cocopops

Sounds correct.

But a pretty tight schedule. What time on the 7th does your flight arrive? :)

I have removed some off topic and abusive posts.

Under the new rules that go into effect on the 29th the longest you can get extensions on the same visa entry is one year.

They could be invoking the new rules early.

They were cool about extending my ED visa, first issued in 2012, at CM immigration today. I do the usual 4 hours a week studying Thai. One-on-one, not as part of a class, but I've never heard that that makes any difference.

My experience was quite different from that of the OP. The officer processing the extension was efficient and friendly, and not at all irritated when a couple of my photocopies were incorrect. The "test", if that's what it was, was just a couple of chatty questions directed at me as I was sitting down. "So, Khun XXX, you're learning Thai?", "Can you write yet?" - that sort of thing.

I don't know why I was lucky and the OP was not. Perhaps his problem was an issue with changing schools unrelated to the changes scheduled for the end of the month.

How much would I need in the bank to draw 1000 euro a month and keep up with inflation and not let my original amount decrease.

 

I don't think any amount of money will do that these days. Nobody knows what future inflation rates will be, but I don't think they'll be lower than current deposit rates in most currencies. Almost definitely not if you have to pay any tax at all on the interest.

William Bernstein is an excellent author to read if you wish to understand the basics of investing without spending too much time on it. Search on Amazon.

Good luck with it all. Remember to keep yourself motivated and happy even though you're now a 1%er. Too many folks 'round these parts fuck that bit up and it really is a pity...
 

 

you participated willingly in a "tea money" procedure and now you want to complain? 

Yes, if you have no useful reply please go away.

 

I have been working here for 26  years and this tea money is the usual way to get things done.

 

I imagine that is true. But you can't very well turn up at the cop-shop and say "This gentleman and I had a handshake agreement to defraud the shareholders of Bangkok Bank and now he won't hold up his end of the deal!"

It would be overly optimistic to expect that conversation to end well.

Talking to the bank might be another option. But since you have (presumably) broken the law yourself as well, I'd be speaking with a lawyer first to find out exactly what my exposure was. A 6000B backhander doesn't sound that bad, but what if it's trumped up to conspiracy to embezzle the entire value of the loan. You could be in pretty deep shit at that point.

I used to use a True Inter sim for the occasional calls I made to the UK (1 Baht per minute to a UK landline) but when I upgraded the sim to True H a couple of months ago I lost the cheap international rate option. However, when I needed to make a call urgently the other day I simply dialed +44****************. A fifteen minute phone call still only cost me 27 baht. So still less than 2 baht per minute.

plus our Skype call quality is never that good on the computer

Even though Skype video calls might sometimes be unreliable I've never had a problem with making voice only calls to the UK.

I use Skype to call the US all the time and the call quality is always much better than a landline or cellphone. But it's next to unusable if I try calling Queensland, Australia. So I think your mileage can vary based on where you're calling to. Definitely worth a go though.

Sure spreads vary from country to country due to various factors, but banks seem to be on very solid footing here, especially with a 10 point spread! I looked at SCB bank also and they have pretty much the same rate. It seems the few banks here don't really try to compete and appear to almost collude to stay non competitive with each other.

They all have the same sources of funding, so you would expect their products and rates to be pretty similar as well. I don't think that indicates collusion, just the fact that they are all similar operations.

 

Bangkok was ranked the world's most visited city with nearly 16 million people travelling to the Thai capital, ahead of London and Paris
 
 
sorry but London had 28 millions visitors and Paris 26 millions ..... I wonder where they got their information .

You are properly right, but the new information in this article, is about the Ghost schools

 

I feel you're relying on a rather broad definition of the word "information" here.

The news article is indeed massively biased. It implied that Israel was not provoked into military action. Indeed they were ... with thousands of rocket attacks and tunnels of terror going directly into Israel with intentions of mass murder of Israeli civilians. Any country would be completely justified in defending against that kind of aggression.

From the embassy of Israel.

Israel comes in peace to the Muslims of Thailand:

The Ambassador of Israel H.E. Mr. Simon Roded met representatives of Thai Muslim community at the Embassy of Israel. In the meeting, the Ambassador emphasized that Israel has no dispute with Muslims as such. Israel holds high regards and respects for the Thai Muslims.

Israel is defending its citizens from indiscriminate and intentional attacks carried out by terrorist organizations from Gaza, mainly Hamas. By targeting Israeli civilians and using Palestinian civilians as human shields, Hamas is committing a double war crime.

P1010953_4 Web.jpg

http://embassies.gov.il/bangkok-en/NewsAndEvents/Pages/The-Ambassador-of-Israel-Meets-Thai-Muslim-Group.aspx

You are certainly correct that it is massively biased. However the chief bias lies in the media's refusal to indite the fact that both sides cling to religious dogmas developed thousands of years ago by people literally too ignorant to keep their food and feces separated. Dogmas that all but insist that the creator of the universe wishes the creation of ethnically and religiously pure communities at any cost. Dogmas that celebrate (!) the successful and almost successful genocides undertaken by men like Moses and Muhammad.

Attempting to deal with this as if the players were rational people is overly optimistic.

I thought that Bill Clinton didn't inhale?

I have no problem whatsoever with anyone enjoying some recreational pot. But I find very little to respect about smoking without inhaling. Is the story that he was so naive as to believe that a lungful of marijuana smoke was something to be avoided and yet so weak-willed that he was pressured into it anyway? Weird...

Let's face it. The greenies are against any type of development anywhere anytime.

Given that folks are only identified as "greenies" when objecting to development, this is a tautology.

This is such a naive way to tax. No person who's struggled to build wealth is going to put up with it. It's really really hard to get wealthy, and some idiot thinks they're then going to be happy to have it disproportionately taken away from them. Wealthy people vote with their feet when governments try this tack on them.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw

There is a lot to what you say as a general principle. But a tax on the unimproved value of land is often good policy. Not only does it discourage hoarding and land banks and encourage efficient use of the available land, the one commodity on which almost all business depends, but it's pretty darn tricky to evade too.

The introduction of such a thing is difficult, to be sure, as it would cause land prices to drop, perhaps dramatically.

Could you also clarify that if you are apprehended with less than 90 days overstay what happens ? 5 year ban or ????

Looks to me the first 90 days only a fine, after 90 days a ban.

But the rules are not official yet and thus still could be altered.

Mario that looks like the rule for not apprehended.

Apprehended is a ban for any amount of overstay. Unless you have seen something different.

But I think there would be a little flexibility for short overstays.

I think we will have to wait until the rules are published to know if there is anything different other what has been announced,

I reckon it's ambiguous too. In the English version, perhaps the "more than 90 days" part in the preamble could be read to constrain the penalties applied even if you are apprehended. Or not.

But the Thai preamble doesn't include the 90 day qualification at all. The Thai version supports Ubonjoe's interpretation - "apprehended" at 1am the day after your stamp expires leads to a 5 year ban.

Wonder what will happen to all those foreigners that are married, have children, but don't have enough money to get a Non-Imm visa based on marriage.

Will Immigration start splitting up families?

I hope so.

Very special. I hope that one day you are free from whatever has caused you to become like this...

Bud right, you are gonna make a lot of enemies if you keep spouting off such vitriol. You have a nasty attitude. Are you Thai by chance?

Clearly the OP is trolling. But what would prompt you to make such a horrid remark about Thai people in general?

I don't know what everybody's worried about. Generals have a fine history of success as democratic leaders in Idi Amin, Assad, Tito, Galtieri.. even Saddam Hussein achieved Lieutenant General. Another great leader who follows the principles of democracy is Robert Mugabe who gets re-elected every year. What can possibly go wrong?

They were not Thai also they had no plans to turn the country into a true democracy. They intended it to remain a dictatorship and would occasionally throw a fixed election to fool people like you. You also for got Eisenhower and George Washington. How convenient.

I'm not clear on your point here. Dwight Eisenhower was a popular military figure elected to the presidency as a civilian. And George Washington resigned his military commission at the end of the war. No less than 6 years before being elected president.

Neither of them came to, or maintained power, by extraordinary means.

From what I gather, it's someone who is just happy in their own little world (As we'd say in English).

Did someone say that about you? or maybe your kids? As I think it's a phrase which would often describe a lot of the farang in Thailand (Well in the countryside anyway), as we often just happy doing our own thing and don't need to be involved with the community/neighbours etc.

Right, said about me in friendly conversation. "Off in your own little world" or similar fits the context well. Thanks!

Edit: Ah heck... Title should have been "Translation of คนที่มีโลกส่วนตัว". But that is apparently too long for a title and then when I was trying to fix it I accidentally posted with the wrong subject... Sorry, all - computers and me never seem to to get on as well as I would like!

"Kon tee mee lohk suan dua soong". Literally something along the lines of "a person with a large private world".

A few people have tried to explain this to me, but I haven't been able to understand exactly what it means. Introvert? Loner? A self-involved person?

Can anyone help me understand this one?

Thanks in advance,

Cocopops.

Property prices will rise further as they have done in the past, but wait...........................

I bought the land on which i built a house 5 years ago at 945.000 Baht for a rai. These days all the surrounding plots want 3 million for a rai, with exception of one guy who asks 2.5 but you need to take 3 rai as a whole.

There hasn't been a single plot sold in the past 5 years, but most probably they will ask 4 million next year.

ask prices are irrelevant, only actual deals count. in the moo baan where i live the price for one wah² was THB 17,500 in 2005, recently a plot was sold for 28,500/wah².

that does not seem too inflationary when comparing Baht prices. but nine years ago one US-Dollar bought THB 42.50 vs. today's 32.25

Even in dollars, assuming we're talking about 9 years, that's "only" 8.5% nominal per annum. A good return, but compared to plenty of places in the world, not much of a bubble at all!

Is CM expecting a big influx of AEC foreigners for some reason?

See that's a tricky question there. Certainly they are expecting one, but whether or not there is much of a reason is less clear. Or if there is a reason, whether or not the expectation is reasonable in magnitude.

Seems like every man and his dog is buying a condo on the grounds it can be sold on to a foreigner after ASEAN. The last guy I heard this from was a local barber. I forget if he had actually bought the thing already or was just saying that he ought to. Either way, he was confident that it was a pretty safe bet and advised me to look for a similar investment for myself.

"The [nullified] February 2 election failed. We have to accept that people obstructed it," he said.

"Whose fault was that? Some said the Election Commission. In my opinion, the EC is not in charge of peace and order. It cannot order the military, police officers or governors.

"The authorities - government officers - should have done their job. They didn't, so that led to defiance. That's why I see the justice system as failing to keep peace and order, except when legal cases are filed."

I don't see what he means. Mr. Abhisit had boycotted the election and Mr. Suthep ordered his followers to physically (but on the whole, not violently) obstruct the polling process. The army were taking the line that this was a political matter, and that they were loyal only to the country as a whole. The constitutional court was all but openly hostile and even the electoral commission seemed conspicuously unenthusiastic towards anything regarding an election. Members of both these august institutions whiled away the hours offering quotes to the media regarding exactly who might be in a position to appoint a new PM.

So, presumably, the job that the "government officers" should have done was to order the police to be heavy-handed with those obstructing the election. Go out and knock some heads together fellas!

The same police Mr. Suthep spent December telling his followers were their enemies? Seriously? Does anyone even want to imagine how that might have ended? Unpredictably, to say the least.

So the "government officers" had a choice. Violence or non-violence. With pretty good odds that neither path would lead to a resolution of the political crisis anyway. They chose non-violence. That's not "the problem", Khun Khanittha , that's an example that more authoritarian governments here and around the world should look to follow.

No matter what you thought of the populist policies, and no matter how aghast you are at Thawil's transfer and other injustices, or even if you really do remain convinced that it was all a big plan to turn Thaksin into president-for-life, it amazes me that people are critical of the non-violent way that the caretaker government handled the crisis itself.

Considering the scale of the corruption that is claimed, everything investigated so far seems completely trivial.

One would expect a member of a billionaire family to own some pretty expensive stuff. That a single luxury wristwatch was forgotten is hardly a suspicious thing. Similarly, one expects the PM to appear on television, particularly in the middle of a crisis.

Perhaps these are technical violations. Certainly they are at least as serious as the Thawil's transfer. But it does seem odd to start with such small stuff. Surely if they mean to investigate someone as corrupt and evil as Yingluck Shinawatra for every small violation they will be there for literally hundreds of years! Unless... No, not possible, right?

Tried to buy something from Amazon last week. They don't ship to Thailand anymore. When you loo at the item check & see if it is stocked & "fulfilled" by Amazon or if the advertiser does the shipping. EG some brands of smart phone cases are sent direct from the manufacturer. Only 2 or 3 months ago I ordered stuff & it came just fine. Now, it appears you have to order things Amazon do not " stock and fulfil"

Yep - got a stack of 'This item does not ship to xxxxxx, Thailand' but when I ordered the CDs which were being supplied by Amazon and not a reseller I had no problems. I seem to recall that the US was making a lot of noise at one stage re the coup and the 'removal of a democratically elected government' : no idea if Japan went one step further and imposed trade restrictions.

It has always been such. I haven't noticed any changes since the coup.

I know this because Amazon's email system is apparently smart enough to figure out what I would like to buy, but not smart enough to realize that none of it is deliverable to the only delivery address I have registered with them... Sigh...

I reckon as you're over the 1000B mark you might get boned for anything up to about 40% of the (purchase price + postage) if they send it by courier. If by regular post it'll likely get through for free, or perhaps for 10% + VAT.

What's that cable for anyhow? Driving a USB DAC from a walkman?

The whole idea of intelligent adults arguing over this kind of thing in a modern day courtroom with straight faces is just surreal on so many levels...

It's not clear that their being gay has anything to do with it. Just as likely it's that in the absence of a female parent the male parent(s) take on some of the roles and behaviors usually more predominant in mothers.

Comparing gay and straight single fathers might tell us more.