Sydebolle

Honestly, is there anybody out there believing this avalanche of nonsense from the finance ministry? Thais will have to pay all this back and once the bill surfaces, the puppet masters will be gone into oblivion - bye bye into thin air ;-)

It is not my money and I am not a beneficiary of it but maybe someone is calling the whole thing what it is. The THB 560 billion (that was the figure last time; now the jacked it up to THB 600 billion) is not "injected". The government takes that money from its tax income (so duly paid by all those obedient tax payers). In this particular case there is simply not enough tax money to be taken away and distributed in this populistic scheme, hence the government goes into debt and borrows the money from ............ a government-run bank. Bets taken, that this bank, possibly the Government Housing Bank, will go belly-up and hence will have to be "rescued" by future tax payers and their payments. By then all those clowns with the funny hats and crazy ideas will have creamed off what can be creamed off and disappeared into thin air. The government owns NOTHING, it redistributes money by taking it on one side and handing it out on the other side. Sometimes the other side is called "themselves", but that again is a completely different story.

It is not my money and I am not a beneficiary of it but maybe someone is calling the whole thing what it is. The THB 10'000 you want to distribute among 56 million Thai citizen is being paid by your own tax payers. As many beneficiaries are not paying (that much, if at all any) tax, the burden remains mostly with the Bangkokians. Latter wonder for a long time already, why they have to pay for all while their vote is continuously overruled and hence can result in a civil unrest in the future - latest then, when the Bangkokians had it. The government owns NOTHING, it redistributes money by taking it on one side and handing it out on the other side. Sometimes the other side is called "themselves", but that again is a completely different story.

Surprise surprise .......... next please; nothing will happen anyhow :-(

Fully agree, it takes a simple set of rules; minimum age of customers and staff, noise level not higher than X (if at all) and clearly stipulated working conditions. Guess what, all this is already written for decades but instead of enforcing the law, the bent rules serve to line the pockets of the selected few. So all those clowns at the interior ministry do is repeat what has been repeated over and over already. How about enFORCEment of those absolutely normal, acceptable rules? A decade ago I tried to get neighboring Somchai with his Karaoke (no licenses for anything like selling booze, playing music etc.) to tune down the extremely high noise level. He would not listen and all neighbors were sick and tired of his behavior. The BiB just laughed when I wanted to file a complaint. Some butyric acid poured in front of the establishment's door step in the midday hours finally did the trick and he went out of business due to the unbearable but otherwise harmless stench. Would he have played by the rules, would the BiB enforced those rules, all would have been OK - and that's my point ;-)

Well, they roamed a most harmless, officially licensed, bar in Nong Khai; had a drink on the house and checked ID of all the foreigners (not the Thais) and .... left again. As the folks there are not on drugs, the ID papers pre-scanned onto their phones the BiB left empty handed ;-) I assume that such checks will be much more frequent now - somehow those coffers need to be filled - one or the other way ;-)

The less influence the government has on market-controlled mechanism, the better for the private industry as well as for the tax-coffers of the government. You can see this in many Western countries which were "over regulated" some 30, 40 years ago with business hours of supermarkets, department stores, restaurants etc. Over time the government realized, that if they let the market decide, then the venue operator will open as long as he has customers - as they ultimately decide, where to shop, eat, drink etc. So, if the shop has staff and enough business, they remain open. Bottom line in many European countries was, that of 100 restaurants maybe 4 or 5 remain open 24/7; see existing modules in Thailand doing exactly the same. Foodland, 7/11 etc. are open 24/7, the department stores and supermarkets like Big C Extra or Lotus's's's's's open 12 to 14 hours only. Anutin should change his tailor, the expensive silk shirt must have been cut by a cross-eyed seamstress. He also might want to re-align the priorities; instead of correcting a mistake (by either him or the media) he should focus more on cleaning up his corrupt police force or his absolutely over-bureaucratized immigration with all their photocopies and blue inked signatures ;-) Latter might not happen though as he coined the "dirty farang" statement and, for sure, has neither apologized nor changed his stance 8-)

You're wrong, there are thousands of Thai millionaires. But they have excellent "tax planning" .......

It will create a black market to the enjoyment of the Indian money changers who are in permanent need of foreign currency cash for all those crooks evading taxes. I remember 30+ years ago a survey in either Bangkok Post or The Nation which stated, that among the top 100 income tax payers there are exactly six Thais while the other 94 were alien ........ Do you honestly think that this ratio has substantially changed ever since?

Whenever I come across such situations then I address the particular person directly. Wondering if they are deaf or if they have another problem they usually walk away or switch off their gizmo (in the BTS that is, quite often) - most embarrassing for the culprit as well as for the bystanders who all do not like it but do not dare to say anything. Same with women using their phone NOT on their ear but on speaker. If too loud/long then I just speak - in direction of the phone - "stop this telephone call and come back to bed". Works wonders - their facial expressions are absolutely fantastic!

History is repeating itself ..........

Don't count your chicken ..... just yet. Sweetheart Anutin made it crystal clear, extended opening hours does not imply the sale of alcohol so get ready to stock up on kiddies syrup and Fitné tea to keep the sober customers coming and staying until 4am. You can do such silly things possibly with the local yocals but a tourist, who should spend is hard earned hard currency is definitely old and mature enough to decide if and when too much is too much. Contrary to popular belief and steady hammering by the government - Thailand is not (yet) the centre of the universe 😉

Good luck with that one, "expected to be completed by 2027". What happened with the Malaysian interest on a link from Danang across Thailand to Yangon; plus all those projects so appropriately tabled by Saksayam Chidchob during his tenure as transport minister?

So the 11-party coalition is rattling the cage again. The claims are towards individual Thai citizen - it has absolutely nothing to do with any political orientation. Name the culprits, process them through the Thai legal system and hand down the appropriate verdict or dismiss the cases. But do not mix any misbehavior of any person with his job ...... and being a member of a party is a job!

I always enjoyed traveling on SK, be it to Europe or, back in the day, to Singapore. The Singapore turnaround was as convenient as SR back in the day, leave early morning, spend the afternoon in Singapore and be back at night. No frills, professional and customer-oriented focus!

They follow the script to the last letter - orchestrated showtime 😉

No loss - if you ask me. If she is 26 today, how could she win anything of relevance back in 2009 - 14 years ago. Crazy Horse - what a career!

When absolute stupidity and complete absence of common sense meet - unhindered impact on 99.9% of the (Thai) people; it is overdue to bring such utter nonsense to a screeching halt "both the signature and all written content in the document must be in the same ink colour and type ............ the man decided to dispatch the pen he had used in the document along with the six pages of the document - from New Zealand against courier and import duty fees for THB 1'650." And then they wonder, why the alien just pack up and go; if the rest of the world would treat Thais like the Thai bureaucracy treats everybody .......... but then again, the little brown envelope comes in handy 😉 This affected gentleman now can imagine, what all those retirees go through during every 90 days report (two photocopies of passport and a form, completed in hand writing with blue ink), the extension of one-year-visa (original bank book not sufficient but the bank has to issue a separate letter confirming what is written in the bank book - of course against a fee), a "certificate of residence" to buy - cash only - vehicles or open a bank account - except PayPal which is blocked and forbidden for the alien crowd. I rest my case - that's why I left the show as it just became too ridiculous dealing with all these clowns in uniforms wherever you go 😞

In the last four decades of living in Thailand I keep on reading always the same headlines referring to "the Chonburi Governor launching yet another crack-down-on-crime operation in Pattaya". Tourism Authority tells us of double and triple digits increases of holiday makers visiting Pattaya for its nature as a family resort - also for decades. When I go to Pattaya I see garbage roadside everywhere, traffic jams second to Bangkok, rude and disinterested staff in restaurants and hotels and, well, nature and family-oriented issues ....... that is another thing. What I also see is the sheer endless "bar beer" outfits with overweight women (I assume that at least) staring into their phones while dogs and cats sneak around those bar stools for leftover food or having a second look in all those torn garbage bags and buckets. Crack down - my foot 😉

So Santa is coming early to town this year - wonder how thick the envelopes were this time round .......

Assume the return lands at 5.35 AM and not PM - not relevant except possibly for an airline timetable. Rest assured, that this will be a steep uphill battle. Turkish Airlines is a completely different ballgame today and has nothing to do with the flying tent congregation of camel beduins of the Middle Age. Modern airplanes, top inflight and ground service - the full nine yards. A real pleasure to fly with them apart from having a home base turntable which is second to none. Good luck Thai Airways .........

Paint a penguin green and you get ............ a penguin in green - but still a penguin! In a democratic environment, the army, police and government serves the people - Thailand's interpretation of democracy is ...... ahhh, forget about it 😞

Knowing that I might step on some toes but pedophiles, rapists and drug dealers are to be exterminated for good. It will not reverse the tremendous damage to society they did already but it will ensure that they never ever will be able to commit similar offenses. European pussyfooting around these subjects has proven over and over, that it does NOT work. Women got raped by the same culprits after lenient sentencing, a pedophile cannot be fixed and hence can damage another child anytime again and drug dealers know exactly what they are doing. Society needs to be protected by potential repeaters and those three categories belong there. Albeit psychiatrists come up with all sorts of tests, certificates and reports but society comes first. Needless to say that a case has to be absolutely waterproof before sending anyone to the gallows. The US system is far too complicated and lawyer's fodder to no end which can and did result in locking up innocent people.

Again a Thai solution "in certain areas" - leaves plenty of room for the manila enveloping of "requests". Apart from certain festivities like New Year's Eve etc. I hardly think that it will have a heavy impact on the GDP of Thailand. The government should concentrate on really important things; opening hours of pubs are regulated by supply and demand, i.e. operators and customers and do not need the extra "help" by some goons in clown dresses. How about putting all those laws into enforcement like DUI, no insurance/license driving and taking those coffins on wheels off the street rather than just collecting "tolls" for not wearing helmets or belching Montezuma's delight out of those mufflers from certain vehicles - to start with?

Wonder what the citizen of Liechtenstein, the Vatican or Andorra would have to come up with. The Danes are lovely people but possibly not tilting any statistics compared to the rest of the world- but I might be wrong 😉