Guderian

Sounds a bit chicken-and-egg to me. Which comes first, the 20 million jobs for skilled workers, or the 20 million skilled workers looking for jobs? Anyway, with the dismal education standards in the state school system there's little danger of them rapidly creating what the West would regard as 20 million skilled workers. And another point is the 200,000 annual salary target, that's not exactly very ambitious, averaging just 16,700 Baht/month, or 550 Baht/day. In Pattaya these days, it's hard to find even an unskilled worker for less than 500 Baht a day.

I'm the opposite. When I first came to live here 20 years ago I knew very little about Thai culture and customs, so it would have been silly for me to wai. Over the decades, I've learnt quite a bit about matters Thai, both the language and the ways that they interact, with the occasional elbow in the ribs from the GF as an added explanation, lol. I know the three levels of wai, but as a non-Buddhist farang I try to limit myself to the basic version. I'm quite comfortable returning a wai in the right circumstances, but I seldom initiate one. I find that, if you have a good idea what you're doing, the locals appreciate the gesture.

Maybe it's time for the British and American governments to think about proposing THUKUS?

At least the author isn't blaming all of Thailand's economic malaise on the lack of Chinese tourists, unlike the TAT, lol.

So 20 million more Burmese, Cambodian, Lao and Viet workers coming to Thailand? I doubt it, somehow.

Noooooo! The GF's just been diagnosed with haemorrhoids, lol!

Hardly a freak weather event, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been recorded having a serious effect on the weather going back to Inca times, so it's got nothing to do with AGW, either. It's what gave us the extraordinarily hot and dry weather for most of this year. Interestingly, it was predicted to peak in the Autumn and possibly result in 2024 being the hottest year on record, but now it looks like this strong El Niño is going to decline unusually rapidly, and things could be back to normal by April.

The air quality has been much better so far this cool season than it has for years. There seems to be a lot less burning going on than in the past, even in Pattaya I haven't noticed the usual suspects starting to burn all their garden rubbish as soon as the rainy season ends. Are they finally starting to enforce the rules on burning garden and agricultural waste?

Nice to see a sensible approach to cutting emissions for a change, all the Western politicians can come up with is to make us all live in 15-minute caves.

The committee members should be reminded that, for someone of Thaksin's status, the only suitable gifts to take are Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.

So spending is down by almost 10%, big deal, the way prices are going here, inflation will quickly deal with that drop.

The barracks on Drake's Island should do nicely,,, https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/english-island-with-military-barracks-underground-tunnel-hits-market-for-6-million-111618

I wonder how they will increase the taxes on the Western expat community to pay for this? lol

That's hardly surprising if it had been fuelled for the journey from Bahrain to Dhaka, and ended up in Bangkok, 1,500 km further on!

My goodness, finally an admission that the big-spending Chinese, Indians and Malays aren't the only thing that matters, and that not all Western tourists are here for cheap beer, cheap food and sex (no longer cheap, sadly, lol).

It's certainly got worse since this morning in Pattaya. The AQI was a bit over 100 this morning, which you could 'see' as the big condos near me (500-1,000 m away) were a wee bit hazy. This afternoon, Air Visual says the AQI is well over 150, and over 170 in places, and indeed the 36-storey Supalei Mare condo nearby is decidedly hazy, while Unixx a bit further away is almost lost in the murk.

No mystery then why he's getting excited, salivating at the prospect of the rich foreigners sending yet more plane-loads of cash to Thailand for doing nothing, sorry I mean for striving to get to net zero by 2050, yet oddly and sadly failing to come anywhere near it.

I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...

Lotus has plenty in its candied fruits section. I use the one on Sukhumvit, and the candied fruits are on the other side of the fresh fruit and vegetables area, before the dairy cabinets. Bags are priced by the kilo but sold with individual weights, so check the price on the bag. The candied pomelo peel is something else, really good. I always make a batch of crystallised ginger in dark chocolate for Christmas, which is why I know what's there at the moment.

And don't forget that you need an up-to-date TM30 before you can apply for a residence certificate, lol. No, really.

I see that TAT's Quality Tourist programme still isn't yielding anything positive then, lol!

There are some excellent specialist doctors in Thailand, and also plenty of incompetent rogues. If I've found one of the excellent ones I don't much care what it costs me, to be honest.

Thanks for the replies, that doesn't sound encouraging.

[SARCASM] It's good news that the RTP are cracking down on this brand new phenomenon of child sexual exploitation in Pattaya, better nip this one in the bud before the City gets a reputation for it. We wouldn't want foreign news channels like the BBC describing our beloved City as an 'industrial scale brothel', after all. It's also a good job that this interest in underage sex is entirely confined to Pattaya, and could never happen anywhere else in Thailand. [/SARCASM]

Really? Nobody has ever used the online booking system? Or were the results so traumatic that you can't bring yourself to tell us about them, lol?