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Some of the foreigners living in Thailand lived a life of celebacy for decades before moving to SE Asia. Some of them were even married during some of that time. So I am not sure you are preaching to the right audience.

4 hours ago, worgeordie said:

Is it now Fraud ,if you don't pay your bills.

regards worgeordie

But it would be fraud if one fraudulently removed assets from a company that was being sued/owed money and claimed they had nothing. Of course, because of the lack of reporting standards, nothing is clear

This is almost hilarious. In open societies that are democracies, freedom of speech has a central priority. Since, as even the most badly trained lawyer knows, laws in democracies come from the elected officials, it is expected that activists will advocate to change laws that they feel are decriminatory or wrong. No amount of going to court will change a law unless one has the extraordinary luck to have one's case included in the docket for the supreme court of the country - and one lives long enough, as that can take decades, if it occurs at all.

While I never had a tenant like that, I did have tenants in Western countries who destroyed an apartment in a multitude of other ways. marked or destroyed most of the furniture, broke all the locks on the several patio doors, completely fouled the carpets, white goods (oven, cooker and fridge and washing machine) had to be replaced, beds were in terrible condition as they did not seem to use sheets at least some of the time. They gave the neighbours a terrible time with noise, climbing onto balconies of other flats etc. Getting them to leave was not easy due to laws favouring the tenants. After they left, I spent several months and fifteen thousand dollars equivalent restoring the property and refurnishing it. The tenants kept threatening me with legal action and reporting me for non-existent infringements of rules. I became much more careful about vetting tenants from then on. By the way, these were middle class tenants - one was a lawyer. After that, I always meet the tenants face to face and don't rely on some agent to just fill the apartment so that he can get his commission quickly.

21 hours ago, darksidedog said:

As a 13 year prison visitor, the wisest words I ever heard outside a prison from a wrinkled faced old Thai lady was "This prison isn't full of guilty people. It is full of poor people." She was right.

The rich pay their way off, the well to do have a fighting chance with a good lawyer, given the prosecution are none too bright, nor the judges come to that,

The accused poor are as good as hung, the day the cops announce this is the man.

Thai justice, which strangely never finds any wrongdoing by bent cops, or politicians unless they have been overthrown in a coup, normally as an ends to justify the means.

I have been on the wrong end of this when the same family name was good enough for the cops to broadcast an arrest.

When they got it right and got the right fella, they broadcast that too, but never said sorry for their original mistake.

Photos and names of unconvicted accused should not be made public unless the evidence is overwhelming, and probably not even then as it could taint potential witnesses.

Try telling that to photo happy cops though.

While I am not disputing what you say, the sad truth is that this is only slightly different from what happens in Western countries. Take the USA, for instance. The police like nothing better than to make the accused do the "perp walk" with the media well-notified in advance even though no trial has yet taken place. Many so-called charges are found to be somewhat less well-founded at a later stage when they reach court or even before they reach court, if they ever do.

As regards only poor people going to jail, all I can say is that very few rich folks go to prison in the USA. Many people are in American prisons there because they cannot pay a fine, ran out of money and cannot pay maintenance because they lost their job or source of income, cannot afford the bail or cannot afford a really good lawyer who stops law enforcement actually breaking the law or over-reaching on issues such as probation.

I know a good example of how justice depends on wealth and money - no names and no locations or details but you will get what I mean. Two people were caught in the same jurisdiction for the same kind of crime - drug related, no death or assaults involved. Both had court appointed attorneys and both were given 20 years after trial. The black one had no money and no relatives who had money and ended up doing most of the time before he eventually got probation.

The white one had a relative who was wealthy and who hired a really good set of lawyers for the appeal. Because the extremely busy police and prosecutors thought they had a guy with no resources (they knew he had a court appointed attorney), they cut corners when compiling the case. The court appointed attorney just goes through the motions as s/he is paid miserably. So the set of good quality lawyers found a stack of things wrong with the case and the appeal court threw it out and the white guy walked free (even though most likely he would have been found guilty if the case had been properly compiled). It cost a small fortune in lawyers' fees.

So what is really different between populations in Thailand's jails and those in the USA? 

18 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

Posts of this type rely on having little knowledge of the UK 'job market/legal system'.

 

My favourite was "If you are worried that the influx of these foreign workers are going to drive down wages of the very lowest paid, there is a simple solution - increase the minimum wage and enforce it for all, with huge fines for companies and jail time for directors on the second offence."  

 

Although to be fair, Ernie Saunders was jailed for a short period of time - before being released (for some obscure reason) as suffering from Alzheimers - are other prisoners released for this reason?  Weirdly  he made a miraculous recovery upon being released !

 

Edit - Yes, I realise his case was about actual fraud!

 

Not just company employees being paid less than the minimum wage/deliberately keeping wages as low as possible at the bottom of the scale, whilst also deliberately increasing the salaries/benefits of those at the top in direct proportion to how those at the bottom have been reduced.... 

Saunders in the famous Guinness case was about fraud, theft and false accounting. Fraud at that level (involving share price manipulation) is one of the hardest cases and most expensive cases to prove in any jurisdiction - hence the reticence of the Crown Prosecution Services to move on such cases. Which is why the Saunders case was so rare and why he ultimately got such a light sentence and everyone else effectively got off.

However, not paying the minimum wage is far easier to prove. Last year alone, 700 companies were convicted of breaking the minimum wages law. And that was without too much investigation and no whistle-blowing incentives. But only the company is fined a max of 5,000 pounds. Thats nothing - if you want to get the attention of directors of a company, make them criminally liable with jail sentences.

The big problem is legislation. Too many companies are getting away with various dodges or making their employees into temp contractors etc. Legislation would deal with that by creating a minimum rate for temp contractors of say 15 pounds per hour with an easy way for people to blow the whistle.

You might be surprised how much I know about the British labour market and Britain having lived and worked there for many many years.

1 hour ago, dick dasterdly said:

"Any EU migrants should be required to get a work permit or equivalent after March 2019."

 

I agree.  Nobody has a problem with well-paid workers that have been offered jobs (in sectors with a shortage of UK qualified applicants) being offered jobs in the UK.  Other than the obvious 'gripe' - why/how is there this shortage of skills in these sectors?

 

The grievances about the 'open borders' policy are centred around the unskilled from very poor EU countries arriving in the UK to work for (at best) minimum wage - which keeps wages at the 'bottom' very low as companies (particularly wealthy companies) make the most of the cheap labour on offer.

 

The effect migrates upwards to those on slightly higher wages etc. etc.  One of the reasons behind the stagnation/reduction of salaries - apart from those at the top of course whose salaries continue to increase and widen the salary differential between those at the top, compared to those at the bottom.....

The top end of the labour market will probably be able to look after itself, given that they have top lawyers and lobbyists to help them out.

The tough cases will be the lower end of the market in the jobs that British people just do not want to do. I am talking about fruit picking, very mundane factory work etc. Effctively the really dirty, deadly boring and hard work.

If you are worried that the influx of these foreign workers are going to drive down wages of the very lowest paid, there is a simple solution - increase the minimum wage and enforce it for all, with huge fines for companies and jail time for directors on the second offence.

Don't get me wrong - if I were British, I would be against Brexit but as a fellow European I am genuinely sorry to see our British chums leaving the EU. But we respect that this is the decision of the majority and that is that, although I do wonder whether every UK person who voted Brexit was able to clearly think through all the ramifications at the time of voting.

I also understand that some people put sovereignity above well-being or wealth - so it is not always a matter of money. But I would be concerned, if I were British, at the level of economic damage that will be inflicted as Britain moves from being a high-trade international economy to being a more local economy with few international trading links.

We all know or suspect that Brexit is mainly about immigration. But Brexit will never directly have any effect on the large non-EU immigration that occurs and has occurred in Britain in recent years. Opting out of Schlengen took care international migration and there will be no change. So Brexit is really about keeping the Poles and central Europeans out of Britain.

The sad part is that Brexit may have a strong indirect effect on immigration of all kinds, which is that the UK will not be as attractive to immigrants as the economy falters. Already I hear from British employers, who use  Polish workers because they cannot get British workers, that the Poles are asking for higher wages in Sterling because Sterling has fallen 30%. It is not that the Poles and Eastern Euripeans generally are desperate for work - they can work in any country in the EU and the demand for labour is high in Germany now.

I have never lived in Bangkok with a family but I know people who have. The huge problem they talked about is where to live so that you and your family can get to and from work/school without spending hours in traffic - everything else came second. Invariably, Western parents decide to live near the school and the wage earner gets to spend hours in traffic.

Things are getting a little better due to the extending of the coverage of the train service. But clearly that only works if you work near the train and live near the train. The problem in many cases is that rents and real estate prices go up when new train stations appear nearby.

I don't know the name of the location but it was "near the airport" but it still took ages to get to the airport as there were no rail links and traffic was always terrible. The houses were in large gated communities with amenities located centrally such as swimming pool and gym but the gardens were almost non-existent.

There was much discussion about the problems they went through purchasing such houses - getting a mortgage when the guy was a foreigner was hell (although he had a bank account, good job, work permit, thai wife and kids and all the documents etc).

22 hours ago, wirat69 said:

In New Zealand it is mandatory for dog owners to pick up pooch's poop in public places. The article does not make it clear whether Mrs Chin did so on this occasion!!

Not only in New Zealand . . . In many countries it is the enforced law.

4 hours ago, Grouse said:

An aircraft carrier with no aircraft and precious little defensive systems ?

I hate to break this to everyone but Britain does not currently have an aircraft carrier. Nope, not a single one.

I am not sure why the Chinese feathers would get so ruffled about a single warship.

We can see the trend already. The airlines from other regional hubs are beginning to see that tourists might not want to fly through Bangkok because of visa restrictions - I mean, what would you do if the Thai immigration officer does not let you through to catch your Thai Smile or Air Asia flight to Laos or Phnom Penh because after all it is at his/her discretion or maybe you did not think you should have 20,000 baht in cash.

You cannot just connect straight through onto Air Asia or Thai Smile because they are point to point airlines and therefore do not accept checked through baggage. Maybe you forgot to print out your electronic ticket to prove to immigration that you are flying out within a few hours. Bad luck - now you go back to where you came from, no doubt with the airline fighting to get the money for the last-minute high-priced ticket out of you.

So better fly via Singapore, KL, Hong Kong or Hanoi, to mention a few alternatives to Bangkok, where they don't do this kind of nonsense.

Slowly, slowly, the Bangkok hub status begins to be eaten away, thanks to their crazy ever-changing visa policies.

3 hours ago, trogers said:

Easy to speak about rights in the secure office of the UN in NYC. Try putting a desk in Karachi and speak again...

But at least it gets spoken about. What would you prefer, that the international community say nothing about it?

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

Odd syntax, but if you're saying Saudi Arabia is a puppet of Israel, that is totally false, and I reckon you know that. 

Actually Saudi Arabia might not be a puppet of Israel but it is certainly a silent partner of Israel as they find themselves on the same side in many issues.

The last thing that Saudi Arabia wants is an Arabic broadcaster that can say it the way it is and that reminds them of the Arab Spring. The last thing that Netanyahu wants is an Arab broadcaster that might show ordinary Arabs through the fog of state controlled broadcasting and actually show them what is really going on in the world.

By his statement, Netanyahu is lining up with completely unelected leaders of certain Arab countries against Iran which has at least a partial democracy. But he does not really care about that as his real beef is that Iran supports Hamas. Since Qatar is the only Arab country that has opened its diplomatic doors to Iran (they share a huge gas field which is the main source of Qatari wealth), Bibi has decided to throw in his lot with one of the more repressive regimes on Earth (Saudi) and do what all dictators do, which is to snuff out free speech.

To put this in context, the Chinese railway in Laos has already started and tunnels are being dug right now. The Lao will get a fantastic piece of infrastructure linking much of the country to China as well as Thailand. This is crucial in a land-locked country where the road infrastructure has always been a huge problem with key sections always being washed away during the rainy season.

Perhaps it is time that Thailand jumps on board . . .

Sometimes there are calls for corrupt politicians to pay back money they stole while in office - an usually these calls amount to almost nothing.

But here we have a call for a politician to pay compensation for a policy that did not work. Surely a World first!

And they want her to pay back more than a billion dollars. Not even a Shinawatra has that sort of cash to hand . . .

2 hours ago, harada said:

Erdogan the consummate mediator.  

They don't nicname him Exocet for nothing!

Besides, he is sitting beside the wrong man. He should be meeting with the Crown Prince who is the mover and shaker, who is responsible for external affairs in the Kingdom.

Most/all of these taxi companies use contract drivers with their own cars. If the taxi driver is paying the tolls himself with cash, then it may be that he is just saving himself some money.

But he may also be saving himself some time. Some of the lines of vehicles for paying cash fill up during busy periods. And the last section of highway before the relevant turnoffs for Suk and related areas are often jammed. Your driver may be getting info on these traffic jams and taking preventive action.

2 hours ago, YetAnother said:

be interesting to see how it plays out: connections + money vs. social 'pressure'; judging by his publicly revealed past, i bet on the former

But if anyone names any such perpetrator, they will be charged with libel. Hmmm. It makes reporting to the police an interesting activity unless that is expressly allowed under the libel law.

I remember Bangkok before Skytrain was opened. This Back in 1991, the traffic was so terrible that it took several hours to get to Don Muang, the only airport. This was when many of the highways were also to be built and no fly-overs. THe pollution was awful with people walking with handkerchiefs over their noses. TukTuks and taxis were still using regular fuel as opposed to gas (LPG).

Tourists who had experienced it once would always plan their arrival in Bangkok by air without ever staying in the city. 

19 hours ago, chickenslegs said:

 

This guy has been a successful (well paid) actor for years but seems to have pi55ed most of it up against the wall. Not to mention his (alleged) expensive drugs habit.

 

Is there a GoFundMe campaign yet?

 

 

And so out of pocket is he that although he could afford the airfare to Thailand and presumably money to pay for food and accommodation, he did not have enough for any form of health insurance or travel insurance.

"Lets not tell anyone - let it be our secret."

If neither side told anyone about the meeting, then it was a secret.

It was not a few minutes over dinner. It was a separate meeting that lasted over an hour. To get those two men into the same space for an hour takes organization and planning. Their time is too short and there is no exchange of the kind like: "Eh Don, are you free for a few minutes?" "Ah Vlad, I was having forty winks but come on up and we can have a chat."

Given than no one keeps stuff secret for no reason, we now ask why it was a secret, what was the subject of the meeting etc. Why was a secret meeting planned?

11 hours ago, Dave67 said:

How about we take out the cost of liberating your country from the Nazis

And who will pay for the cost of helping to protect the UK during the Battle of Britain when without the Americans Britain would have fallen to the Nazis?

And what about all those nationalities whose countries were not involved but who threw their hat into the ring to fight against fascism/Nazism?

Let me guess at what will feature on the new list:

teacher of foreign languages

OK - we get the message that Skype for iOS is terrible now and was not great before.

But how about letting everyone know about the alternatives, especially the ones where you can call landlines and mobiles online. That way, we can hit Skype where it hurts most, in their wallet. For instance I have Wire but it won't call landlines or mobiles.

So, please, don't get angry - get even. Provide the names and details of all the relatively decent competitors that call landlines/mobiles (a comment or two about each would be great, including costs) and lets take it from there.