StreetCowboy

Yes, I would outlaw all that. It's how the "haves" rip off the "have nots". You may have guessed by now, but I'm on the Occupy Wall St side, against the bankers ( the crooks ). I reckon the guy on Wall St with the sign saying "JUMP" had it right!

Time for the financier scum to get a real job.

Unfortunately, if the financier sum had to get different jobs, companies would not be able to raise money on the stock exchange to fund expansion plans. There would be no market for corporate paper so they would not be able to borrow money as easily as in the past, which would also adversely affect the economy. Still if you would be happy to decimate the economy and cause huge problems for everybody, you go for it.

You may want to look at how much of the yearly tax bill is paid for by the city of London before you do though - it might be missed (if you are from the UK. If not I dare say you wouldn't give a toss).

Hmmmmm. I remember a different world where people actually had real jobs in their own countries because it wasn't considered the "right thing" to make people unemployed, so companies like Nike and Apple could ship the jobs to third world countries and exploit the workers there. For what- so the stockholders and company execs could make astronomical amounts of money, and dump the social problems caused by local unemployment onto the taxpayers.

Is Detroit worth making larger profits for?

Back then, none of the present financial scullduggery went on, and we all had jobs, money and decent lives.

If it was necessary, how did the City of London survive before the banks were deregulated. How did we all live without the IT bubble, the housing bubble and whatever bubble they are thinking up next?

I remember well how a work colleague in the '80s was always crowing about the huge amount of money she was making on the stock market. I laughed like a drain when she lost it all in the crash of '87. I also vowed NEVER to put money in that scam.

<Still if you would be happy to decimate the economy and cause huge problems for everybody, you go for it.>

As nothing has changed in the corporate world, it's going to happen anyway, whatever you or I want. Greece is the future, happening now. Do those fools in Brussels think that the masses will live in the street and starve quietly just so the IMF can get paid back? It ain't over yet.

I suppose we have to accept that the four horsemen of ignorance, laziness, envy and entitlement are going to ravage our home economies, but I am surprised at the number of people on this forum gloating about it. I suppose they are the outriders for the horsemen,,,

SC

Even if you complain, no-one listens. You might as well not bother. Look at these shoes (those shoes, now). I only had them a few months. In the end I had to put them in a bin, and buy a British brand.

The trouble is that we have so much trouble seeing ourselves as others see us, as Rabi Burns said. WHile I think I have a valid point to raise and worhty of constructive discussion, others see it as merely whinging. For example, I get incensed with the continuous mis-spelling, which must infuriate guys like Ryan Giggs and the Max Evans. Anyway, perhaps the moderators could move any offending posts into a Whinging Brits forum, and send the offender a PM (Persistent Moan). Or we could use subterfuge, and title the forum "Pensions and Immigration"...

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In the Thai work environment, the one that steals the most and works the least is the most admired. No?

Don't tell me. You know this because this is what you heard? Answer me one question: Why do we have so many idiot farangs in Thailand?

I owned 2 business in Thailand.

I see. How many businesses are there in Thailand? Several thousand. And you indict all working Thais because of, what, a dozen or so employees, tops? It's these kinds of racist sentiments that annoys me. But hey, believe what you will.

So we conclude that within his businesses, the people that stole the most were most admired. That wasn't the case in the company I worked for, though that was an international company that went out of its way to attract staff with a high level of integrity. I suppose management has some contribution to the culture of the company; though they cannot dictate it, they can influence it - though perhaps not in the way that they would like.

I would concur that social-bonding activities were given a higher priority than I was accustomed to in the UK.

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Here is the main point of the original post (for those who are having difficulty with comprehension).

"Anyone else got any good reasons why they are glad they are not in their 'own' country? (Political asylum seekers need not reply)"

I thank you.

Sorry; I thought it was country of birth.

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Hairs/splitting/stop

Please rearrange.

Some of us may be second or third generation ex-pats with only the loosest of ties to any particular country; I can't think of any to be sure, bar my British - Pakistani cousin who lives in Argentina, for all I know...

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Here is the main point of the original post (for those who are having difficulty with comprehension).

"Anyone else got any good reasons why they are glad they are not in their 'own' country? (Political asylum seekers need not reply)"

I thank you.

Sorry; I thought it was country of birth.

SC

I'm fairly certain, though I can't cite anything APA style, that regardless of where we go. We are certainly a danger to ourselves.

60% of my mistakes have been mine. Every time.

Tell us about the other 40%.......this sounds interesting

The other 40% never happened. I wasn't there. You can't prove anything, No-one saw me do it.

Anyway, for all I know, I might have been a perfectly innocent bystander.

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...

Anyway, I'm away to start a poll........feel free to vote

How much will you pay me?

SC

In the Thai work environment, the one that steals the most and works the least is the most admired. No?

Don't tell me. You know this because this is what you heard? Answer me one question: Why do we have so many idiot farangs in Thailand?

I often wonder the same my self, I am not being flippant, nor do I consider my self a great intellect

but this is a serious question.

When reading this and other Thai forums, one has to wonder.

I have meet a great many reasonable intelligent farangs, in Thailand and on this , and other forums, and on my time of need,they were very helpful, and for that I will always be grateful. But I flip through the posts,and replies, and I am amazed by the preponderance of idiocy .

I have lived and worked in many places in the world, and nowhere have I seen such behavior.

Or is it that in Thailand the idiots are the must vocal?

You need to get out more. The standard of debate and discussion on TV leaves most other fora I've seen standing. To be fair, I think it is the relative absence of children who enjoy swearing. And probably that all the old codgers here type so slowly that they have plenty of time to think by the time they get to the end of their message...

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Here's all those 21 year olds earning 20 grand.

Nick Clegg is launching the plan to tackle rising levels of youth unemployment

Firms and charities are to be invited to bid for a payment-by-results scheme to try to get "Neet" teenagers into work or training, in a project launched by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

The £126m scheme is aimed at 55,000 teenagers in England with poor qualifications who are currently not in education, employment or training.

Mr Clegg says it will help youngsters "into the world of work".

But Labour says the project is "too small and much too late".

Chris Keates, leader of the Nasuwt teachers' union, accused Mr Clegg of being responsible for an increase in Neets by scrapping the Education Maintenance Allowance.

'Ticking time bomb'

Mr Clegg described the problem of rising youth unemployment as a "ticking time bomb".

"Sitting at home with nothing to do when you're so young can knock the stuffing out of you for years," he said.

"We urgently need to step up efforts to ensure some of our most troubled teenagers have the skills, confidence and opportunities to succeed.

"Many of them will have complex problems: truancy, teenage pregnancy, a lack of GCSEs and health problems."

Mr Clegg said to see teenagers who have left school with no qualifications "slumped on the sofa in front of the telly is not only tragic for them... but it stores up huge problems for the future if we don't help them now".

He said it was also about getting "crucial early years in a child's life at school right" to "save on so much heartache later".

"If you start early it then allows children to start their school career with a sense of enthusiasm for learning," he said.

The scheme, part of the Youth Contract announced in the autumn, will invite bids for contracts worth up to £2,200 for each teenager who can be sustained in work, education or training for 12 months.

The target group will be 16- to 17-year-olds without any GCSEs at C grade or above.

The aim is for long-term savings from an early intervention.

Almost one in five young people aged between 16 and 24 are classified as Neet - with the most recent figure standing at 1,163,000.

This response from the government is aimed at teenagers at the lower end of this age range who are already at risk of "disengagement" from the world of work.

The organisations that win these contracts will have a free hand to decide their approach - with the emphasis on rewarding a successful outcome.

Payments will be staggered, so that the full amount will be paid only to contractors when young people have remained in work or training for a year.

The funding will reflect the highest level of Neet youngsters in this age group - with £14m available in the West Midlands, where 11.5% of 16- to 17-year-olds are in this category.

The project has been challenged by the ATL teachers' union, which accused the government of damaging the chances of teenagers "by dismantling the careers and advice service and abolishing the education maintenance allowance".

"We have deep misgivings that getting charities and businesses to provide support for unemployed youngsters outside the education system will undermine the likelihood of success," said ATL officer Adrian Prandle.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne also said the Youth Contract would not help most young unemployed people.

Mr Byrne said of Mr Clegg: "He promised big answers to the problem of youth unemployment yet what we have got today is something that won't help 95% of Britain's young unemployed.

"This is much too small and much too late to tackle a problem that is likely to cost our country £28bn over the next 10 years.

"The government needs to bite the bullet and put in place a sensible tax on bankers' bonuses in the next budget to help get 100,000 young people back to work."

'Job snobs'

Meanwhile, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has branded critics of the government's separate work experience scheme for young jobseekers as "job snobs".

The scheme offers unpaid work placements in stores such as Tesco and Maplin to 18- to 24-year-olds who have been unemployed for more than three months.

Mr Duncan Smith said in the Daily Mail: "The implicit message behind these attacks is that jobs in retail, such as those with supermarkets or on the High Street, are not real jobs that worthwhile people do.

"How insulting and demeaning of the many thousands of people who already work in such jobs up and down the country.

"I doubt I'm the only person who thinks supermarket shelf-stackers add more value to our society than many of those 'job snobs' who are pontificating about the government's employment policies."

We have had all this work for Training and no pay under previous Tory Rules,all that happened was Employers took advantage for the one year "Training" period,which was really free labour,and then showed the youngsters the door,and then took on a new "Slave by it's correct name" what a farce,it must be difficult for Tesco to train up Shelf Stackers,poor dears have only got 4,000 plus Superstores Worldwide,generating billions in profits,so I can see why they can't afford to pay Trainees.

The proposed "deadwoods cluttering up the workplace" scheme is not for the benefit of the emploeyr, its for the benefit of the employee; for them to demonstrate that they can hold down a job and get a reference when they apply for a waged position. As I was reading the post you quoted, I thought "Goodness me, you'd be a brave man to take one of them on...". As far as I can tell, we have managed to develop in Britain a culture where people no longer strive to succeed, and are not willing to strive to succeed. Personally, I blame the parents...

When I was much younger than I am today, I shared a house with a teacher, who blamed the Comprehensive education of the parents.

Out of interest, how many of the game shows and reality shows on TV require any real effort on the part of their participants; and in particular, constructive effort or problem solving? I'm not so interested in the answer that I would actually do the research and watch game shows myself...

SC

OOPS what have I started?

Just for the record, my UK pensions are taxed in the UK, I don't use any UK services- health/ social security etc so I don't understand why I am not entitled to the state pension and the increases that I paid in for for so many years. The only point I was trying to make was that,with all the fancy computer systems there, the offices can't speak to each other. Here, I think they have carrier pigeons/ drums/ lots of people with cleft sticks that seem to work and seem to be more reliable. ( another feeble attempt at a joke before I get flamed!!)

To be honest, a cleft stick isn't funny till someone takes the wrong end of it.

I only add sarcasm warnings when there is a genuine danger to others associated with people missing the sarcasm.

You're right about the pensions, though. I think I would prefer something like the Singaporean MPF, where each person's contributions are earmarked for his own benefit in his own fund. But instead, in Britain, we chose to pay today's pensioners from the earnings of tomorrow's pensioners, with reckless disregard to whether our children would be able to afford such generosity in the future.

I always think it is quaint that so often in Thailand one has to go back to one's own village / branch / immigration office to do whatever administrative task.

SC

How do expect Politicians who have been born with a silver spoon in there mouths never actually had a real job, Run the Country. take a look how many MP in the UK are Millionaires. thats where things have gone wrong,

Are there more MPs who are very rich than there were previously? Do you think that people who are successful should not become MPs? Perhaps people who no longer need to work, but who have the ability build a successful business, might make good MPs - better than someone like me who has to toil to put bread on the table; I'd need to line up all the favours and perks that I could, in the few years I was in office, for fear of falling at the next election...

SC

In the Thai work environment, the one that steals the most and works the least is the most admired. No?

to be honest, I have never worked for admiration, but rather for fun and money; though I do appreciate the praise of my customers, my boss and my colleagues, but in general the truest praise I've ever had is the offer of more work.

SC

In general i have found the farangs in Thailand to have far less integrity and be more dishonest, greedy and lazy than Thais.

You must hang out in some interesting low life slums......

Yea, that's why I try to avoid places infested with too many farangs. As you say...slums.

Generally, we've stayed in fairly intensively faranged developments, and our neighbours have been hard-working family people or a little younger. Of course, one rarely talks to one's neighbours, for fear of breaching a confidence, but they all seemed like fairly respectable people. I suppose if we associated with people who had to duck and dive to scrape a crust, who were skating on thin ice with their residency and so forth... then no doubt we might meet more scalliwags.

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EDIT: The common theme for the places we've lived in thailand has been excellent management of the condominium; for which we have been happy to pay over the odds (or conversely, to have a much smaller apartment)

Come on, you know you are in a very small minority.

Me too then. I arrived in Thailand in 2004 because I was transferred with my job. Fell in love with the place. Girls had nothing to do with it. It was purely about career development.

Me too. Arrived with the company I had worked for in three previous countries, with the same wife I have now, and the same children.

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This would apply to pretty much every mission statement and corperation in the world.

Personally, I have had the pleasure to work for a company whose mission statement I wholeheartedly supported, and, to a large extent, management followed through on it. Sadly, through the process of corporate convergence, our mission statement changed - equally laudable, but less closely aligned with my own personal values, and less closely aligned with the ambitions of the managers that I worked with. Nevertheless, by being aware of my own values, and our corporate values, I was able to find myself a suitable niche in the company and do a good job that was appreciated by my client and my colleagues, with sufficient time to find another opportunity that aligned with my own personal values. Onward and upwards, s a friend said to me, twenty-five years ago, although in that instance he was talking about substance abuse...

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... EDIT ... redundant discussion deleted; thanks and acknowledgement to Villagefarang who stated it earlier...

Anyway - the Peter Principle states that people are promoted one level beyond their level of competence - until at last they find a job that they cannot do.

The converse - the Competer Principle, says that people who are competent do NOT get promoted, becuase then there would be no-one to do their job. Instead, people who are incompetent are given training to rectify their incompetence, and then promoted on the grounds of their greater skill set. Their line managers don't block the promotion, because they know that the incompetence is related to inability rather than lack of training.

The challenge for us all is to find out which principle suits us better, and then find a corresponding employer.

What makes the OP think that management themselves took their targets seriously? How much effort did you spend to find out what they really meant? I generally found it better to worry about how well I was doing my job, and let the shareholders and management worry about how well management were doing. But then, I have easily marketable skills... in the current fashion, at least

SC

Come on guys fess up,

We are all here because we enjoy sex with much younger women persons (edited for gay guys).

No other reason, just a lot of old guys trying to hide what they are really here for.

Umm . . . no. Neither old nor a whore-monger, sorry to burst your bubble. Working and happily married with children (no, my wife isn't Thai)

Come on, you know you are in a very small minority.

We're all of us in a small minority if we look closely. A couple of my friends are individuals, in fact.

I've never really fancied living in my country of birth, and I probably couldn't get residency anyway.

SC

There is something about short-term travel that makes some people behave completely out of character.

I spent years on the US west coast in the satellite business. There were frequent short trips to Cocoa Beach Florida for launches. I could never understand how guys who lead normal uneventful lives on the west coast would go completely wild in Cocoa Beach and wreck cars, get arrested, get thrown out of restaraunts, were unfaithful etc. These were guys that never got into trouble at home and had solid marriages and otherwise were normal in every regard.

Even my own behavior would change somewhat. I would certainly date more women than I did at home, stay out later, spend more money etc. There is something about being "out of town" that lowers peoples inhibitions.

As far as waking up on the street after drinking, that would really make me examine my relationship with alcohol. If you are drinking to the point of not remembering things or passing out somewhere in public you really need to consider changing your approach. Sometimes it is some medication that doesn't get along with alcohol. For instance the heartburn medication Zantac when combined with alcohol can cause memory lapses. Zantac is a pretty benign and harmless substance by itself so most people don't realize that there is a problem with drinking while taking it.

I'll need to remember the Zantac alibi...

I find there's something about staying at home or being under the wife's supervision that makes people behave completely out of character.

SC

I think this thread is all about the 'apologists' being better and more Thai than the rest of us.

Most of the problem drunks I bump into are Thai, hanging out in tourist areas.

Most of the violent people I see are Thai beating on Thai.

Or maybe Bendix, theblether and HardenedSoul just hang out in tourist low-life areas.

I guess anyone who doesn't rail against all things Thai is an "apologist" in your eyes.

Sorry!

Getting back on topic (and I'm as guilty as others)...

Most expats have retired and, if they've lived here a while, have had 'bad' experiences here in one form or another.

Being retired makes it only too easy to accept the easy way out - drink to forget your problems!

I've not had any bad experiences in Thailand, they've all been fun.

Drinking is more a problem for those with too much time on their hands, without the intellect to fill that time IMHO.

Drinking wouldn't be a problem for you, with your 250 baht budget.

That's the size of his budget, not his thirst

The Iranian bombers last week were not Iranian, but were in fact evil and incompetent Thais. How else did they bungle it so badly?

Thailand is quite possibly the worst place in the world to do anything. Everyone is crap, corrupt and idiots. Except me of course.

I hate it in Thailand. I wish is was somewhere else.

I especially hate the apologists, particularly for their ability to see good things (alongside the inevitable frustrations being a westerner living in a developing country) in their new home.

I'm miserable.

I'm sorry you feel like that Bendix, maybe time for you to move somewhere else.

Typical apologist response.

Even the apologists are crap here.

Nostalgia was much better back in the Old Country

I think this thread is all about the 'apologists' being better and more Thai than the rest of us.

Most of the problem drunks I bump into are Thai, hanging out in tourist areas.

Most of the violent people I see are Thai beating on Thai.

Or maybe Bendix, theblether and HardenedSoul just hang out in tourist low-life areas.

I think this thread is all about the 'apologists' being better and more Thai than the rest of us.

Most of the problem drunks I bump into are Thai, hanging out in tourist areas.

Most of the violent people I see are Thai beating on Thai.

Or maybe Bendix, theblether and HardenedSoul just hang out in tourist low-life areas.

I don't recall seeing them...

SC

I don't know how you all find all these wierdos. I must lead a charmed life, but I rarely, if ever, bump into such types, even in lower Sukhumvit and Soi Cowboy.

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Once you have acquaintances like drug dealers from Cambodia, you will have lots of stories like that to tell.

And even better: you can tell the TV forum that you are so much classier than your acquaintances and not such a buffalo as them. Good for your self-esteem!

Suddenly I see how I retain my acquaintances!

they must think like you...

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I don't know how you all find all these wierdos. I must lead a charmed life, but I rarely, if ever, bump into such types, even in lower Sukhumvit and Soi Cowboy.

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Do you consider this forum (TV) a neutral environment?

http://www.thaivisa....__fromsearch__1

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EDIT: abbreviation replaced to avoid ambiguity