below this on the news page "TAT’s marketing plan 2023 to revitalise Thai tourism towards high value and sustainable growth". 30 million pax doesn't sound like a target which fits with a 'high value and sustainable' strategy to me...

It's certainly popular at the moment - when I occasionally pop into the sticks, I have started noticing some industrial scale durian farms being constructed replete with water pumps and spray systems. Let's hope the Chinese haven't bored of durian by the time the trees actually produce some fruit !

Total fail straight off the bat - just looking at Khun Noppawan is giving me impure thoughts !

“…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.