cocopops

The last time I was aware of a western country printing money and lowering interest rates was Germany between WW1 and WW2. All savings were deliberately annihilated (with huge social consequences) to effectively end German debts from WW1. Will the same happen again in terms of wiping out cash savings – my thoughts are yes it will, but what to do about it?

Since the website you read this stuff on was owned by a chap running a gold-centric investment firm, why not buy gold?

My guess is it will creep back up to .75 and hang out there for a while. That is where it has spent a lot of time over the last few years, at least it seems that way to me. So we need to see the baht go to 40 to the US $ to achieve 30 for a aussie $ again, (that is assuming .75 is right).

Cautiously optimistic that. There don't seem to be a lot of arguments out there

supporting a resurgence against USD. 0.75 is not too far fetched I suppose, but

0.55 seems a lot more likely. Carry trade is over, nobody has any real money to

invest in a foreign country and the trade deficit is still a big bugger. And interest

rates have further to fall in Australia than anywhere else bar New Zealand. None

of this says strong Aussie dollar to this layman.

Australians living abroad should at least consider moving some of their money

into USD. Crazy as that sounds...

Basically she was deported from Oz 4 years ago having entered illegally.

She actually entered illegally? In the same manner as the boat people that immigration went all nazi on entered illegally? Wow! That's a heck of a lot more industrious than just paddling across the Mekong...

Hopefully it won't count against you either way. Good luck with it all.

Illegal entry would include deceptive methods such as using a forged passport. Bangkok is world renowned as a centre for the supply of false documents.

Oh. Not quite as exciting I suppose. But I'm still quite impressed that she could pull it off.

So now Mr. Darling is in favour of market stability. Seems to me that banning Mr. Darling from speaking in public would have been a more effective change.

I have been going along with use of the Farang word for years, but I recently had my mind opened about this, and feel we should strongly consider NOT using it, and also correcting Thais close to us who use it to describe us and other European descent people.

Or, "we" could just not be crybabies about it. Some toffee nosed Thai bloke in a bar told you that "farang" was a disrespectful term so you've decided to go around being disagreeable for a while? You sir, have too much time on your hands! Typical white aryan honky albino big-nose if you ask me.

Basically she was deported from Oz 4 years ago having entered illegally.

She actually entered illegally? In the same manner as the boat people that immigration went all nazi on entered illegally? Wow! That's a heck of a lot more industrious than just paddling across the Mekong...

Hopefully it won't count against you either way. Good luck with it all.

The differences between atheists and agnostics intrigues me. I admire atheists for their certainty but I don't understand the rationale of being so sure there is or is not a God. In a way, the certainty of atheists seems quite the same as the certainty of believers. Agnostics won't commit to either side of the coin, so you could say they believe in nothing. You can't prove there is a God, but you can't prove there isn't either. In any case, I understand when atheists call agnostics wusses. Religious people tend to group them together, but they really are very different points of view. At this early stage of the poll, the non-religious are the most numerous. I am not surprised by that at all.

When you explain it that way, it just makes me think that atheists are stupid. There is no way to know for sure that God is not real!

There is no way to prove that something does not exist. Therefore anybody who is agnostic simply because "you can't prove God doesn't exist" should also be on the fence about the flying spaghetti monster, superman and santa clause for the same reasons.

Nor is there any way to know for sure that the sun will come up tomorrow. Or that the tooth fairy is imaginary. But I'm fairly sure of both.

I have friends that have done this. IIRC the main drawback is that you will have to be in oz when the visa is issued (they will give your wife permission to stay while they consider the application).

For crying out loud people, *of course* the UK will grant political asylum. Whatever else he may or may not have done, the man was a democratically elected prime minister ousted by military coup whose family is being dragged through the courts on complicated finance-related charges.

If that doesn't qualify you for political asylum, exactly what is the point of the institution?

Why on earth would you marry somebody that you don't trust to tell you the truth about what is really a trifling sum in the greater scheme of things?

So essentially, they did a bunch of ridiculous things with a large amount of money. None of which are in and of themselves black and white illegal. But, since there is no plausible reason to do all that stuff unless you are pulling a scam, they must have been pulling scam. Probably tax evasion.

More or less works for me

Does anybody understand how the law was broken?

she has not the gravitas or minimalist speak

of Alan Greenspan who truely understood how closely

his words were parsed.

Well Greenspan was always great at convincing people he was smart. Right now the prick is on a speaking tour explaining to everybody how this is not his fault and he saw it coming anyway. Ironic that Bernanke might go down in history as a donkey and Greenspan as a genius. Still, you never know, they might turn it around yet...

Bush's contribution - spending money like it's going out of fashion in Iraq - probably hasn't helped. But this is all about negative real interest rates, not yet another American administration that couldn't restrain it's expenditures.

And Chavez? I'm not so sure Chavez is anywhere near as important as Chavez likes to think he is.

Just backing up the currency intervention with some verbal reenforcement I think. Difficult to see the BOT having the guts to raise interest rates now, even if they should. Would be like throwing oil on this political fire everybody seems worked up about.

BTDT: The mistake made in America was believing in recession-free capitalism. With the benefit of hindsight it looks like they should have taken the pain back in 2001. What Benanke could do now is announce that he intends to raise rates 25 points per month for the next 9-12 months. Reign the oil bubble in, give banks a sense of urgency with regards to righting their balance sheets. Forget avoiding recession, concentrate on avoiding long-term damage like that which has crippled Japan.

Isn't it nice to see that Thaivisa.com allows private businesses to solicit their members in the forums.

And isn't it nice to see Siam Legal taking advantage of everyone in a forum created to exchange ideas. Now I guess its a place where private businesses can prey on people.

Wouldn't it be great if a few of Siam Legals competitors could join in the fun. They would all try to sound like they were the smartest and had all the answers. Then they could fight amoung themselves to see who would win people over and get a new customer.

Trolling for vulnerable customers on a forum must be the lowest life form and shame on Thaivisa for allowing this just because they are collecting some advertsing money. Leave the advertising where it belongs.

That is a terribly unfair characterization of the Siam Legal people.

Yeah, I missed the part where you explained what's wrong with a (developing) country insisting that foreign (teaching) employees meet similar professional standards to what they would have to in their own country.

Because demand is greater than supply? There is no reason to believe that preventing the unauthorized teachers from teaching will suddenly cause thousands of qualified individuals to arrive in Thailand ready to service the local market at a price it can reasonably be expected to pay.

So what? What's demand and supply got to do with a the rightness and wrongness of a country insisting on equal standards?

Isn't at best a little patronising to be discussing this topic implicit with the prejudice that it is somehow morally acceptable for Thais to accept lower standards than you would accept in your own country yourself? Quality is surely more likely to be better than quantity.

It is not about rightness and wrongness, but helpfulness. The last thing the developing world needs is more regulation. Do you think it would help Thai society if every building that doesn't meet the fire code in Australia were bulldozed tommorow? Or if the minimum wage were suddenly raised to 2000B a day?

These laws do not help any Thai people, they merely make it illegal for Thais to hire a certain class of teachers. The government needs to focus on helping Thai employees tell the wheat from the chaff so they can make informed decisions, not reduce the range of options so that employees can't afford to hire anyone at all.

Exactly the same principles apply in the first world. The government should limit itself to making sure consumers get what they pay for, not restricting their rights to make quality/cost tradeoffs as they see fit.

Yeah, I missed the part where you explained what's wrong with a (developing) country insisting that foreign (teaching) employees meet similar professional standards to what they would have to in their own country.

Because demand is greater than supply? There is no reason to believe that preventing the unauthorized teachers from teaching will suddenly cause thousands of qualified individuals to arrive in Thailand ready to service the local market at a price it can reasonably be expected to pay.

While your pal is probably a great bloke with the best of intentions, you can understand the reluctance of the Thai authorities to help him. He wants to take the child away from its mother, probably permanently since Mum probably can't afford the flights to Hong Kong, on the grounds that he's paid 2.5M for the kid. To live with his new wife while he works full time?

A snowflake's in hel_l I would think, unfortunately for your friend.

Be a backpacker for a while. If you're careful 12K sterling will last quite a long time. Keep your eyes open while you are here and something might turn up - likely related to teaching English.

Unless you are an extraordinary individual, you cannot do menial work. You would be an illegal worker competing with other illegal workers from very harsh backgrounds (i.e. Burma). Honestly, I don't believe there are many westerners who could hack it. And even if you did manage it, unless you are of Asian heritage you would be caught very quickly. People of western appearance are never seen doing that kind of work here.

But seriously - you're 20 years of age with no marital ties, right? Throw on a backpack and lose yourself in Asia for 6 months. You'll have a great time if nothing else.

Thanks for the advice

I've been offered the role as a 12 month fixed term permanent deal which means all visa/permits are dealt with by employer.

Cool.If the employer is a "blue chip" then thats great. Otherwise, in the IT industry, be wary of the cowboys and firms who dangle carrots, talk the talk but dont walk the walk.They are rife here.And I'm speaking from solid first hand experience.

Thanks for the advice

Now i just need to work out the best way to control my finances i have left here in the UK!

Sell pounds, buy New Zealand Dollars, invest cash at 9% with only 2% tax in a NZL bank (but I am biased, being a Kiwi )

Is what you are suggesting possible without travelling to NZ--I mean the setting up of NZ Bank account and so on--I know that, if I wanted to do the same with a UK bank account I would need a UK postal address and they also want payment by cheque when opening the account--at least the one I was looking into most recently did--there may be some which don't but I am not aware of them, if so?

Risky fun!

One school of thought says that the Aussie (and by extension

the NZD) is more expensive than it should be already. And,

because of people doing what you propose with a lot of borrowed

money ("carry-trades"), it has the potential to drop fast at

any point.

On the other hand, many folks are confident GBP will drop this

year and there is every chance NZD will stay high...

Seems to me that restaurants and pubs should be handled differently. As a non-smoker, it irritates me when the next table lights up while I'm eating. But it's a bit silly objecting to smoking in a pub.

No ..never arrested or any problem there ...ever. I just applied for and received a two month Tourist Visa from Honolulu and plan to return to BKK in January. The only reason I am worried was that I got a half dozen emails in May of this year from a lady I knew in Pattaya. But the letters were not from her...they said they were from the Royal Thai Police (who really knows) and that I was accused of crimes there and would be arrested upon my return. I did nothing. I also received from the same mail address threatening words from a group in the USA. All very strange...but enough to worry me.

You must be one dangerous dude if they're trying to arrest you by email.

For a spousal visa to Australia the Australian and often one or more witnesses have to swear that the relationship is stable committed and long-lasting. I guess the original poster just lied his ass off on the forms huh? Comments in his first post indicate he is one of those with a less than generous attitude to all women, not just those that have turned on him. Som nam na, old chap.

OK. That is the special work/tour visa for Oz. Was not aware they called it B-A. One thing I did notice was that they say it must be used within three months (normally that would be the validity period of the visa). Are you sure your visa is still valid? Normally a multi entry visa is valid for 12 months so perhaps this visa also has a 'first entry requirement' of three months?

Strange.

I hadn't noticed that condition before, I'm not real sure what that means. But I'm quite sure it's still valid - last entered Thailand about a week ago. The "enter before date" on the visa itself is 12 months after the day it was issued.

I have no scanner or digital camera, so I can't post a picture of it. But I'll transcribe what's written on it:

Non-Immigrant B-A M 225AUD

SYDNEY <date of issue>

<enter before date> <passport number> 0

THAI-AUS WORKING HOLIDAY SCHEME.

The last line (THAI-AUS etc.) is hand-written. Everything else printed.

Regards,

Cocopops.

I have never heard of the visa but yes you can obtain a re-entry permit to keep your stay alive after the visa becomes invalid.

Thanks for the answer Lopburi. Nobody has heard of this visa type. Every time I enter, the immigration staff go get the boss to check that it's real.

For others, if you happen to qualify, this is a good visa to get. It takes a while though (mine took 6 weeks to issue last year).

http://thaisydney.idx.com.au/Consular_serv...%20holiday.html

Hi,

I was lucky enough to score a multiple entry "B-A" visa late last year. This

kind of visa gives you a 1 year permission to stay stamp each time you

enter. But it runs out soon, and I don't think I'm eligible to get another one.

From what I understand, if I leave and re-enter just before the visa expires

I'll be given another 1 year stamp. My question is, if I need to leave Thailand

briefly during that 1 year period, will I be able to get a re-entry permit even

though the actual visa has expired?

More succinctly, is it possible to stretch out my stay for almost another year

like this? Anybody have any experience trying this sort of thing?

Thankyou kindly,

Cocopops.