Markaew

Holy fu__ing s__t!!

We have had these discussions before about the capabilities of Thais and nuclear reactors.

THEY DON"T MIX!!

I'm not sure who is laughing harder, Thai guys or foreigners.

I find it amazing there is no blood available. It's not like it's rh-.

This blood is not uncommon.

These news reports are starting to make me sick. Just another foreigner dead. Mindless conclusions by the police.

Before foreigners were dying once a week. Now it's once a day.

Don't be a statistic!

RIP to this guy. Need to be careful in Thailand.

I use SCB and have very few problems. Very easy Internet access. Once my wallet was stolen and they only charged me B200 to replace the card and they were very courteous.

I would run away from K-Bank and Bangkok Bank is a pain in the butt. I had a Krungsri account which was ok but I like the SCB Internet access. A piece of cake to set up.

I like it. An outward demonstration of friendship and protection with Thailand. I hope Thailand takes notice.

There are ten of those, and all travel in complete "carrier groups" of ships including subs.

First as a show of force to the kid with the funny haircut in NK, then as a show of friendship to The Philippines, and now, Thailand, and on to the South China Sea. There are two more of them lurking.

"Nimitz-class, keeping China's mouth shut since 1975."

"Nimitz-class, keeping China's mouth shut since 1975." - and keeping The States more and more in financial debt to China for building, crewing and running them since the 90's.

Must be the syntax: surely you can't mean that China builds, crews, and runs US carriers...

No - I meant the US owes China a lot of money.

It's worth it!!

3,200 sailors and 2,480 air wing personnel

Dunno if Phuket could handle so much seamen.

Maybe phuket can't but the girls and boys from isaan who work here sure can!

There are a lot of young ladies in the US Navy now. Maybe you guys should shave and get a haircut.

No such thing anymore in the west. Ladies. They are young women. Now they are much more akin to men now.

Seems doomed to failure. And how do they plan to re-charge the batteries during a pit stop? I heard something about wireless charge. I don't think the fan's pucker level will be very high. No engine noise = low excitement.

The guys in the video doesn't seem to be very excited either.

Full size Scalectrix

Thanks for the videos but it really looks boring.

Interesting.

Since visas and work permits are tied together, what do you do when you stop working for a school when you have multiple schools on the wp? Do you need to change your wp and remove a school? Sounds like a hassle.

Is Cambodia the only country that want to "strengthen ties"? From the sound of it you would think Thailand only borders Cambodia. No other bordering country seems to care.

"They reiterated that law enforcement would be based on basic human rights."

Does Thailand even understand what this means? I suppose it's good rhetoric for the UN.

I think it goes without saying that an independent central bank is on the whole a good thing.

Comparing japans crisis and Thailand is a very very big stretch.

Yes it is. In fact, a finance minister that attempts to meddle with the central bank risks destroying his country's credit rating.

The central bank must operate at arm's length and must be apolitical.

In theory. Seldom happens.

What a surprise TVF 'experts' condemning this. Is this the same President who was invited to the US a few years ago and gave a talk at one of the Ivy League universities. Is there anything that people on here wont complain about? God knows why people even stay living in Thailand. (If at all they do)

You aren't really telling the whole story. This president has a lot in common with those "Ivy League" universities. They are politically "progressive" thinkers that hate America.

Not true, his speech at Columbia Uni was heavily critisised by the students, as were his policies during the Uni President's opening remarks.

Yes true. Just because a few students criticized doesn't change the environment of the university.

My gf is a scientist and associate professor with a PhD from KU. Her passion is teaching and hope to impart her knowledge through teaching. She is now a lecturer, administrator and Assoc Dean with Burapha U for the last 6 years since graduating. Her last drawn is less than THB30000. It's only her passion that kept her in the job.

What's your point. Teachers don't make any money. She has gone to school. What is her knowledge/experience beyond school?

"Education Minister Pongthep Thepkanjana said during the opening of the science scholarship program that Thailand has taken out very few patents when compared to other countries."

One of the main reasons that so few apply for scholarships is that the Ministry of Education has an abysmalrecord of educating Thai children. If the way to becoming a scientist was learning by rote and not by asking questions of the teachers or original thinking then Thailand would be a world leader.

Firstly get rid of ALL the education ministers and ALL the civil servants over 25 years old and replace them wioth farangs on the condition that the farang teachers train the Thais into their job. When that happens and a child asks a Thai teacher a question that the teacher does not know the answer too the teachers response must be, I'm sorry that I don't know the answer. However I WILL find out and get back to you as soon as I know.

That is when Thai education is working.

Unless you are prepared to pay the specialist farangs a high Pay rate $100 to 200 grand year , no one would be interested in coming , like it is now, also don't forget the trainee's need to have a very good understanding of English, something that you wont see either.

Well you see, the very first they have to do is to allow foreign companies into the market without having to risk having a Thai partner. In this model, the Thai partner is in the box seat, and the foreign company brings all of the know how, a big wedge of the cash and an awful lot of the know how. This model in and of itself is utterly stultifying to career development of employees and inhibits entrepreneuralism. Why?

Because the Thai partner is already planning how to drive salaries to the absolute bottom to feather his own nest and give his son a job to create an wealth acquiring business, not a wealth creating business.He has been given the golden egg on a plate because of existing wealth and connections. This relies on barriers to entry for others, because not every foreign company will take this route, they will take a route where they can own their company 100%. Just look at the extremely wealthy businesses in Thailand, nearly all of them rely on protected business models and low wages by international standards.

The possibility that an employee can rise to the top of management is there, but the family still retains their 50% shareholding and often want to extort an above average return by iinternational standards. So where is the incentive to really invest in R&D? Very little. Keep the business running, keep others out, and make hay. The wealthiest man in the country gets rich on the back of a share holding in an energy drink company overseas, and the second wealthiest gets rich on the back of producing chicken, pork and 7-11. Hardly ground breaking stuff.

Could you imagine if a Thai person came up with an idea that would revolutionize any market that was dominated by existing Thai companies? He or she would not get a baht in funding from anyone. They would co-opt him into the company and take the idea for themselves. Something will give one day, but the reality of all of this protectionism for business is actually becoming a brake on the Thai economy not a benefit.

I agreed with everything you said until you got to "Something will give one day".

Nope.

They have JUST worked this out.

Any teachers on here ever seen a school with anything resembling a science laboratory?

I know of one friend who was the son of some university lecturers in my home town. i was working down South for a while, and he explained his education to me very very well. He was scooped up from up country (and he admits that this was down to his parents, and good scores) and transported to a demonstration school where he showed some aptitude for chemistry and physics. At 16 he was sent overseas on a government scholarship and returned with an overseas degree in physics.

He promptly became part of a large oil company here in Thailand managing corrosion on pipelines, but was about to leave to do the same job back in Europe for approximately 10 times his salary in Thailand. He has a brother who went to the USA and works for GM in the USA on engine development. Toyota Thailand tried to head hunt him and offered a salary 10 times less than he has in the USA.

So there we have it, Thailand doesn't produce scientists because the business models here extend to family majority ownership, or business connection ownership who don't see the value in innovation and invention. The top salary belongs to the owner, and the business model relies extremely heavily on having cheap workers, not innovators. Do you think a company in Thailand would pay royalties to an in house patent creator on the going international rate?

Would I encourage my son to become an engineer, indeed. Would I encourage him to work for the stultifying atmosphere present in most Thai companies? Never. Do it yourself or get out of the country.

And don't forget if YOU are innovative then someone else lost face.

I have had bank workers try to skim money out of my account using incorrect information entered into my bank book. If I hadn't taken a quick look before leaving I would have been out 20K. When I corrected her it was just a "sorry" like it was routine and she corrected the entry. So if you only use a bank book and not an ATM card you still need to be careful. If I had walked out and tried to correct it later I believe there would have been denials all around.

I always thought these large deposits required for non-o visas are just targets for skimming from the bank.

Unfortunately, there have been lots of reports in the news over time of Thai bank employees and even managers stealing money out of customers' accounts...and Thai customers too...not just farangs.

Sometimes it's been direct theft. Sometimes it's been providing account details/info to outside parties (criminals, BFs/GFs, etc).

And as the more experienced around here might expect, the typical response from the banks in those situations has NOT been to accept responsibility for the criminal acts of their own employees and reimburse the bank customers, but instead, to tell the victims that it's a police matter and they need to seek restitution through the police.

Amazing Thailand!

Yes and if you go to the police they tell you to get a lawyer.

What a surprise TVF 'experts' condemning this. Is this the same President who was invited to the US a few years ago and gave a talk at one of the Ivy League universities. Is there anything that people on here wont complain about? God knows why people even stay living in Thailand. (If at all they do)

You aren't really telling the whole story. This president has a lot in common with those "Ivy League" universities. They are politically "progressive" thinkers that hate America.

The friendship is pretty strong, I'd say.

Thai trade official slams US sanctions on Iran

http://www.presstv.com/detail/230133.html

The sanctions against Iran are unjust, unfair, unreasonable and probably counter productive.

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The friendship is pretty strong, I'd say.

Thai trade official slams US sanctions on Iran

http://www.presstv.com/detail/230133.html

What happened to the Obama love fest? How soon we forget and he just visited Thailand.

I can't believe they're letting that bum into this country.

They worship the Nazis here. Why shouldn't they?

Wow, that's interesting... Thailand such a country where US has influence, and now Iranian president visiting Thailand?

I believe that next decades wars will be about Water instead of Oil.

It has already started in fact: Libya.

Libya was about to finish one of the worlds greatest man made water projects in the middle of the desert. now it's all destroyed and many libyan small towns are struggling to get fresh water.

Water is a resource that the middle east is working hard to secure and western main corporations to monopolize.

The things you don't see on the main-stream news media...

He visits the US as well.

I had an ATM card cloned on Phuket at the end of last year. Fortunately HSBC sophisticated security picked up suspicious activity and cancelled the card so I lost nothing.

The difference here is based on the location of the home bank:

Thai-based banks basically operate from the principle that the cardholder is responsible for any fraud on losses on the card that occur prior to the cardholder notifying the bank to freeze the card (which can be kind of troublesome in that the cardholder often doesn't KNOW fraud has occurred until AFTER it's happened).

On the other hand, U.S. based banks and those in many other countries have national laws/regulations (unlike Thailand) that protect cardholders against liability for bankcard fraud, assuming there's no indication the cardholder was involved or negligent or failed to report in a timely way.

Thailand basically has no legal consumer protection laws for Thai bank card holders. Not if someone clones or steals your Thai bank card. Not if someone at the bank steals money from your account, etc etc.

Pretty much the only thing Thailand does have is a national bank deposit insurance plan that protects bank deposits, up to a certain limit per bank, in the event the bank goes bankrupt or otherwise fails.

Understood but I was more talking about the sophistication in the banks systems software that can detect suspicious activity and flag it. A case that highlights this was a reported incident on Phuket. A man used his Thai bank ATM card on Phuket and hours later a clone of the card was used somewhere in Issan to fraudulently withdraw money. Now it would be physical impossible to travel the distance in the elapsed time between withdrawals. A good system would see that and flag it as suspicious.

If the banks are not responsible from the results of skimming then they have no motivation to improve their system. Besides, there really isn't any sympathy for a foreigner losing money in Thailand by the Thais.

The Thais just want to know how he lost his money so they can get in on the action.

I have had bank workers try to skim money out of my account using incorrect information entered into my bank book. If I hadn't taken a quick look before leaving I would have been out 20K. When I corrected her it was just a "sorry" like it was routine and she corrected the entry. So if you only use a bank book and not an ATM card you still need to be careful. If I had walked out and tried to correct it later I believe there would have been denials all around.

I always thought these large deposits required for non-o visas are just targets for skimming from the bank.