rudi49jr

For the life of me, I can not follow your reasoning. When you commit a crime, you have to do the time, it’s as simple as that. That should also apply to Thailand. So I’m all for making an example out of this Redbull guy, no matter how much money he and his family have already dished out. Just to show everyone that you really can go to jail, even if you are filthy rich.

So what you’re basically saying is that rich people can do anything they like as long as they pay good money for their crimes afterwards? What happens when Joe Schmoe does the crime but can not pay? Doesn’t the law apply to everyone equally?

Like a certain gentleman told Woodward and Bernstein decades ago already: “follow the money”.

Apparently it’s quite okay for officials to steal, but not from the disabled!

What I meant was, is something better even available for most of those people? It’s not always a matter of choice, you know. You can aspire to whatever you want, but in a country like Thailand, when you’re born into a poor family and you’re not overly intelligent, the choices you have are rather limited.

Of course it is not fair, a wage that you can not survive on is never fair. Jeez, what kind of world do you live in?

Yeah, doesn’t matter what kind of <deleted> work they have to do, as long as they get paid 300 baht a day they can’t complain, right?

There is nothing better, 300 baht a day is as good as it gets for most unskilled workers, so they are forced to work for a wage that they can not live on. Do you think that’s fair?

Not just pride, but common sense: how can anyone possibly live on 300 baht a day? Start paying liveable wages and see what happens.

I think the writer makes a wrong assumption here: most guys do not join the RTP with any noble ideals to fight crime or whatever. I think it’s pretty self explanatory why they actually do become a cop.

In your dreams….

Fully vaccinated with AZ. Still waiting on the verdict (getting conflicting info there) if a so-called ‘booster shot’ in the winter with either Pfizer, AZ or Moderna will do any good. Happy I’m fully vaccinated, but still being quite careful, no 100% going back to ‘normal’ for me any time soon, thank you very much.

I think many Thai are very busy looking for opportunities to funnel off some of those investments into their own pockets....

Happy to see it looks like common sense prevailed. Have a good life, Guide!

And a fat lot of good that will do! I’m quite sure there are already rules and laws in place that prohibit the RTP from using excessive force, torture and things like that, but that hasn’t stopped them so far, has it?

That was going to be my reaction as well. Does it mean they are going to do something about the burning and endless smog for months on end in the winter?

Unfortunately, the wristwatch scandal is just a teeny tiny tip of the iceberg of the enormous corruption and cronyism in this country. If all of that came to light, we would all be in for a huge shock. But apart from the occasional ‘scandal’ it never will, so we can only guess.

70 billion baht project. Imagine the kickbacks. Some people are going to get very rich here.

Not to mention the suffocating smog in the North that seemingly gets worse and lasts longer every year. I used to love visiting the North in the winter, it’s so beautiful up there. But they won’t see me there anymore, the last two times I went there (last time was in the winter of 2011/2012) I ended up with a very bad case of bronchitis. So one more reason to shun Thailand.

Not in our lifetime, though. This is a country where 60 - 70% of the people have no problem with corruption. If they can benefit from it, that is. Consecutive polls over decades show roughly the same figures.

Yeah, they're not exactly leading by example, are they? Not just by driving badly, but by behaving badly in general.

Agreed, have no idea what possesses someone to do such a thing, it just seems so stupid and petty and shortsighted. First of all, you kill someone, or in this case two persons, which is a horrible crime in and of itself. Plus you ruin your own life, when you get caught you go to prison for a very long time. Just walk away and find another girlfriend, how hard can that be?

I’m sure alcohol has something to do with it, but the main reasons for the many accidents are that many Thai drivers (cars and motorbikes) have no driving skills and no knowledge of traffic rules, or at least they totally ignore them, and it’s all just me first, me first, me first!! And the RTP does not enforce traffic rules. Just look at every traffic light in Thailand (where there’s quite often a police box on the corner), even after it has turned red about 4-6 drivers feel it’s perfectly okay to drive on and run the red light. Madness.

You don’t seem to realize that many countries in Western Europe (Denmark as well, I would imagine) have populations with an ever increasing number of old(er) people. So who is going to pay the taxes to keep the system going? Who’s going to take care of all those old people? In my country (Holland) there are already about 100,000 - 150,000 vacancies in health and seniors care that can not be filled. Whether they want to or not, those countries are going to need many (many!) young immigrants to keep everything going.

How Thai immigration would react if the shoe were on the other foot is totally irrelevant.