CaptHaddock

I have read that the Uncle Remus stories, such as Brer Fox and the Tar Baby, originated in Jatake tales that spread to Africa somehow by Buddhist missionaries before being carried to America by slaves. Interesting, if true.

We have had very good service at Asavanant Clinic. All the dentists I have had there were English speakers.

http://www.asavanant.com/

I bought an HP Ipaq Business Navigator at the Chi Chang shop, Airport Plaza last year and I am quite happy with the device as well as with the service of Chi Chang. It runs on Windows Mobile 6.1, has 8 GB memory, a built-in GPS, bluetooth and WiFi.

That's interesting. Are you able to run navigation software for Thailand on it?

You can watch the video of nearly any course at MIT along with homeworks and tests:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/av/

Does all this gibberish include eating Thai street food and a cheap apartment with no Western kitchen or eating and renting the exact same thing in both places? If you live somewhat like a Thai, Thailand would come out much cheaper.

What's hard to understand here? Since an apartment in NY would have a Western kitchen, the same standard of living in BKK requires a Western kitchen also. If you live like a Thai, you have lowered your standard of living from that of an American.

You know, folks, the question of the relative cost of living in Thailand (at least, Bangkok) versus major cities around the world has been settled for a long time. A company called Mercer publishes annually a comparison of the costs of the same standard of living for the major cities of the world, which is to say, a basket of goods of comparable quality including rent. On the Mercer survey, the cost of living in New York City is set at an index value of 100. Moscow comes in at 142. Bangkok at 75. That's for 2008. The complete Mercer report costs money, but it is frequently excerpted in the media, for instance, here:

http://www.homeinasia.com/content/view/40/40/lang,th/

There are other measures also based on baskets of goods, such as one by UBS that rates BKK as 58 compared to 100 for New York for 2009, cited here by the BOI:

http://www.boi.go.th:8080/issue_content.ph...ueid=56;page=99

So, a reasonable estimation based on a disciplined survey (rather than endlessly citing the cost of a beer at some pub) is that it living in Bangkok costs 58% to 75% of what it costs to live in New York without reducing the standard of living. You can compare BKK against the major city of your country and then adjust if you don't live in BKK.

Sheesh.

Thanks for the info. Looks like checks are not the local style.

Looking forward to moving to BKK in a year and a half or so. We will be renting. One point I never see discussed is how you actually pay the rent. Do you mail a check to the landlord and get the cancelled check back from your bank to serve as your proof of payment? If not, what is the preferred method? I am particularly concerned with effective proof of payment as protection in the case of a dispute with a landlord.

So obviously I know Thai Visa isn't the best place for economic advice, but it looks like i've sold my business, so have around 25m baht to invest somehow.

Being relatively young, 32, i'd rather have modest income and a higher capitol growth. I wish to stay in Thailand and already have several of my own ideas, but in these tricky economic times was just wondering what other members would do to achieve the goals i'm after with such a sum.

I do not wish to work, just invest it somehow that will bring in enough each month to live, maybe 100k or so, i'm mainly concerned with longterm growth of the original investment.

Congratulations on your early success. You don't have enough money to retire at 32 and live off the interest. You know about running a successful business. You don't know about investing in stocks, bonds, property, etc. The latter category would be a good way for you to lose your money. It's pretty obvious that what you should do is start another business. Maybe after you have done that a few times you will still be able to retire quite young.

What about American appliances that are 110 at 60 Hz? Can they operate correctly using a step-down transformer? My wife is about to buy a sewing machine here in New York that we will take with us to Thailand in a couple of years. So, far the step-down transformers that I find online don't convert the Hz to 50. Is that a problem for something like a sewing machine?

Poor Thais certainly do give the impression of being more cheerful with respect to their limited wealth than Westerners. Rather than philosophy or religion, I have always assumed that it is a result of social pressure. Thai people demand smiles and cheerfulness from each other pretty much no matter what the circumstances.

I remember there was a discussion at the time of the tsunami of why the Thais running from the wave of death had smiles on their faces. To some Westerners the Thais' incongruous expressions suggested that they were seriously out of touch with the danger surrounding them. However, a Thai person explained that the Thais in the photograph were smiling to reassure (Thai) people who might see them that they were all right. Westerners in the act of attempting to flee from death would not give any thought at all to the need for reassurance of others who happened to be watching. The fact that Thais even in such extreme circumstances responded to social expectations in this way tells me that this is a strongly motivating factor in Thai behavior.

OK, my wire went through. However my confidence level that future wires will go through with them without major hassle is shaken. BTW, after I got through with my grilling and I asked so my wire will go through now OK, they refused to commit.

I send monthly wires from Citibank to Thailand, but they go to an account at Bangkok Bank. Since BB has a branch in New York with an ABA number, the transfer is done as a domestic transfer on the Citi web site. I was telephoned and asked some questions the first time I did such a transfer and maybe one other time, but not for a long time now.

The monthly transfer to Bangkok Bank is automatic and works reliably at a cost of only USD 18.75, which is less than the rate on the international transfers. Others here have reported that Citi eventually refused to carry out any more such transfers. I have been doing them for three years and they haven't shut me down yet. If you will need regular transfers you might consider opening an account at BB.

for me it was always a mystery why a mandatory health insurance system does not exist in the Greatest Nation on Earth™ and that nowadays an estimated 40-45 million inhabitants are not insured.

Because of the power of vested interests. The US health care system is uniquely successful at diverting 16% of GDP into their pockets. That dough, in turn, buys a lot of influence, the purpose of which is to keep up the flow.

Mr. Guido,

Here in New York City, your girlfriend wouldn't get overtime either. Certainly not in the financial industry. Unfortunately, it's just normal, everyday abuse of employees. In what other situation is the buyer allowed to get more of what he is buying without paying more? When I was younger climbing up the compensation ladder myself I put in all kinds of extra hours, none of which got overtime although it did make me successful over time. Now that I am older and wiser however, if the office calls me at home in the evening with some problem I make it a point to leave an hour earlier the next day. The labor market in Thailand is strongly a buyer's market and abuse of employees is rife. Did you know, for example, that if a cashier at the supermarket or the bank makes a mistake that costs her employer money she will have to pay out of her own pocket? In the US, that would be illegal, but those are the terms of employment in Thailand.

Never had a problem using my Capital One Visa card. No foreign currency exchange fee and very fair exchange rate. They do require a travel advisory notification with country(ies) and dates of travel. Only use my card in larger department stores and for the rent at the serviced apartment. And normally for transactions amounting to 3000 baht or more.

I have also bought travel packages where the agency tacked on 3% or so with my consent.

Hawaiian,

Do you live in Thailand or are you just visiting? I am wondering how to manage US credit card use in Thailand after I retire there. I assume that you can't tell the CC company that you now live in Thailand or they will deny you the card. I understand that you can use a US address, but your charges will be Thailand and the company will notice.

How do you US expats handle credit cards and atm cards? How do you get replacement cards?

I predicted many years ago (back in the 90's) that SS in the USA would become more of a means-tested system; in essence a welfare program for the elderly. If one has substantial assets per the gov't's definition, you may not get any SS payments in the future as the US struggles with a national debt that is growing parabolically. I foresee the day when one goes to sign up for benefits, the SS clerk will type in your SSN, and all your assets, bank accounts, etc will pop up on their screen and using some gov't mandated formula, the program will spit out how much, if any, payments you are eligible to receive. In my own retirement math, I am not counting on any SS payments. ...

An economically illiterate opinion, if I may say so. The consumer economy in the US depends on the social welfare net, such as it is, that include SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. Let's just consider SS. If there were no SS benefit to provide a minimum level of consumption during old age, then households would have to save a substantial percentage of their household income during their working years in order to fund it themselves. How much would they have to save? There's a ready answer to that question in the case of China, where there is no social security and half the families (in the cities) have only a daughter who cannot be expected to contribute to their support in old age. How much do Chinese households save? The numbers I read vary from 35% of household income to 48%. By comparison households in the US as recently as two years ago saved nothing. Now, because of the strains of the recession (saving went up during the Depression also), households are saving more than 5% and climbing.

The fact is, a high, Chinese-style savings rate is wasteful for the economy. It means that households cannot spend and consume. Since 70% of the US economy is household consumption an increase in the savings rate of 5% alone must shave more than 3% off GDP. It is wasteful because every household is forced to save against the possibility that the couple will live well into their 90's in order to avoid being old and poor, a truly horrific outcome. But since most individuals will not actually live into their 90's, the high savings rate is a wasteful drain on the consumer economy. The solution is exactly Social Security. Everyone saves and the money from the dead goes to pay for the living. That's the essence of insurance. The whole society needn't save as much because statistically it isn't necessary.

A few years ago the Chinese govt announced that it will take steps to increase domestic demand in their own economy with a view toward reducing their dependence on exporting at the same time as raising the standard of living for their population. What steps would the govt take to enable such a consumer economy? Why, the creation of a social welfare safety net including pension and health care systems so that households would not have to save so much.

I have no idea about the technical details, but the most popular ones for Thai are Anki and Byki (just put either word in Google and you'll get there...). Byki is more flashy, but if you want to make your own cards you'll have to pay for it. Anki is totally free and therefore the only choice for me; you can also add sound to the cards too. I have already used it with some success and have big plans for incorporating it more widely into my self-learning programme.

Softwater

I would like to avoid paying because there is so much free software out there. I looked at Anki, but it doesn't test typing the answer, only by self-grading. In the modern world being able to touch-type correctly spelled Thai is more important than being able to write it by hand. After all, I never hand write anything in English any more. Also, Anki doesn't seem to implement the Leitner method, but has its own algorithm for spacing repetitions.

I was previously using handmade paper flash cards for Thai/English vocabulary, but recently discovered the plethora of flash card software available. Some of it incorporates the Leitner algorithm for exercising difficult cards more frequently than the well-learned. This has been a revelation for me. It seems to be vastly more efficient than simple paper flashcareds. The program I am currently using is Memory Lifter 2.2, which has these advantages:

1. it is a free Windows program. So, with the correct unicode settings you can type Thai characters into it.

2. when testing vocabulary it evaluates your typed Thai entry. So your Thai spelling errors will get corrected. As an added plus, you will simultaneously learn to touch type in Thai provided that you always use the correct finger for each key. It is also possible to change the evaluation method from typed entry to self-confirmation which is more useful when testing in the Thai -> English direction since you don't want to be evaluated on typing errors of a lengthy English definition.

3. unlike prepackaged selections of Thai vocabulary flash cards, you create the deck yourself so that you can add the vocabulary from the book you are using one chapter at a time. Cards can also be imported from a file.

However, I am not sure that Memory Lifter has implemented the Leitner method exactly correctly. For one thing, Leitner used 5 boxes for partitioning the cards according to how well they have been learned, box 1 being the least well-learned. ML has 10 boxes for some unknown reason. Also, when testing, ML jumps around among the boxes rather than concentrating on the lower numbered ones. If indeed ML has not correctly implemented the Leitner method that would cause me to abandon it for a better program despite its other advantages.

Does anyone have a recommendation for flash card software implementing the Leitner method correctly?

Nothing unusual about these kinds of mortgage products.

1) No bank in any country, to the best of my knowledge, offers you fixed rate mortgages. What they do is to lock in a rate for 5 years which will then be reset. This is what they call a fixed rate. Since no one knows what the MLR will be in 5 years time (best guess is forward rate at time of initiation), you will have the same effect - meaning the rate will reset to whatever the MLR is then (or more likely its forward rate to next reset date) plus some premium.

You must be a Brit. In the US fixed-rate 15 and 30 year mortgages have been the norm since the 1940's. Floating rate loans began to be popular in the 70's and 80's, disappeared for a while when interest rates were low and then came back to contribute the bubble in the mid-90's.

SS is not insurance.

You haven't read very widely on the subject of SS, have you?

A huge percentage of people are dead before they collect penny one. Especially men, they die earlier. I say take the money and run at the earliest opportunity!

SS is an insurance program. When we buy insurance, a break-even analysis is not the right way to consider it. The purpose of insurance is to pay someone else to take a risk that you cannot afford to bear yourself. So we buy fire insurance because we can't afford to replace the house if it burns down. Houses seldom do burn down, but that fact usually doesn't figure much into the insurance decision.

In the case of SS insurance, the risk that we can't afford to bear ourselves is outliving your assets and being poor in old age. By delaying benefits as long as you can, you are in effect paying to get a higher monthly benefit that you can't outlive. When I project how much I will have to spend per year in retirement the number goes up if I delay SS until age 70. The reason is that I can afford to spend more of my assets during my sixties because the govt will cover more of my expenses during my nineties. In fact, this remains true even if I die during my 60's without collecting a penny. i still benefit by being able to spend more of my assets instead of having to save them against the possibility of living well beyond 90 and having to pay the entire cost myself.

When we first started it was a monthly cost of THB 750, a great saving of nearly 50% of the parking space cost in our building, plus no more traffic excuses for being late and generally more relaxed employees. Within 6 months it went to THB800, roughly a year later THB900 and 6 months after that THB 950 and THB 1000 6 months later. Now I have been informed that it will rise from next month a staggering 15% to THB 1150 for unlimited use for 30 days.

...

So what gives these thieves the right to extort the thai public, hurting the salaried workers who are the ones who have had to suffer the brunt of the financial crisis through wage freezes and often reductions.

...

Here in New York City the cost of a 30 day unlimited metro card is $86 or ฿2898. So, your price seems like a bargain to me.

Also, before you make accusations of thievery, does the MRTA operate at a surplus or a deficit? How much of the cost of the system is covered by fares as opposed to subsidies?

The OP should consider delaying his SS benefit until age 70 if he can afford to live without it until then. If he starts collecting at age 62 he will get 75% of his Full Retirement Age benefit for life. However, if he can wait until age 70 before collecting he will get 132% of his FRA benefit. That's a guaranteed increase of 7% to 8% for each year he waits, not including the cost of living adjustment.

I think it is criminal that the SSA does not offer expert advice to recipients on how to collect the maximum benefit for which they are eligible. How many divorced wives know that they can collect the spousal benefit (roughly 50% of the husband's benefit) provided that they were married for at least 10 years and she has not remarried?

In my case, the wife did have enough of her own savings to honestly say she bought the land with her own money. But even if she didn't, as US citizens, married in the US, I can give her unlimited gift amounts that legally become hers under US law. For the Thai government to say otherwise would make for an interesting court case.

Hard to know where to begin with the misconceptions here. US tax law governs liability to US taxes, not to those of any other country. Your gift to your wife is indeed exempt from US income taxes. If your gift to your Thai wife takes place in Thailand then its liability to Thai taxes depends on the laws of Thailand, whatever those may be, and not those of the US or any other country.

The problem is as follows:

I am 33 y.o. expat living in Thailand and really not wanting to go anywhere else in the future. So far I have lived my life pretty much on a day to day basis, which now can be summed up like this: savings - 0, investments - 0, assets - 0.

I currently hold a job that pays about 1,000 US a month

Congratulations, you have now correctly identified the biggest problem in modern life--how to pay for retirement. Retirement is the most expensive purchase you will make in your life (i.e. paying for living expenses for 30 or 35 years with no labor income). It's difficult to arrange, but possible to do. But you have to work at it and make decisions that enable an eventual retirement. I had neither career nor academic degrees at age 30, but have been able to prepare for a retirement in a year or two (aged 60 now with bachelor's and master's degrees.) But I did it in the US where I worked pretty hard and had some luck. I would imagine the chances of doing so in Thailand to be fairly low, but I don't know from experience.

The main point is that your chances of success are vastly increased by having a plan to fund retirement. And while retirement is indeed a recent invention that is not to imply that it is necessarily optional. Here in the US 40% of retirements are involuntary, mostly due to loss of job or health problems.

There are several important points to keep in mind:

1. when you are young the most important component is your savings rate. By saving a substantial portion of your income you build up investment seed money that can provide you with income later in life to replace labor earnings. When you are older your rate of saving becomes much less important than the rate of return on your investment. How much to save when your young? I don't have a formula, but my minimum estimate would be 15%, although 25% gives you a much better shot if you can manage it. I usually was able to save more than 25% during my career.

2. you need to become knowledgeable about managing your household finances. That means paying attention to such basics as always living below your means so that you can save and never paying interest on credit card debt. You can look for books by Jane Bryant Quinn on managing your household money. Even if they are older books most of it still applies.

3. As you accumulate seed money for investments you need to educate yourself about investing by reading books. You simply can't turn your money over to someone else. Here is a good website including some very knowledgeable investors: www.diehards.org. I don't think they have the last word in investing, but they are way above the average. They will educate you to the importance of paying attention to the costs of mutual funds, for example. I myself wouldn't invest in Thai stocks or anything else in Thailand for that matter. If you are an American you should be able to arrange access to American investment products, although it's not trivial for an expat.

Most of my friends and family who can expect a comfortable retirement achieved that by being successful in careers that pay well, by not getting divorced, by living below their means, and by avoiding stupid expenses such as credit card debt and extra automobiles. On the other hand, I do know a few who have managed it just by marrying well, or hitting some kind of jackpot that they never have foreseen, such as winning a lawsuit. The rest are struggling and will have a difficult time in old age.