Gonsalviz

Thailand

expect the unexpected

its not over until the fat lady sings

BTW what is democracy?

is that where you get to vote someone in and then they do what ever they want and fly around in their own plan and live in a big house with lots of money and change the laws and and and?

I have 2 things to say (well 3 to pronounce upon) - first of all she is not fat and I don't know if she can sing (the right tunes for the moment anyway) and yes it does appear that that is what THAI democracy is all about!!!

The laws are also changed to ones that suit and benefit the likes of themselves in their new found world of opportunity (opportunities for themselves, again). I don't know why I need to repeat this "themselves" word so often to get my points of view over?? Can anybody enlighten me on this??

In the rest of world as in Thailand that is politics. If you get voted in,you get to make rules for others in the manner that you want, as it does not apply to you and yes, you get to fly around in a big airplane and spend someone else's money.

See how many times I repeated you and change it to them or themselves.

Thailand

expect the unexpected

its not over until the fat lady sings

BTW what is democracy?

is that where you get to vote someone in and then they do what ever they want and fly around in their own plan and live in a big house with lots of money and change the laws and and and?

Yes.

Thaksin is already promising to bring the USD back to 40/THB and 30 million tourists a year in LOS - he has all but actually proclaimed himself the real PM. Ta-da! The joke is no longer just a joke. A whole nation (or at least most of it) has fallen for it.

Did he really say that? Link? Not doubting it, just that I get paid in USD so would be happy about that for sure!

Not heard that myself as a PTP policy but I am also not saying it isn't true either, but now important that we do find out whether it is true or not. From my experience of Foreign Exchange you may well see a fast and immediate strengthening of the Thai Baht brought about by the hopeful promise of some possible long awaited stability here. If this happens, and we do not see what is now any unlikely new turmoil here, then expect the US$/Thai Baht middle rate to drop below 30 and forget anything even remotely near 32 let alone 40!!! Indeed also the British Pound will likely drop back down into the low 48's or even 47's again this coming week. If the Baht is eventually devalued by the new Government then sure it would initially help us falangs living here whose income is paid their home currency, but do not forget that devaluation nearly always brings higher inflation too as needed imports like oil and raw materials rapidly rise in price, so any gains we see will be short lived and really a false windfall.

The true and real sustained way to get more Baht for the US$, or £ etc is to see our home currencies strengthen by better management of the attempted recovery from the serious financial crises we have in the west. Currently the too soon and too severe austerity measures will as I see it suppress much needed growth in the west and delay recover for many years. You may not have liked him, but Britain's George Brown was IMHO about the only one who actually got it right with his recovery measures before losing office and his carefully thought out and intelligent plans to secure the required growth would have worked so much better than what we see now in the UK and the Euro zone and USA too.

My company's biggest competitors in the export market are the Chinese. While our products are better, they can make them cheaper. The promised increase in the minimum wage will have a significant impact on our ability to export. However, if the exchange rate does slide in the dollar's favor, then that should offset our increased costs. so we will be back to square one.

From what I have seen, not only are Chinese product cheaper, they should be as they are largely junk or never up to the standards they were supposed to be.

It is indeed humiliating for the ruling class that has done everything possible to stop the Thaksin political machine.

You are happily ignoring that Thaksin himself claimed as part of his defense in absentia, to have got his multi-billion dollar assets from his ultra-rich family, which immediately puts him in the richest Hi-So 1% of the worlds population, and thus by ANY definition a core part of the Thai Ruling Class, and that he had a multibillion business empire funded in part by bribes & larceny, and that he employed his own family members and repeatedly promoted his own family members to Ruling Class positions in Thai business & government, and built a little Thaksin Family PLC bubble at the very tip-top 1% of Thai Ruling Class society, while occasionally tossing a few table-scraps to the working proles down below to keep things ticking over.

The biggest bare-faced evidence of this is our new PM. Examine her if you will. Does she look like she has spent long hard years in the paddy fields and wood-yards, under a baking sun, in poverty and desperation, like the millions of hard-working rural people she so amazingly claims to represent ? Can't you see her chalk-white dermatologically perfect unblemished skin (as is so very popular with the skin-bleaching Hi-So Ruling-Class in BKK). Does she look to you like she has been baked in the sun from years of backbreaking rural toil as she nobley struggles with her farming comrades under the solar anvil. Put a photo of our new PM, next to a photo of the sunbaked desperately poor field-workers who we saw in Bkk Demos last year & who were paid in promises & cash to get her Hi-So Ruling Class family back into control of the heavy-agri resources etc. & untold $billions more. Note the difference in appearance between the candidate & the voters. A different world entirely. Thats because she is pure dynastic Ruling Class & they are not.

Of course you know it takes a shark to know another shark.

You think because Teddy Kennedy was from the very rich in America that he was any less a fighter for the common man?

FDR was from a very rich family and that certainly diod not stop him from being a fighter for the common man.

So what is your point?

You think only a man from the countryside who worked in the fields can fight for the common Thai man?

I disagree and I doubt you really think that.

You just do not like the election results.

Let's not discuss Ted Kennedy (for many reasons). FDR I can agree with. And the rest you say I can partially agree with. But they will never know what it is to toil.

Everybody i spoke to here in thailand voting for Yingluck

Same here! People on this forum been so out of tough with Thais I am sure 90% live overseas but are experts.

The next thing they will say everyone was paid to vote red

Yes, everyone is big on democracy until democracy delivers a result they don't like and then they proclaim that all the voters are supposedly uneducated, ill-informed and naive ... unlike the "intelligentsia" who populate TV message boards, the majority of whom are [self-appointed] "experts" in every field imaginable and have an indepth knowledge of Thai politics despite being unable to read/comprehend any Thai news coverage or political discussion.

And this is basically the same group of experts who were moaning endlessly that they were denied ready access to liquor for a day or two because of the election.

I think that group is a bunch of non-participants in the election.

Yingluck first move should be to get rid of the Chief of the Army. Keep only good and honest people in-charge.

Sad to say but I reckon there aren't any of those. Maybe she could find a few that are less corrupt.

If this is the case then maybe the Reds were not the worst way to go.

Flame away, guys :jap:

VIVA Yingluck Shinawatra ! ! !

No flaming from me CaptainFantastic. I have been here long time, doing business and I am happy to see a business mind back in the leadership of this beautiful country which I now call HOME!

I trust we are going to see a lot of surprise movements by this Lady with the pretty smile - AND strong personality of her own. Do not make a mistake Kn. Yingluck Shinawatra has tungsten steel in her own bones. She might not have political experience, but she definitely got business sense and that is going to make her a big winner.

Some might be painful;

1) Expect increase in minimum salaries and benefits for workers; but then I will be happy for that too. My workers are anyway paid well above minimum wages.

2) Oh and for corruption that was on the rise again - there is going to be a death blow from Tungsten Lady. She (and her Brother) has always been dead set against that.

3) Immigration will be tighten again; no problem for the welcome legal expats.

4) Taxes on those who have big money - will rise; for those who are common workers will reduce.

Shucks, I already feel sorry for Yingluck Shinawatra

All the changes she is going to implement is again going to be an advantage to the general population - and that is not loved by the Bangkok elite Establishment.

THAT my friends were the only mistake her older brother made. I do not believe he was guilty as charged.

We all know the magic and wonders that can be done in this lovely country. In Thailand reality can be stranger than fiction.

Remember, the EX-Military coup government had to replace at least four high court judges before they could bring charges.

First Female Prime Minister for Thailand.

First democratic elected government in five years.

But there is one more world winner: Now Thailand definitely has the prettiest Prime Minister anywhere in the world!

I for one am VERY happy, excited and look forward to a new era in Thailand (and in my own business again). I do not think anything better could have happened this year.

(1) As salaries rise so will inflation or people will simply hire more illegals from Burma

(2) You mean no more "tea money" for the boys in grey? Yea, right

(3) Tighter how? Any tighter and tourism might as well stop...This is still a tourist country and that would be an epic fail. With Chiang Mai hotels at less than 40% occupancy rate it is pretty cleat they need to loosen tourism regulations, not tighten them.

(4) Tax who? Thai companies? You will simply see more underground economics. Foreign companies? They will move to China if you do that.

As a classic band put it "meet the new boss, same ad the old boss'

And we all know who really calls the tune...

"2) Oh and for corruption that was on the rise again - there is going to be a death blow from Tungsten Lady. She (and her Brother) has always been dead set against that."

"Dead against corruption" - are you kidding - just how do you compare the shenanigans of the police with their tea-money against the 43 billion baht he fraudulently stole from the state and then lied about despite being under oath. Also, lets not forget that the incumbent prime minister or the "wolfram lady" as you describe her lied also as she was cajoled by her brother into doing so to try to save his skin - only getting off on a technicality of it being less than a 5% holding that didn't need to be declared??? She also lied though about this fact in court it should be remembered!!

Let him come back and serve his 2 year jail term (handed out in this greedy coward's abstentia) after he fled from the country by the way to avoid justice being done!! and I MIGHT just believe this absurd statement of yours. Hands up those people that think he will return and do this - not too many aching arms here I would imagine!!! so I guess the answer is a resolute NO then!!!!!!

It was more than that. 46 billion is all they took.

Amazing how many on this thread align themselves with the Bkk elite and the Yellows (as I assume you must be if you think Thaksin is so bad).

As far as Yingluck's conduct as PM will go, strange how no one here is willing to apply the concept of "innocent till proven guilty" to her, but it is a concept that many on this site, judging from many other threads, pay lip service to.

Not a single person posting here has the faintest idea what she will do in practice. When you see her clearly carrying out the orders of Big Brother, then, and then only, should you be making all these silly insulting remarks, and shouting 'guilty".

How many on this thread have siblings or parents or children whose behaviour sometimes embarrasses you? Would you want to be judged by THEIR behaviour?

He is bad. So are all the rest. She might be good but I think she will be corrupted like the rest. It's the way things are done. I think Mahathir called it 'Asian Values'.

Has anyone actually got any evidence to back up these claims?

Please provide it...

Why would i lie for a measily 200 baht and other posters have saw it today also..

Nobody knows why some lie just look at the lies that are spilt out on TV .However some lie because they are bitter & twisted & usually have some sort of bias agenda

Your deluded mate... Open your eyes and read.. Ive never voted in my home country and dont care who wins in thailand either.. so where is the bias??

Right. it makes no difference to me what politicians in any country are in power. They are all crooked. You need to be able to change them out once in a while to keep things even but they are all crooked. Just depends on which pockets get filled.

A visa entry does not require 90 day address reporting as you never stay more than 90 days. It is extensions of stay for more than 90 days that require this extra reporting.

A multi entry non immigrant O visa (as issued for marriage) will allow unlimited entry for up to 90 days at a time for one year from date of issue. So if used for max time almost 15 months (by entering day before it expires for a new 90 day stay).

My point exactly. A visa is never good for more than 90 days. Anything over 90 days is an extension but there is no such thing as an marriage or retirement visa.

Some where along the line we got our wires crossed.

Some of the replies are incredibly condescending towards Thais. I have lived here long enough to know how silly things can be, but come on, Thais are still humans.

The people have made a clear choice, go ahead and think for yourself but at least give Thais a chance to succeed. Sure they might fail, but who knows, maybe they can make their lives better.

I think, it is not condescending to Thais to say they are ignorant when the government will not educate them. Ignorance is not having knowledge. Stupid is stupid. I don't believe that most people believe Thais are stupid. If they do then they are stupid.

Oh dear!!!! What have you done, the people of Thailand - I truly fear for you!!!

It will be interesting to see when Yingluck places that order for all of those millions of tablet PC's that have been promised.

I don't suppose that Thaksin owns any companies that manufacture tablets!!

555555555555555555555

Now we'll really see justice and democracy shine. The yellows and military have to respect the outcome, even if it were bought or not. Let the government run its course and see it PTP's lies (promises) ever come to fruition. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Of course though... the Reds don't care whether the government follows through with its "promises". They're as blind as blind can be. They probably don't even know what a 'government policy' is. They just know this: Thaksin = Happy. They don't know how that would be -- they were just told so. The Thai brainwashing system is truly amazing.

So yeah, I fully support the new government. Afterall, what more harm can they possibly do? The poor will remain poor. That's all good for them. They're used to it.

I'd worry about what the elite think though.

I worry that you may suffer from ignorance. Do you not think thaksin and clan are not elite?

Headline news. This just in. PT has won, My wife is very happy. Maybe they know something I don't.

I told her ' It really doesn't matter to me who is PM. I am not Thai people. I have her, My girls and my house. I am happy for that.

A one year visa allows entry for 90 day periods. A tourist visa entry may be for 30 or 60 days but not a non immigrant visa entry.

Thus the need to report every 90 days.So, pray tell, how long is a non immigrant visa good for?

Everybody i spoke to here in thailand voting for Yingluck

Not surprising if your username is any indication what people you speak to.

Lovely people I am sure, but not very educated.

The only difference between those from a privileged background to those from a less fortunate one is money- not IQ!

Think, or is it you are uneducated. There is a distinct difference between ignorance and stupidity. You will never find me saying that Thai people are stupid. The government keeps them uneducated so they will be ignorant.

thaksin or abhisit are the same.

"Thaskin 'Clone" set to be PM"

Real impartial headline that one!

Hehe. Every story here on TV.com seems incredibly biased with right-wing type headlines...almost comical at times.

Explain what is right wing? Are we talking communist right wing or democratic right wing?

There is a difference, you know.

Thaksin is already promising to bring the USD back to 40/THB and 30 million tourists a year in LOS - he has all but actually proclaimed himself the real PM. Ta-da! The joke is no longer just a joke. A whole nation (or at least most of it) has fallen for it.

40 Baht to the dollar. I all over that. LOL

You are the person you posted about a marriage visa - I posted a visa only provides a 90 day stay even if it is valid for one year (which is correct) and the visa in question is a multi entry non immigrant O mentioned in post 6.

None the less, The visa is for 60 days, extendable to 90 days and then an additional 1 year extension may be applied for marriage or retirement. The wording makes it difficult for 'newcomers'. It is not a VISA. Iti is an an extension of stay based on the condition you apply for.

Or is my knowledge of what I have learned from this site for naught?

ok, waiting for 2 ipads now (children), my own home and my own car, in stead of the wife's name loooooooooooooooool

Me too. Got 2 girls. But they are actually getting an education, so that they might know how to use them to an advantage that neither party (that count) were going to give them.

He has won, nothing can be done anymore. Just have to see how it goes. If he did not come home or came home and did his time that would help. But he is firm in control now. Maybe things will change.

To be honest i doubt anything will really change just a change of people who are taking the government money.

Although I can't comment on the outcome of the vote, I have to say, when there is a change in government parties, you would be correct.

I have told my wife as long as the government keeps the people uneducated the people will not be able to make intelligent decisions. She agrees. Apparently she knew this before she knew me. She already had 1 daughter in higher education. Now they both are.

of course there should be reconciliation.

However, a popularity contest is not relevant to justice. Thaksin must face his accusers for the charges he faces, in a neutral court of law, if he feels his previous trial was biased in some way.

If popularity was how we managed justice, then no celebrity would ever go to jail.

Italy is now learning just how long it takes to get rid of a popular corrupt billionaire leader. let's hope we don't follow the same idiocy.

I didn't know celebrities ever went to jail. Well, not a real jail. The ones where they get B***F****d and B***h slapped.

Jem, time to go home / US...

Home? Are you talking about Obamaland???

With obamacare? Lovely outfit. Can't wait till I get completely out. Oh Wait. I can't, it's like being born into Islam. Taxed until you die.

Thaksin is the least corrupt of these leaders and policians, including the generals.

He doesn't need the money.

He's interested in prestige.

Of course, he must by sheer necessity engage in a certain amount of political corruption when you consider who the other players are, and that it's Thailand.

As for paying poor people for votes...how much did Abhissit pay them?

Nothing...zero...nadda....

.And what did he ever do for them....

Nothing...zero...nadda.

Thaksin tried, and with some success, delivered for them...health-care...land reform...education reform.... and he deserves every vote.

I hope his sister's government can restart those initiatives.

Hilarious.

He is hopelessly driven to reacquire his lost prestige, and there is never enough money.

Anyone that thinks thaksin is in this to help anyone but himself is deluded. The others are not much different. It just changes the crowd that gets the money. And it ain't the poor.