realfunster

6 hours ago, Grumpy John said:

It's really only panic buying if your buying things you wouldn't normally use.  Like if I  went and bought a keg of beer and 100 cartons of cigarettes...... If your just buying stuff you normally use it's just buying in advance.

That's a good reminder actually - in my haste I probably would have forgotten the essential cigarettes and alcohol stockpile.

Would be doubly miserable to be stuck at home for 2 weeks+ without these !

Well, you reap what you sow.

An economy which is, at best, lukewarm to international inbound investment and ownership can’t simply pick and choose when to invite people in when it suits them.

The international community has already developed their own assessment of Thailand as an investment destination, based on wider perception of investment/ownership rules, weak legal enforcement, availability of skilled employees and lack of a genuinely open and free market economy. That’s before even considering the socio-political baggage. 

A source at THAI speculated that the reason behind Airbus not showing up is that they are uncertain they could fulfill the condition of bringing in a specific number of customers or aircraft to use the MRO throughout the contract period, and that Airbus already has another MRO contract in Sepang, Malaysia.

Indeed, of which they have been shareholders of since 2011 and fully acquired in 2017. One assumes Thai were aware of this, and have likely been pissing in the wind for 2 years, still, some good marketing for EEC to throw the Airbus name in the mix...

Perhaps showing some flexibility on the customer/aircraft numbers per MRO contract would have been a good idea to get Airbus signed up. 

What a load of horse<deleted>.

Lots of international visits to our office have been cancelled for over a month now. Tourism will be similar.

The Thai staff in our office are freaking out like children about Thais returning from JP/KR/CN. Demanding a 2 week quarantine (after recent MoE announcement). Not going to happen until things get much worse.

Never mind the thousands of tourists (less than before but still huge numbers) arriving from these high-risk countries every day in Bangkok/Pattaya & Phuket......

Never mind that, with the cheap airfares on offer at the moment, Thais are disregarding the risks and looking to buy these tickets/packages to high risk countries....

Never mind that the old guy today, who tested positive and travelled to ahigh risk country flatly denied travelling overseas...I mean seriously ? What kind of idiotic culture or mindset would suggest this as a appropriate response ?

Never mind that if infected 'locals' put face saving or pride above fact, that the risk of transmission/spread is exponentially increased.

You can really see from the current status figures which cultures have a measured, logical, open and risk based approach to managing this disease, from both authorities and citizens and which don't......

Several Asian countries are really not covering themselves in glory....only confirming that they are pseudo-fascist/communist states with illiterate and uneducated populations.

They were never going to stop anyone working other than public sector, which is not insignificant but hardly the majority.

Private sector typically just ignores the occasional ad-hoc holidays the government throws out, especially now as public holidays are already increased over recent years due to additional holidays such as Rama 9 Memorial Day (whilst Father’s Day is kept in December) plus new holidays for current King & Queen’s birthday. 

Bigger picture they should reform and enforce reasonable private sector annual leave regulations and wind down the number of public holidays. 

That way, when you did have a holiday it wouldn’t necessarily be at the same time as 70 million other people....

4 minutes ago, Canuck1966 said:

Richard Barrow in Thailand

13 mins · 

The Thai Minister of Public Health today angrily said all of those [CENSORED] farang tourists should be kicked out of Thailand if they refuse to wear face masks. He went on to say that the Chinese and other Asian tourists accepted the face masks he handed out, but not those [CENSORED] European tourists.

* The word I censored is ไอ้พวกฝรั่งนักท่องเที่ยว which is a very derogatory way to refer to people. I don’t want to say it in English. The last part is “farang tourist” meaning Caucasians.

 

Welcome to Thailand. The Land of Smiles.

In Google translate it is suggested as b'stard tourists ????

Well, seems unclear if he has actually passed away ?

Anyway, the good doctor is a hero in my eyes, putting the truth and danger to the public above his personal considerations.

Truly shameful and dim witted  initial response from the local authorities, a perfect examples of the failings of authoritarian governments and their wish to micro-control narrative at the expense of their citizens.

I have seen a fair bit of grumbling on the internet about this one.

Aside from the noise & general disruption, it appears they left the route in quite a state afterwards with tables, chairs, tents & rubbish left in situ for a long while.

Should have been cancelled due to the terrible AQI anyway.

You can add addressing the air quality issue to the list of things to improve "to make Thailand the venue as the seventh prominent marathon stadium in the world ."

Unlike other recent restaurant signs, they forgot to put the 'Love you.' at the end.

Just now, theanimaster said:

Must have been shot up with yabaa... you’d have to be seriously sick (or American) to shoot at a little kid. 

I am not American but what on earth on you on about ?

A very sad and brutal case, RIP to all involved. Let's hope for a quick capture of the perpetrator.

18 minutes ago, JAG said:

I wonder whether the other 17 "jurisdictions" include Hong Kong and Macau? It would be interesting to know where the idea to make life that bit more difficult for the people of Taiwan came from?

I checked, Hong Kong & Macau are 30 day visa on arrival, same as EU etc.

Seems odd as Taiwan is a medium/high GDP country and visa restrictions are normally based on security or economic risks.

Both seem somewhat unlikely in this case. With a population of >20 million, a reasonable size and quality market for TAT.

Mind you, would probably <deleted> off the Chinese if Taiwan got a better visa status.

That's the worst wig I have ever seen. 

Sounds a bit odd if true, but if it is, then fair play to the Grab lads for standing up for themselves. It’s usually the taxi/motorbike taxis doing the harassing of the competition, the Grab lads were probably just returning the compliment.

In Bangkok, over the last year I have noticed a massive increase in Grab/LalaMove/Line etc riders.

I wonder if the balance of numbers, and therefore power, has finally shifted...

1 hour ago, PatOngo said:

re·ces·sion

/rəˈseSH(ə)n/

noun

 

 

 

1. 1.

   a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.

    

   I guess they have a different definition here!

    

    

In the UK, recession has always been considered as 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth (I.e below zero - overall gdp decreasing rather than growing at a slow rate).
The definition you provided is consistent with this, so no, Thailand is not (yet) experiencing a fall in overall gdp and meeting these criteria of recession but the growth rate is slowing considerably. 
Clearly, with Q3’19 only being quarterly growth of 0.1%, they are teetering on the brink..