CaptHaddock

No problem. I have done it from time to time. I pay with a credit card and payment has always gone smoothly. Maybe a problem with your paypal account. Try something else.

Download an up-to-date copy of vlc, a video player, from www. videolan.org. Open the file with your movie in it. Then click on the "Subtitles" menu item, and then, "Add subtitle file."

There are other ways, of course. You might, for example, after opening the file in vlc, click on "View" in the menu bar, and then "Download subtitles." Vlc will then find the subtitle files on the internet. Doesn't always work, but convenient, when it does.

When the concept of "tomorrow/the future" is unknown it's kind of hard to plan for it.

This is a statement of the narrowness of your point of view. It's an old saw of (Western) sociology that the degree to which an individiual plans for the future depends on his relative standing in society. Even in the US, the working class lives paycheck to paycheck and saves nothing. A recent survey found that 50% of US households could not muster $2000 for an emergency without borrowing. The middle class and the upper middle class plan for the much longer horizon of retirement, for which decades of preparation are required. The upper class spends a lot of time and money in estate-planning using such arcane instruments as Generation-Skipping Trusts, which divide the inheritance between the children and the grandchildren for the purpose of avoiding the additional inheritance tax bite if it all goes to the children and only on their death to the grandchildren. One of the very meanings of wealth is the relative ability to control the future.

So, from the point of view of a wealthy patriarch with an elaborate estate plan that is the product of collaboration between lawyers and financial managers your pathetic retirement would look like severe dereliction. Would that seem reasonable? Your view of the Thais is similarly unreasonable. Thailand is a country full of poor and desperate people who are one problem away from bankruptcy. They are trying to survive. Your failure to grasp that says more about you than them.

My post was never meant as criticism of Thais - merely an observation. If you fail to grasp that a lack of understanding that tomorrow eventually will come often can and do lead to financial problems for many locals then you don't know LOS very well.

Excuse me for writing over your head. I mistook you for someone else.

if you had no money, your wife would be back to Isaan without hesitation. I could write same story in UK, Germany, Australia... living in a country where people shoot and kill at each over in movie theatre is not what I can call a good country.

I never liked the USA with their car everywhere and people are too materialist. the US food is just too boring and US farangs are the dumbest in the world... I stay in Thailand.(no US bashing, just the reality)

I don't know any farang from USA in Thailand -- I don't know if I would like the farang from wherever you come from but, then again, it seems that you don't come from anywhere.

no, you would not like me or where I m from ! trust me

I'm an American, but I feel pretty much the same as VIP about my countrymen, who are, with some exceptions, a bunch of yahoos.

I think currency reserves are not the only factor that determine exchange rates. Other factors are economic policy and the strenght/growth of the economy. The lack of rain (i.e. less income for farmers) can affect the value of the baht vs other currencies.

Moreover, the rising dollar is often explained as a "flight to safety" in uncertain times. This affects most other currencies. The euro is expected to reach parity with the dollar in the near future.

We're just talking about Thailand's foreign exchange reserves (I think, LOL.) It holds most of those reserves in USD. The OP says "BANGKOK: -- The recent weakening of Thai baht has reduced Thailand’s foreign reserves by US$ 1.5 billion or 52.3 billion baht to US$ 157.3 billion or 5.376 trillion baht against US dollars."

That doesn't make sense to me. I realize they are stating everything in USD no matter what it is, but I simply don't understand how the value of other major currencies could have dropped enough to offset the value of holdings in USD, Pound Sterling, Yuan...

The bulk of Thailand's foreign reserves have long been in the form of US treasuries denominated in USD. I just don't know how that value went away in either dollars or the baht they could be converted to. ??

Cheers.

I just explained it to you. The value of the dollars in dollars obviously did not drop. The quantity of dollars did drop. I speculated as to why that quantity went down, but the fact is that it was the quantity that dropped, not the value.

When the concept of "tomorrow/the future" is unknown it's kind of hard to plan for it.

This is a statement of the narrowness of your point of view. It's an old saw of (Western) sociology that the degree to which an individiual plans for the future depends on his relative standing in society. Even in the US, the working class lives paycheck to paycheck and saves nothing. A recent survey found that 50% of US households could not muster $2000 for an emergency without borrowing. The middle class and the upper middle class plan for the much longer horizon of retirement, for which decades of preparation are required. The upper class spends a lot of time and money in estate-planning using such arcane instruments as Generation-Skipping Trusts, which divide the inheritance between the children and the grandchildren for the purpose of avoiding the additional inheritance tax bite if it all goes to the children and only on their death to the grandchildren. One of the very meanings of wealth is the relative ability to control the future.

So, from the point of view of a wealthy patriarch with an elaborate estate plan that is the product of collaboration between lawyers and financial managers your pathetic retirement would look like severe dereliction. Would that seem reasonable? Your view of the Thais is similarly unreasonable. Thailand is a country full of poor and desperate people who are one problem away from bankruptcy. They are trying to survive. Your failure to grasp that says more about you than them.

As Hyman Roth explained so movingly to the young Michael Corleone, "This is the life we have chosen." As an expat with assets/pension in one currency and liabilities in another we are always at the mercy of exchange rates. We have always known about the danger than inflation could pose to retirement income over time. But as voluntary expats we have chosen to accept exchange rate risk, which as we have seen, is, in fact, much higher than inflation. The only way to eliminate that risk is to move all your assets into Thai baht, but only a madman would do that. The other alternative is to move to a country with a better exchange rate, but that sounds like too strenuous a plan for aging pensioners. At the moment, it's the Canadians, Aussies, and Kiwis who are taking it in the ear, while the Brits and Americans are sitting pretty, but the wheel can turn.

For further evidence of low education level, take a look at those incoherent graphs. Pie charts must always add up to 100% because they explain the composition of something. So, here we have pie charts that add up to more than 100%. Or the chart on the left that mixes allocation of commuting time with percent of income. What does "50% has some savings, but are unsure if it is sufficient" mean? Is the other 50% sure that they have sufficient savings or do they have none?

Complete gibberish.

I think the drain on USD reserves happens because businesses that do transactions in dollars need more dollars than formerly because the baht is weaker. So, they buy the additional USD from the BOT. The last time I looked some time ago, the BOT's USD reserves were around $200 billion. So, the decline of the baht over the last few years has already caused significant erosion. It's not because the the BOT is trying to support the baht. Just the opposite is the case. Pridyathorn has publicly stated recently that they want to weaken the baht to support exports, although this might just be a case of Pridyathorn putting the best face on a situation that is out of his control.

Thailand's high level of USD reserves is the result of a policy change that arose after the Tom Yum Goong crisis of 1997, when a flight of foreign capital (the famous "hot ball of money") from Thailand caused, among other effects, all of the major Thai banks to be unable to repay their dollar loans, because they didn't have enough dollars. The banks were forced to sell 49% ownership shares to US banks at firesale prices to avoid going bankrupt. Following the crisis, Thailand and other Asian countries in particular, resolved to avoid a similar crunch in the future by maintaining high dollar reserves. China maintains high reserves, but for different reasons. The downside of the high dollar reserve policy of Thailand and the other countries is that a large chunk of wealth is tied up in useless currency and US Treasury bonds that could be invested in developing the country. A side effect of the maintenance of high dollar reserves is to keep the USD at a high level, which, while it may be desirable for us expats, has a harmful effect on the US economy, in particular, on manufacturing for export.

flatrate.com moved us from NYC a few years ago. They packed everything themselves. We got it about a month later delivered to the apt. Nothing broken or missing. Everything as promised. We were pleased with them and would use them again.

I don't believe businesses in Thailand are required to pay interns. I know of one actual internship and that student is not being paid. The labor department did an onsite inspection of the workplace, was informed about the intern, and raised no objection.

Last year, Euro was 44.5 for one baht, because of the problems caused by red and yellow shirts ; maybe, if other political problems happen, we can have 40 bahts for one euro, but not 44 anymore

Personnally, as many Europeans, I hoped for a grexit ... but for people who think Euro will not last long, it will be difficult to leave Euro, it's more than money, it's a symbol ; many problems to solve, but we are attached to €

in the list given above, the guy who gave northen countries forgot Italy, France and Benelux : you can't think of Euro without these Euro founders

That was I.

On purpose I left out France and especially Italy !!!

Those countries do NOT have budgeting discipline, especially Italy.

Both countries have a budget deficit more than agreed.

And BeNeLux is not a country: I did mention Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg

An odd claim to make. Italy's recent budget deficit is less than the US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, and Spain.

http://countryeconomy.com/deficit

Not all rice is paddy grown, i.e. flooded. None of the American rice crop is flooded or transplanted, although the quality is also inferior. As I understand it, the purpose of the flooding is just to kill the weeds, not that the rice plant actually needs all that water. In addition to dry field rice varieties, Thais could switch, for instance, to potatos which yield more calories per hectare and can be grown pretty much anywhere. Not so easy to change the nation diet, of course, but substantial changes of some kind may be necessary in the future.

Research has been going on at Cornell U. for some time on a method of rice cultivation, SRI, that still uses transplanting, but not flooding.

The benefits of SRI have been demonstrated in over 50 countries (see map). They include: 20%-100% or more increased yields, up to a 90% reduction in required seed, and up to 50% water savings. SRI principles and practices have been adapted for rainfed rice as well as for other crops (such as wheat, sugarcane and teff, among others), with yield increases and associated economic benefits.

http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/

The Thai government does not accept your as a legal resident, they will only give you a non immigrant visa, and only if you apply for permanent residency do you have any small amount of legal protection allowing you to stay here (which they can revoke at the drop of a hat) so all this discussion about not having a US residence for Social Security purposes is a non starter

You have to be a resident of somewhere and other than the very small minority that have been granted permanent residency here in Thailand you are all still a legal resident of your home country and you passport proves that

IMHO, if I pay taxes in the US, I am still a resident of the US, no matter where I may physically be located during any period of time

You just made all that up and it's completely false.

Your status as a US citizen residing in the US has nothing to do with whatever status the Thai government considers you to have, in particular, there is no requirement that an American must establish permanent residency in a foreign country in order not to be considered as residing in the US. This should be obvious since most of us who reside in Thailand are not permanent residents and yet we can legally claim not to reside in the US, not to be liable for state taxes, to qualify for the FEIE, etc. We do not have to be a legal resident of anywhere. Paying federal income tax does not establish residency in the US. It does not even establish tax domicile. As everyone knows we are liable for federal income tax based on citizenship, not residency.

The OP chose to maintain the US as his legal residence in the eyes of the Medicare administration of the US government. He need not have, as most of us here have not.

"...one there is no state income tax so you don't have to deal with that issue and only deal with your obligations with the IRS as you are here "

You don't owe, or even have to file state tax forms if you live abroad full time.

first of all you totally missed the point of the advantage of having a legal address in the US so you can purchase a Medicare Advantage policy that covers emergencies out side the US - I have one so I don't worry about many medical conditions that can arise ( heart attack, stroke, brain aneurism ect ) my policy will cover 100 of expenses after a small deductible --- in terms of your " there are 7 states that do not have a state income tax but regardless of where you live in the world if you have income derived in the other 43 states you are subject to the tax rule and regulation of the tax department of that state -- so hence I made the point to chose a state that does not have an income tax ie Florida

I think your plan is a poor one for these reasons:

1. Your purchase of Medicare Advantage insurance is based on the fraudulent claim that you reside in the US. Since you do not reside in the US you are not eligible for MA. You believe that you are protecting yourself against some bad health outcome, but, in fact, you may not be protected at all. If the insurance company that you expect to pay your MA claim finds out that you were not eligible for the policy they can rescind it at any time, i.e. at the very moment when you need it. Of course, the insurance company may not find out, but now your security plan is based on a large unknown.

2. If you were to have a heart attack or stroke, you would not be hopping on a plane for a 20 hour flight to get treatment. You would need treatment urgently, i.e. here in Thailand, at least emergency care.

3. Having had a heart attack or stroke here, you would have got emergency treatment at a local hospital. Perhaps you would also need expensive, subsequent treatment, for instance a bypass or a pacemaker. Assuming you had followed the regulations and did not have MA insurance at this point (since you are not eligible) you could still get MA for your long term care by flying to the US and enrolling immediately in an MA plan. As a returning expat you have a 2 month period after repatriating to enroll in an MA or any of the other Medicare insurance plans, without financial penalty and without any exclusion of existing conditions. So, that would cover your cardiac surgery or whatever. Presumably you could buy the policy the day you land in the US. That means you would not have been paying the premiums for the period of your time outside the US for insurance that might not pay off.

So, your current plan is both risky and more expensive than it needs to be. You should think this through more carefully.

I normally try to avoid lengthy discussions here but by responding maybe it will help certain US expats here with a different way of thinking. There are thousands of US expats here from varying economic strata and personal journeys - from guest house dwellers to those who have " vacation homes " . Terms have been thrown about of "illegal, fraudulent etc " Everyone has their own plan strategy to protect themselves in their latter years. My concern is Emergency treatment traveling out side the US and the Big "C". I have a great Medicare Advantage plan and long term health care plan , I have done my do diligence and am confident I am covered in my life's journey. Myself and many of my neighbors and friends still own a home in the US . We pay our taxes, the insurance policy , the electric bill, the telephone bill, the car registration, driver license , all against the address along with correspondence from the ins co the 1040 and state filling all against the address -- this is our home this is where we live it is our legal address. We chose to travel the world in our retirement years. I have spent almost 2 hrs on the phone with the ins company to explain my situation. I told them some times I am out of the country for 9 months sometimes the entire year so help me understand coverage under the plan for emergencies outside the US. We used simple examples like I break my leg or arm and go to emergency and they fix me up and send me home - there response was you are responsible for the first 65$ of treatment. OK lets get more serious I get a stroke and some how I make it to the emergency room and now I am admitted - your charges for ambulance and er charges are 100% covered - ok I am in ICU for a week and then transferred to a room - you have to pay the first 310$ charge for the first 3 days and then everything is covered 100% - how long will you cover the hospital - for as long as you are admitted - ok in the states after a stroke you just don't go home there is a step down , you might be in a wheel chair needing speech therapy , physical therapy to walk again daily care - you are covered 100% but when you are medically certified to travel you must come back to the US to continue treatment --- starting to get the picture ? medical for normal things are so cheap here and other places in the world - what am I going to file a 300 baht charge from the clinic - what am I going to spend 5000$ for 2 round trips to the US for some medium treatment for which I still have to pay a deductible? Like I said Emergency treatment - If I come down with cancer back to US it will bankrupt you here

One gentleman talked about a 6 month rule - out of service area and canceled - why is that on certain policies - some people use the policy for many things , doctors , prescriptions , hospitals a lot - and say you leave Maine to go to Florida for the winter and you continue to use the services you are using what they call out of network which costs more for the company and you -- if you are out of the US believe me they are happy because the only thing they will cover is Emergencies

As I said there are many journeys open the aperture - for example my neighbor is a retired Dentist 72 - he has a WONDERFUL house here in his Thai wives name - he has a house in the US and will be going back in a few weeks for his yearly full free exam and dental treatment under his Medicare Advantage plan and is also covered for Emergencies here -- by the way he has a 3 year old son who is collecting 1100$ a month SS because his father was on SS when he was born

If your legal residence is still in the US, then there would be nothing fraudulent about continuing a Medicare Advantage policy.

"...one there is no state income tax so you don't have to deal with that issue and only deal with your obligations with the IRS as you are here "

You don't owe, or even have to file state tax forms if you live abroad full time.

first of all you totally missed the point of the advantage of having a legal address in the US so you can purchase a Medicare Advantage policy that covers emergencies out side the US - I have one so I don't worry about many medical conditions that can arise ( heart attack, stroke, brain aneurism ect ) my policy will cover 100 of expenses after a small deductible --- in terms of your " there are 7 states that do not have a state income tax but regardless of where you live in the world if you have income derived in the other 43 states you are subject to the tax rule and regulation of the tax department of that state -- so hence I made the point to chose a state that does not have an income tax ie Florida

I think your plan is a poor one for these reasons:

1. Your purchase of Medicare Advantage insurance is based on the fraudulent claim that you reside in the US. Since you do not reside in the US you are not eligible for MA. You believe that you are protecting yourself against some bad health outcome, but, in fact, you may not be protected at all. If the insurance company that you expect to pay your MA claim finds out that you were not eligible for the policy they can rescind it at any time, i.e. at the very moment when you need it. Of course, the insurance company may not find out, but now your security plan is based on a large unknown.

2. If you were to have a heart attack or stroke, you would not be hopping on a plane for a 20 hour flight to get treatment. You would need treatment urgently, i.e. here in Thailand, at least emergency care.

3. Having had a heart attack or stroke here, you would have got emergency treatment at a local hospital. Perhaps you would also need expensive, subsequent treatment, for instance a bypass or a pacemaker. Assuming you had followed the regulations and did not have MA insurance at this point (since you are not eligible) you could still get MA for your long term care by flying to the US and enrolling immediately in an MA plan. As a returning expat you have a 2 month period after repatriating to enroll in an MA or any of the other Medicare insurance plans, without financial penalty and without any exclusion of existing conditions. So, that would cover your cardiac surgery or whatever. Presumably you could buy the policy the day you land in the US. That means you would not have been paying the premiums for the period of your time outside the US for insurance that might not pay off.

So, your current plan is both risky and more expensive than it needs to be. You should think this through more carefully.

As a Texan, I advocate for guns. Like many Texans, I believe that the real problem with gun-related crimes are laws that prohibit carrying and regulations/taxes that discourage gun ownership. It is my view that if every citizen were required or encouraged to carry a gun at all times, the rights and privacies of the people would be collectively ensured and the trouble-makers would be necessarily suicidal.

The main argument against gun ownership is that people with access to guns will kill each other with guns. This is true. However, people without access to guns will still kill each other anyway.

IMA_FARANG is actually spot on in his comparison between population density and murder. State-by-state, population density is closely correlated with murder rate; I think the major exceptions are Nevada and New Mexico. Keep in mind that murder rate is calculated as murders divided by population, which means that there is a strong correlation in the US that people living in more population-dense states are more inclined to kill each other.

On the other hand, gun ownership rates are not strongly correllated with murder rates. The major reason for this is that there are too many outlier states. States with extremely low rates of gun ownership like California, New York and Maryland actually have moderate to high murder rates. States with extremely high rates of gun ownership, like Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas, have extremely low murder rates. Contrary to popular belief, Texas does not have a high rate of gun ownership compared to other US states, but it does have a high murder rate.

Of course, correllation does not equal causation, but hardly anyone cares about that little detail anymore.

I often wonder at news from around the world and from other parts of the US.

If somebody just walks into a church, theater, school, etc. and just starts shooting, why the F*** does nobody shoot back?

I feel very unsafe in Thailand not being able to buy a gun.

Of course, you're from Texas. That's the kind of nonsense Texans favor. Completely devoid of rationality. A faith-based approach to social problems like the extraordinarily high rate of gun crime in the US. Just deny facts that you don't like, such as the correlation of gun ownership in the US (highest in the world) with violent crime (also highest in the world.) Don't let that bother you if owning guns feels good. Bet you love capital punishment, too.

Lincoln is the source of this problem in American life. He should just have let the South go.

This discussion is an example of the pitfalls of reasoning from anecdote instead of data.

Or watching too much Fox News.

I return to the U.S. frequently, was just back July 1 - 8, everything seems fine, didn't see any anarchy, except in Chicago. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/06/us/chicago-violent-weekend/index.html

According to Grover Norquist, crime is down because more people carry guns. Who needs police? Prisons?

Grover Norquist: Concealed Carry Gun Laws Decrease Crime

By Bill Hoffmann | Thursday, 12 Feb 2015 05:43 PM

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, says concealed carry gun laws are responsible for the nation's declining crime rate, not more incarceration of criminals.

"The mass incarcerations have had less of an impact. It certainly helped in the 80s and in the beginning of the 90s. We're seeing it have less impact [now]," Norquist said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

Of course, right-winger Norquist would say that. It's a ludicrous claim. Gun crimes, like all crimes, are crimes of opportunity. The more guns there are, the more opportunities for gun crimes.

Here's another graph that shows assault deaths over time in the US, which has the highest gun ownership in the world, compared to other countries.

And here's a graph by state that shows that states with more restrictive gun laws have less gun violence:

Of course, gun fans don't care about any of this. They just love guns.

This discussion is an example of the pitfalls of reasoning from anecdote instead of data. In fact, the homicide rate in the US has been declining steadily for years. This despite the school shootings and random shootings like the one referred to. News coverage make an event vivid and causes us to have emotional reactions, but doesn't help us to understand trends which are the real story.

Violent crimes of all types have been declining.

So, while I deplore the gun culture in America and note that homicides are higher in states with fewer restrictions on gun ownership, nevertheless it remains true overall that violence is declining in the US. This is nothing to be proud of though because gun violence in the US is far higher than in other countries.

So, no, the coherence of society is not breaking down at all. It's strengthening, in fact, but the US remains a barbaric country by comparison with other countries.

The online system just worked fine for me on the first try. A significant improvement over the alternatives. Sounds like they will fix the problems eventually.

Thanks for the warning about 3rd world conditions. Australians are so fortunate to have big-agriculture, big-food, big-pharma, big-chemical, big-medicine, big-media, . etc. looking after their health interests. And yes, dentistry is complicit in this. Btw in the US alone there estimated over 225,000 deaths per year from iatrogenesis (caused by the clinic/hospital)! The third largest cause of death.

US excess hospital deaths are at least that many and may be as much as 400,000 per year which would approach the number of tobacco-related deaths, previously thought to be the largest number of preventable deaths.

http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/hospital-medical-errors-third-leading-cause-death-dispute-to-err-is-human-report/2013-09-20

Once again, Mr. Grain of Salt, the amount of actual information about the Thai healthcare system in your post is exactly zero. You don't seem to grasp the difference between having an opinion and having something to say.

The conclusions the OP draws merit examination. The reported problem occurred in Australia, not Thailand. I certainly don't think Thailand is free from the problem of inadequate safety procedures in dental clinics, but there is no actual evidence of that either in the OP's post or in the article. OP implies that there is a an inspection procedure for dental clinics in Oz, but, there is no suggestion of such a system in the article. It was not an inspection that detected the problem, but the complaint of a customer.

As for the recommendations of dental patients or of medical patients in general, they are all worthless because the public is unable to evaluate the quality of the medical care they receive. A large-scale study in the US some years ago showed that 60% of treatments were substandard. In the US hospitals are the best place to contract MRSA largely because doctors refuse to wash their hands as often as they should since it would cost them lost fee income to do so. This is not to suggest that all is necessarily well in the Thai healthcare industry, but that first world care is not all that people think it is.

I'm drawing attention to this event, not because it was in Australia, but because it illustrates firstly that there are systems (in this case, the NSW health Authority) in place there whereby whether through customer complaint or inspection these matters will come to light, whereas in Thailand given the endemic nature of graft and corruption, and absence of such systems, there is little or no chance of this either being detected or coming to light.

This problem i would venture to say also is by no means restricted to the dental arm of Thai healthcare, unless you think that somehow evidence of a problem in Australia is evidence of a problem in Thailand.

What you allege about the Thai healthcare system may be true, but you provide no evidence of any kind. You allege endemic graft and corruption in the Thai healthcare system, but you provide no substantiation of any kind. In the absence of evidence, your view amounts to nothing more than a prejudice. You have not identified any actual problem in Thai healthcare, whether of the dental variety or any other.

The conclusions the OP draws merit examination. The reported problem occurred in Australia, not Thailand. I certainly don't think Thailand is free from the problem of inadequate safety procedures in dental clinics, but there is no actual evidence of that either in the OP's post or in the article. OP implies that there is a an inspection procedure for dental clinics in Oz, but, there is no suggestion of such a system in the article. It was not an inspection that detected the problem, but the complaint of a customer.

As for the recommendations of dental patients or of medical patients in general, they are all worthless because the public is unable to evaluate the quality of the medical care they receive. A large-scale study in the US some years ago showed that 60% of treatments were substandard. In the US hospitals are the best place to contract MRSA largely because doctors refuse to wash their hands as often as they should since it would cost them lost fee income to do so. This is not to suggest that all is necessarily well in the Thai healthcare industry, but that first world care is not all that people think it is.

They really don't realize that they are an export economy shooting themselves on the world stage.

Only if the Western countries were to boycott Thailand's exports on human rights grounds like they did Myanmar and South Africa in the past. However, the US has just renewed Thailand's trade status until 2017 and has only reduced, but not eliminated Cobra Gold. The EU is not talking about a boycott. So, I don't think Thailand has to worry too much about real pressure from the West.