xbusman

I think you are right in the fact that tourism has a greater impact in employment than manufacturing and this has been studied. My recollection though, is that the impact is not as great as we assume. I dont remember the exact numbers but its something like for 7% of the GDP it employs some 9% of the work force. In addition, they do their best to capture the periphery employment but with all aggregate data its a little sketchy, particularly in Thailand where data collection is suspect to begin with.

One of the problems with tourism is that it is so visible to anecdotal observation, it is easily seen, takes up a huge amount of room, and advertises heavily. Manufacturing on the other hand, is hidden away and seldom if ever seen. One small manufacturing facility with 100 or so workers is able to bring in far more revenue than 50 bar beers with 500 workers. That usually raises the question of does the revenue stay in Thailand with the factory because we know it mostly does with the bar beers. Those are the kind of questions that economists love to debate at great length and which seem to me rather pointless. All the economic data is more abysmal science and I think the numbers should be taken as generalities and not facts. The trends seem more important than the status and for now the trend on the thai baht is to continue strengthening until something gives.

Let me throw out some current thinking and see if any of it makes sense regarding a strong baht.

It seems like wealth, real GDP growth and per capita income, relies heavily on exports. Countries like China and Brazil are growing like gang busters while countries that are net importers like the US are gradually reducing their standard of living. Before you argue about the dominance of exports and trade balances, I think exports are more an indicator than the actual causal factor. Having a surplus of exports mean that you are competitive on the world market and by extension the local market. There are many things involved. Education, political stability, infrastructure, supportive government, geography to name but a few. In my opinion, perhaps one of the most important factor in the mix is currency.

Lets start with the problems in Greece. For the past few thousand years Greece has been able to collapse their currency as required to compete in the world market. While it creates higher costs for money (higher risks) it kept their shipping and tourism industries afloat when necessary. Being tied into the Euro took away all the flexibility that deflating a currency provides. Soon enough, their fiscal policies and structural inefficiencies became unmanageable with no other viable options than default (unless of course uncle Germany decides they need to contribute).

China of course, is extremely cagey locking the remimbe to the US dollar. As America tries to deflate itself back into the competition the Chinese stay right in lockstep, not giving an inch. Why do you think everyone is constantly puking blood over this policy. Its an ugly game of chicken in which either the Chinese will completely dominate or everyone will lose. If you dont think American deflation is good for exports a brief look at the financial statements of Airbus and Boeing give an insightful look at what is happening across Europe as the Euro remains so powerful.

The effects of currency take a long time to kick in. Airbus is just now making plans to leave Europe after many years of terrible suffering from the strong Euro. Given another ten or fifteen years of a strong Euro against the dollar/remimbe and things could get serious.

So when I think about Thailands baht, I mostly think of exports. Since this economy is mostly made up of exports, around 60 or so percent depending on who you ask, and slightly made up of tourism, the relative strength of the baht is of fundamental importance in the long term prosperity of the country.

The big exporters are easy to generalize if not precisely accurate. Germany is extreme engineering, precision, solid quality. Japan is the relentless pursuit of perfection, extreme efficiency, attention to detail, customer orientation. America is innovation, infra structure, geography. Brazil is climate, policies, and geography. While you might have different definitions for these powerful exporters, we can agree that China is cheap cheap labor and little to no structural overhead. As long as the remimbe continues its downward spiral in lock step with the dollar, no one is going to cut into their market with the exception that India could give a go at it if they ever got their act together.

So what does Thailand have to offer the world markets. If you clearly understand that a society cannot get wealthy on internal services, in other words if everyone in Thailand were masseurs they could not rub each other into prosperity, and that we must export our way to prosperity, what exactly do we have to offer. (lets consider tourism a form of exports for this overly simple discussion, it does bring money into the economy from the outside).

Well, we do have a strong opportunity with tourism. Beautiful beaches, friendly people, adequate infrastructure, and location. Lots of economies are based entirely on tourism. Bali and cambodia to name two. Heavily dependent include greece, Monte Carlo, the entire carribean island group, and on and on. Could it possibly be enough to sustain Thailand? I dont think so and what would be required to grow the industry to that level. If I were to guess, it would have to be price and that is a direct result of currency. As our currency gains against the currency of other tourist destinations without significant other factors we will suffer an overall decline in tourism. Unfortunately our political instability has facilitated the decline as well.

So exports remain the single most important economic driver in Thailand. Ask yourself what Thailand produces that is competitive world wide and you do find lots of things. Food, jewelry, furniture, sewn goods, and on and on. While there are some things that are somewhat unique, i.e. rubber, rice, shrimp and the like, most of those items are dictated by world commodity markets and a stronger baht only means less profit for producers, often to the point that the government has been forced to heavily subsidize those markets to keep them intact. For the rest of the exports, what Thailand offers is cheap labor. So who is the cheap labor competitor? You got it, our neighbor to the north (Vietnam has entered the stage as well over the past few years). Our strong currency has been closing manufacturing here for the past few years and moving it north in the search for ever cheaper labor. It will take time, but it will happen.

So it doesnt really matter if the baht is strong to the dollar or the pound. They are only buyers. Its deadly serious that the baht is strong to the remimbe and dong. Those boys are competitors and given such a huge pricing advantage are going to take us to the cleaners. You can add the won and taiwan dollar to the mix but they have their sights set more on Japan and going from a cheap labor economy to a technology orientated economy (and quite successfully I might add).

Like I said, this stuff takes years and years to take effect. Other factors will come into play that will change the equation. For example, should China red finally decide to swallow China green, all bets are off. That competitor would evaporate should that happen and Thailand could explode with business over night at any exchange rate.

So, in my opinion, on the world market where it matters, the thai baht is grossly over valued and if it remains that way for many years will cause serious damage to the GDP and per capita income of Thailand unless we can innovate our way into new markets that are not dependent on cheap labor. I see that as less a probability than a baht devaluation.

Nothing pessimistic about any of this, just trying to look at it as hard as Toyota does when planning a new plant.

USAA - perfect in all regards. I think they won the top customer service award last year and are always in the top five. Everything is easy, done by humans, and they are very expat friendly.

They are on a hair trigger for Asia, Africa and Russia. If I move from country to country too fast or change my spending habits quickly they will freeze my accounts immediately. A simple phone call during US business hours will resolve the situation but it can cause duress if you are not aware. While it can be frustrating, I always appreciate the protection it offers. I can usually bypass this inconvenience if I call them in advance with my travel plans when in that part of the world.

All in all, an excellent bank with reasonable rates and unequaled customer service.

Go to EVA air website and do a search on Hot Fares. Flights out of BKK are scarce but you should be able to put together an acceptable itinerary at a good price.

I reckon we will end up with a complete and attested certification of over a billion people before this childhood game is done.

I am starting to hear of a few as well. Banks are offloading some property at around the 100 times rent price. The pressure is definitely building but very slowly I think. In the past five years, this is the first that I have heard of property being liquidated at rational prices. We are actively looking now but they are still few and far between.

You might try the search function, I think this has been discussed. As a member since October 2004 I would think you might have seen something on motorcycle import before....

Venice Beach in LA from my experience.

I have heard of this happening in government contracts before, no links to hard data but I think its more common than what is reported on. Big companies usually do some due diligence and know what the score is before selling anything here. Two rules, get your costs covered in the first payment before delivery, second, never invest more than you can walk away from. I think this sort of thing is pretty standard in the third world and items are priced accordingly.

Unless the bike has a clean US title, the chance you can get it in is lower than winning the lottery. No chance at all is closer to the truth. EPA regs will keep it out for sure. We can store it here for you or if you wont be back, can sell it for you too.

Thanks guys for doing the math, and its nice to see some real math, not the boiler room variety.

Lets go back and address the question in summary of some of the fine posts here.

First, and foremost, its only the time to invest in Thailand if you are using money you can walk away from and not notice, unless of course you have a Thai passport. The first rule of investing here has been, and will always be, never invest more than you can walk away from.

So, if we are talking about the money in the bottom of your laundry basket, then the rest is simply math. For property investment, we use the formula 100 times rent to determine if property is a worth while investment. Forget speculation, if you want to speculate the lottery is probably a better option as the real estate or gold bond salesman dont get a cut of that. Our rule of thumb changes with tax structure, maintenance costs, transfer fees, distance, etc. but in the end it does not vary too much. As the posters pointed out above, for us we need to net around 7% before its even a consideration. Other than that, there are other places to put money.

We also use calculations of per capita income related to average housing to keep an eye on bubble markets. I have seen the same in economic analysis as well so its not all that uncommon. That would seem to indicate that the real estate market here is extremely over priced but those calculations might be difficult in a country with such a wide disparity between the rich and poor. I have read somewhere that Thailand has about the widest disparity in the world, but I am not sure if that is true or not, it seems to be.

Best to keep with ROI calculations to determine if your spare change is worth investing here.

I wish. First of all, its a family business, I am but a small part of the equation. Most of the "units" were apartments in either buildings between 60 and 100 units or complexes. We only had about 150 actual homes but "living units" does sound so much more impressive. Having 15 apartment complexes just doesnt have the same weight. I am sorry to report that honestly, when most of the houses were picked up, they were probably in the 110 to 120 times rent category, most acquired between 1970 and 1990. We are now strictly into commercial property and that has been sick sick sick. Buildings around 50,000 square feet, light industrial. We are running about 70% occupancy which keeps the lights on. Having property means having assets, not cash, which is why it can be such a bad investment, it is illiquid and hard to carry when times get bad.

As an aside, it took us around four hard years to liquidate the residential stuff and build the commercial buildings. Those were heady days though, every property we put on the market would have bidders and it would sell in days. Almost all of them ninja loans which just made us that more committed to getting out of the market.

Having said all that, I have made an offer on property in Thailand that is 90 times rent. About 60 low income units, it has been a steady return for years. Now here is the interesting part. I found an active real estate investor here to teach me the rules of the game in Thailand. He pays, are you ready, no more than 100 times rent. Its pretty interesting, if a property is taking in 50,000 baht a month, he will go into the bank that holds the NPL with 5 million baht in bags and cases. Usually, the bank wants something insane like 180 million baht or some such lunacy. He puts two or three million baht in cash on table and they have coffee and talk about the weather. The bank comes back with 90 million and they have more coffee and another million in cash goes on the table. As they get more friendly, he keeps dropping stacks on the massive pile on the table until the big boss asks for the paperwork. They consummate there immediately. He has been doing this for years and years, and he insists the key absolutely is cash that you can lay on the table. Without that, everything else is a time waster. He stops piling on at 100 times rent and gets about one out of ten properties he goes after. So thats the deal. We are going to the bank with bags of cash and going to have a shot at this property. I will let you know how it works out. Amazing Thailand.

At National Stadium, outside on the overhead walks near the Tokyo department store entrance, police regularly set up a cigarette sting there. It is the police, it is not inside the BTS turnstyles. On the steps and the cross overs above Sukhumvit, there is no signage until you get to the central platform where no smoking is clearly posted, but no ashtrays available. Since I knew this scam, my friend and I stopped, put out the cigarettes and pocketed them. We were stopped in the same manner described by this article and 10,000 baht fine each for littering. When we produced the cigarette butts, there were grins all around and we were released.

From my experience, this story is entirely plausible. And thanks Thai Visa, it was here that I learned about this scam and how to protect myself.

A few observations.

I cannot refute or confirm the guilt or innocence of the party involved in the incident described here. It is Thailand after all and the truth of anything is a rare and undervalued commodity. Never believe anything here that you dont see with your own eyes, feel with your own hand, and then check it twice.

I have chatted with a few folks on this airport incident, people who have some experience with airport security world wide. I did not know, and never imagined, that there is a class of criminal that works airports all over the world. In particular, they carefully time their outgoing international flight and with minutes to spare casually wander into a duty free shop and ask to examine items of very high value. They then do a runner, straight to the gate and on board in minutes, just as the doors shut. Something like that would never have occurred to me, but then again I am not smart enough to be that dishonest. This is more common than we might know, and another factor is that many airports will not prosecute if the thief is caught. Bad publicity, overlapping jurisdictions, and also interesting is the fact that duty free shops are not technically in Thailand. When you pass immigrations and are stamped out, you are in effect somewhat in a no mans land regarding legal issues. These things are mostly discussed regarding crimes taking place on bridges between countries but in some regards can happen inside an airport.

So, it might be more common that we know.

I am left to wonder if this is a scam created by some rogue employees or actually has some merit in handling a sensitive problem in the usual Thai way. Somehow all this controversy seems to swirl around either the airport and/or King Power. If there are that many thieves visiting the kingdom, wouldnt we hear something from Siam Paragon or Robinsons? I would think someone would report something somewhere, instead there is only this ongoing "problem" with King Power.

The Norway warning weighs heavily in this, they would not publish that warning lightly. It would certainly bring down the displeasure of their hosts and that is never in the embassy's interest, so they most certainly would have been very careful. If they published this, there must be some pretty strong evidence of foul play somewhere.

You posters are funny, trying to determine the truth of statements, forensics, CCTV analysis, character analysis. Nothing is conclusive in anything posted on this by anyone, we dont, and will never, know the truth. We can agree though that there is smoke in Cobra swamp, keeping an eye out for a fire might be prudent.

The mills are happy to make any quality you want. They are quite technically adept, and fabrics have complete and complex formulations with standardized nomenclature. Unfortunately, you are going to find that minimum mill orders are along the lines of 1000 yards. Thats a lot of jackets.

There are a few, very few, mills that keep some sort of stocking of reminents. PM me and I will try and dig out some info on them.

This is what I have generally discovered about your kind of requests. The buyers just dont have enough retail trade to make it worthwhile to deal with sources in Asia.

Anyway, PM me and I will dig through our files and see what I can find that might be of help.

On contemplation of the above post, I think this is an excellent opportunity to congratulate Johnmacs on his success where so many others have failed. I am sure his classic sport car is going to keep him quite happily busy for many years to come. I for one will be watching for a fresh new TR6 on thai streets one day, to date I have not seen many.

I did run across a dealership not far from Seacon Square that had a TR6, TR7 and about three spitfires for sale. That might be a good contact for the few parts or supplies that might be in Thailand.

Best of luck with the restoration.

Well we purely are interested in all the gory details as they arise. If you had no questions, never thought to use the search function to educate yourself on the process, and are confident in your ability to get it through customs, exactly why are you posting? You can keep a dairy at home and not waste bandwidth. If you plan on educating all us newbies on the process of importing a car, we stand ready to learn as no one has ever thought of trying this before. Bet it could be a great business.

Having brought a few vehicles through customs myself, I am truly interested in the entertainment value which your thread has the potential to provide. Please dont stop posting, we are waiting with bated breath for all the fun.

xbusman. you say that you have brought a few vehicles through customs yourself but you appear to doubt that anyone else has the ability to navigate through the problems of customs, sounds like a bit of arrogance there .

Sorry to disappoint you, I have only brought through motorcycles and then only about 15 containers. Cars are an entirely different animal but as I read the end result I think this guy used pretty much the same process I did. I might be wrong but it appears that he brought in a pretty bad off car, one that had little or no value, and will separately bring in the parts to fix it up. In a round about way, pretty much the way motorcycles are brought in.

I stand by my statement, I think we are all interested in all the gory details. Its been tried by many a person and as best I can tell this is the first success story on this board. My experience with Customs leads me to believe that just about anything can be done for the right amount of money, its just that they are so greedy that it almost always exceeds the pain threshold of most private importation attempts. I take from this thread that the trick is two fold, first bring in something that no one would want for free. The TR6 fits this nicely as anyone who has restored Triumphs already knows. Secondly, be prepared to pay excessive amounts for the privilege, and our OP is being particularly coy with the total amounts. Just the little bit posted indicates that he has spent far more than the car is worth as import payments. I refuse to comment on how someone throws their money, either an Elite card, a TR6, or a sick buffalo, its their money and they can spend it whatever way it makes them happy. Personally though, I generally try to keep my dumb ideas off the board and lurk here to be educated in the ever shifting complexities of Thailand. I think I learned something from this thread as well but I still dont understand why the OP posted though if they were unwilling to share the gory details, whats the point of wasting bandwidth?

Be careful with making assumptions on appearances, if I doubted that anyone else other than me could navigate customs I would have posted such but like I said, if I have stupid ideas I am at least smart enough not to post them.

So, let me see if I understand you Plus. What you are saying is that the Thai political system is flawed to the point where it is dysfunctional to the extreme and incapable of doing this procurement effectively or efficiently. Therefore, because the need for new buses is so great, we have to pay off the entire bureaucracy with huge amounts of cash at the Thai peoples expense to move forward.

I somewhat agree with your interpretation. I dont think anything gets done here without some pretty serious corruption at the Thai peoples expense.

In that light, I have only a few arguments with what is going on in this procurement.

First, and foremost, the level of graft and corruption represented by the numbers is pretty staggering. Now I know the politicians are entitled to steal millions of dollars out of every project but not billions. Corruption here is a cost of business just like labor or cement. If the workers want too much pay, I can just replace them. Unfortunately, we cant replace the bureaucrats. They pretty much have a monopoly on corruption and when they get too greedy, everyone (even the other corrupt bureaucrats) get revolted. As best I can tell that is what is going on here.

Secondly, Thailand should have their own bus manufacturing for local needs. They need to move past banana republic and keep jobs and technology here. I wont go in to the huge benefit of having a local bus builder but just using local labor puts a lot of money back into the economy. Buying imports benefits no one but the Chinese. The quantities they are looking at would easily sustain a home industry.

Lastly, rather than fix the root problem, they are attempting a patch. Basically what they are saying is that since BMTA is incapable of operating efficiently and profitably, they want to outsource the entire operation. We know that the entire BMTA will remain in place without any reduction in staff so they are doubling down in costs in an effort to constrain the losses for the future. I have seen that done by governments in the past and yet to come across any successes.

Again, this whole procurement is wrong, excessive and at best, horribly corrupt. Hopefully the Thai way will prevail and it will thrash around in committee long enough for the next coupe to kill it.

I for one will be sorry to see it die an ignoble death. It has been such great fun at so many many levels. The good news is that something bizarre will replace it in a year or two and we can watch a new group set out to conquer the inscrutable ways of Southeast Asia.

It is an appropriate time to recap "lessons learned" that unfortunately are hidden on almost every page of this forum in some form or another.

1. We are guests here. Not citizens.

2. There is no semblance of rule of law, laws are entirely arbitrary and capricious and at best do little to protect citizens. Guests are not even part of the equation.

3. Knowing that status, NEVER INVEST MORE THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO WALK AWAY FROM

There are those who got great benefit from the TE card for the paltry and insignificant sum of 1M baht for over five years. Good on ya, wish I had that kind of spare change in my sock drawer. I would have bought it too.

There are those that scraped together their life savings to buy into this Ponzi. To those we should extend our sympathy but be comforted in the fact that its only 1 million baht. Madoff was able to fool far more people for far more staggering sums. While your money is never coming back, its a good time to reevaluate your basic understanding of how things work and protect yourself in the future. While this was stunning obvious to most of us, we should take a moment and reassess the ones that may not be. Perhaps buying a house with a bogus company might fall into the same category....

That means the market is worsening. The worse it gets, the higher the prices will go. I have to admit I dont get it either.

Eventually the banks will put them into NPLs and decades will go by with the "owners" who only put in 10% deposit continue to flog the empty properties at ever higher prices. Everyone will feel immensely rich with those prices, the banks, the owners, the developers, but nary a payment will be made.

I have friends building chinese busses in LA from knocked down kits. Using high end US seating (a major cost item in a coach) a US chassis and diesel engine, they are out the door at around $130k. Thats all US labor, pretty close to 2000 hours.

There is no good reason to pay the added expense of a monocoque style coach. A simple body on chassis will do the trick and properly maintained should have a 10 to 12 year life before the maintenance costs overcome the depreciation advantage.

The proposed coaches are NGV, that adds a lot of cost to a coach. Most of my work was in LPG as alternative fuel but I think NGV is better option here. It is less cost and significantly safer than LPG. That system could run up the cost significantly and for that many busses I would guess they are going to need new fueling stations. A fueling station to handle 2000 busses might run 15 million or so. For a coach, it takes about all night to fuel it with NGV. Faster is a problem which they might have made progress on over the past five years since I looked at it last.

So, considering the reduction in labor costs and shipping, also there is a coach seating industry here which will also greatly reduce costs, I would guesstimate a 13 meter coach with transit seating for about 35, NGV powered, automatic transmission (good reasons for this), jake brake, two axle six wheel, thermoking roof air, to be around 100K out the door. Maybe as high as 150K depending on options. Really you should have a great transit bus for under 500,000 baht out the door.

Spare stocking should run about 5% so about 25,000 baht per bus. I could build a pretty good operating inventory for around 1.5 million US.

I dont know how much other is built in. NGV fueling stations run about 15 million, I think you would need two or three of those if they dont exist. Does BMT have an engine shop for rebuilds? Those will run a few million with no dyno. Do they have a paint booth? Do they have a seat shop? You can meander through 100 million US setting up a complete support network but I would bet most of that is in place.

So at 4800 baht per bus per day, you pay the bus off in about 1000 days or under three years. Then pay seven years of interest. You financial types can plug in the numbers but it looks to me as thought they are paying an interest rate well in excess of 20%. Considering the risk involved with doing business with the Thai government, that might be about right. Only have to ask King Power about that.

Regards the maintenance, someone said about 8 million per bus over the life of the vehicle or about 50 billion baht. Thats about 1 billion dollars, for ten years. Given that 100 million should build the facility, thats around 900,000 million in labor and parts over 10 years, or 90 million budget per year, breaks down further to about 7.5 million dollars per month. Thats very very steep considering the cost of labor in Thailand.

My question is, what will the BMT do if they build an entire new transit system and support network. Hire and train drivers? They are pretty expensive for that and none too successful if driving on Ramkhamhaeng is any indication.

The costs are really over the top. I know how that stuff gets justified to people who have no idea what is involved but someone is being taken for a ride here. The dems know it but have not done their homework to know how.

Can you put any numbers forward?

70% of the buses will be locally assembled according to Suthep.

The total cost has been trimmed in several steps, the project has been in the works for over a year already.

Now is not the time to go back to square one and consider inviting Mercedes Benz to invest in a bus building plant here.

Hard to disagree with Suthep - if you know something, tell the public, don't just wallow in platitudes about corruption and demand endless "reviews".

The beauty of public transit is that numbers from all over the western world are very transparent. Complete turn key package accounting is available for free from a variety of public transit operations all over the world covering all styles of equipment, all options, all environments. Unlike building an airport which is extremely rare and local specific, public transit is a pretty well documented endeavor. In particular, bus transportation is highly dissected and life cycle costs are detailed to an amazing degree. The costs for both procurement and operation of the current proposal is completely out of any rational range. I could completely bury you with numbers, exactly how much are you willing to pay for the service and exactly what would that prove? If proven, exactly how receptive do you think the administrators, subcontractors, and operators would be? Whats the point. Its simply a professional opinion on the latest scam.

In the end, we are guests here and the people involved with these grand projects are not very interested in the opinion of their constituents, much less us "visitors". It is a shame because public transit is so desperately needed and resources so thin. One would hope that Thailand would invest, and invest wisely in education, health, and transportation at this stage of their development instead of aircraft carriers, jet fighters, and elite cards. If wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.

I do know about bus service, this proposal on the surface is obscene but it will be nice to see new coaches in Thailand.

Having been in the bus business and familiar with public transit over thirty years, I have to say that this program just stinks. Absolutely nothing makes any sense in the whole program at costs that are astronomical given the operating parameters. Someone, somewhere is getting filthy rich on the public dole.

Thailand should have a bus manufacturer. The auto industry is here so the large majority of parts and equipment can be bought locally. Mercedes is famous for setting up free manufacturing if you use their captive parts such as windshields and engines. In this case, they are not even buying the equipment, they are leasing it at a usury rate.

This bus arrangement is a real scam but then again, in Thailand its the way things work.

Have been thinking about this topic for the past few weeks as it is rather shocking to an already difficult and cumbersome financial process.

Thinking through the implications, I sort of went back to the basics.

Thailand is a third world country controlled by all sorts of vested interests running usury monopolies in one form or another. That level of control and corruption is a significant factor, some would say primary reason, in what keeps Thailand poor and undeveloped. From Customs to phone service to bankers associations to baggage scanners, its a rigged game with bizarre distortions everywhere. Good or bad, it is what it is and a primary reason that makes Thailand so Thailand. So when banks act in consortium to fix fees which is strictly illegal in most developed economies, its pretty much par for the course here.

Perhaps more importantly, we really do not know what prompted the move and what the real costs are to banks. Banking is a service no different than hair dressing or car repair. They have costs and need to make money to stay in business. I do know that banks throughout the world would prefer just not to do business in Asia or Russia. The level of theft and scams in those regions is legion. Its not easy safeguarding their trust against the hordes with computers and mal intent. Perhaps this was initiated by some obscene costs imposed on thai banks from overseas to cover the losses due to fraud. Probably something initiated this, the chance that the Thai bankers association just had a few too many beers at their annual meeting and someone came up with a nifty idea to monopolize and abuse tourists is rather slim.

In any event, its their bank and they can drive the fee the 10,000 baht if they want. They can freely form anti competitive monopolies and do whatever they want with full legal protection. Dont forget who owns the biggest banks here.....

If the price of hair cuts goes to 123,999 baht, its pretty simple, I grow some pretty long hair. For my circumstances, 150 baht is pretty steep fee to use an ATM so I will rearrange my finances to avoid that charge as much as possible. Thankfully Kasikorn is still a player and I may go visit their bank to see about transferring all my accounts to them just for the convenience (and in appreciation of) of keeping my US ATM as part of my financial tools. I, as a (hopefully) smart and rational consumer will find better and cheaper ways to obtain necessary services if it means cutting my own hair or moving cash around in my shoes. As with everything in Thailand, just give it some time, reality will eventually work out the kinks despite the puuyais best efforts.

Having worked briefly in banks many decades ago, I am always a little surprised at their business model and customer relationship. They (used to) work on some pretty thin margins. Having little to no real product, they are more public relations than business. Minute changes can cause serious disruption as customers go upside down over the smallest thing (note this entire thread!). People relate to money in bizarre emotional ways. We are all besides ourselves over this charge but the price of bread has risen fifty percent in the past year. I think rice has really moved too but not a word written. Property, our homes and business, went into the stratosphere causing untold damage to the entire worlds economy but instead we generate 30 some pages on an ATM fee. For most people, money is perhaps the most serious subject of all. We might pay some over educated and under worked doctor $200 for ten minutes of conversation to tell us something we already knew (quit smoking) and never blink, but $4.2529 for an ATM transaction, NEVER! Despite the fact that the ATM machine is very expensive, filled with about 200,000 baht each (maybe more), using electricity 24/7, requiring service 24/7, paying rent to the merchant, fees to foreign banks, occasionally defrauded for untold thousands, and occasionally completely stolen. Would you take 200,000 baht of YOUR money and stick it in a machine on Sukhumvit and leave it? When I think about it that way, they are pretty darn brave for $4.2529.

By cracky, I remember the days before ATMs. Banks were open a whole 14 hours a week and you scheduled your life around the lazy bastards. Banks are by nature difficult and uncooperative. We have gotten used to a banking system in other countries where competition was allowed to flourish and they were forced to become competitive to survive. Unfortunately that deregulation allowed other evils to take root because unfortunately humans were involved. I for one will reduce my ATM usage to a minimum. Find other ways to move and keep money that reduce my costs, and perhaps move my business accounts to Kasikorn because to date they have shown some independence and customer concern.

I have a 2008 CRV I keep in the states. It is simply a great car in every detail. Sits well, carries everything, just so well done. Had to change the wheels and tires into something that works but all in all its been a complete pleasure.