onlycw

With fractional reserves requirements, this won't be a laughing matter for the GSB. What's the ratio, does anyone know? 1:8? 1:10?

Suddenly, it's a trillion Baht in loans they cannot make any more.

Good luck with this policy - rice happens to degrade over time. It's a perishable good. Lord have mercy with the poor taxpayers...

A former neighbor tried to rent a condo next door for more than double the going rate. couldn't get it rented - wouldn't accept the market rent - or get out by selling the condo.

Not sure what the guy was thinking. He was a Thai-chinese guy and not some farmer with dirt under his fingernails.

Holding on to dead capital makes perfect sense to this guy. It doesn't to me. Condo prices have been under pressure, JMHO.

At this point in time, Thailand needs someone to actually sell the blasted rice pdq, pretty darn quickly.

Moreover, the scheme should be publicly scrapped, as the poorest and smallest farmers won't qualify anyhow. (There's nothing new about the fat cats getting the cream, all over the word, is there?)

I've done that in a small town up North. An English speaking lady came out and called neighbors who owned properties. Rely on the grapevine, it works wonders!

Absolutely!

I've had my share of botched wires & currency conversions. Usually, a wire gets there within 24 hours (disclaimer: sent from the UK with HSBC).

Some error in the account details would let it bounce like an e-mail and the money would get returned to sender.

This hasn't happened yet either?!

Call your bank pdq!

The Euro is, to quote a book by Bernard Connoly worth a read, The Rotten Heart of Europe". A requirement for France to allow German reunification. Sick at its core, with festering messes not just in Greece... I would stay well away from the Euro!

A friend imported a 375 kg Harley and later died on it. It was crazy - being shipped through another country in SE Asia etc. 

As a buyer, I would be weary of parting with money.

And all those photos show Harleys of the WWW, but none of the 2014 models. Mmh.

My friend died, but he worked for Western Digital. They have a huge factory near Ayuthaya. I would take the HDD to them and not mess around with small shops. Thailand is making most of the world's hard drives AFAIK.

Good luck!

I'm sorry for this awful experience. A friend of mine speaks the Queen's English - and he has found his place in Bangkok.

OTOH, there is a huge mob of C.'s who come with fake degrees and have atrocious accents and very limited vocabulary.

It must be so annoying to battle it out in such circumstances...

On the first day at a government high school, an old female teacher told me that they wouldn't hire any "blacks" - but they hired

white South Africans. Not sure if the colour of one's skin is seen as reflecting a theologically "dark karma / bad soul"?

Darkness is theological territory JMHO.

Try other countries, surely you will find an employer who will appreciate you and the hard work you do!

Packing heat? Teachers get a gun, don't they?

The sad thing is even if they get the loan " for the farmers" 70% of it will be redirected to the shin&co pockets

And how exactly is that gonna happen / going down?

While I believe the rice pledging scheme is criminally insane a project, I can't see 70% going to anybody's pockets. Please enlighten me.

They could be selling the 14 m or 18 m (Telegraph, a UK newspaper) tons pdq, pretty darn quickly. It's a declining asset.

And the whole stinking mess was predictable, including the rampant smuggling of rice from neighboring countries.

"The government" handling anything doesn't bode well. Be that schools or getting quality government housing.

At my school, they installed amplifiers in every classroom for 6,500 B. Alas, the power outlets are total crap, so the plugs fall out or don't connect properly. Or the necessary cinch cables aren't there - a 100 B items renders the whole apparatus worthless.

At one school, they had more than a dozen (!) servers and 5 technicians. Possibly one or two engineers. and ToT had an office at the school as well.

But reliable wifi? Forget it! Internet at the English Department? (A <700 Baht ADSL contract with 3BB would have powered the few PCs in our office). No way. But the cost for this absurd theater was a 7-digit amount per annum! (And I would love to see the electricity bill for the servers in a rack up to the ceiling).

A private business would have taken corrective measures, including an immediate STOP to buying up rice they cannot pay for.

Surely, someone noticed that they would run out of cash soon - that was many months ago!

Maybe they can cancel the scheme now, so that all the farmers can prepare to sell their rice on the market.

That's ridiculous - just like some job ads I've seen. "Not over 30" one said.

A friend is near 70. Totally fit, cycling everywhere and I wish I had his sharp mind... Generalizations don't work.

Older teachers can be young at heart and might handle young learners very well.

Go for it!

...When?!??

A private company's directors would go to jail when they continue "buying" stuff knowing damn well they wouldn't be able to pay.

In addition, the taxpayers now have 18 million tons of rice according to an article in the British newspaper Telegraph.

Perishable goods, a declining asset. And do they sell the rice?

Ask a 1st semester student of economics if a subsidy would be expensive when the government pays almost double the market price.

Doubling the national debt in the last 10 years has been a great "success". What next? An official default? Are ministers looking at Argentina to get their ideas?

Thai children will be paying the price. And they haven't got any lobby

Get a used Wave and take it to Honda. New wheel bearings, a complete service. And just a few thousand Baht depreciation p.a.

A 20 years old guy was hired at a government high school, getting 20 k. The contract states "part-time" and there seems to bee some loophole.

Good luck to your daughter - she should call some schools and try networking.

Here on TV, there was a report by a medic who witnessed atrocious medical malpractice by ambulance staff.

Aligning broken legs so that they "look nice" etc. Very scary thought to have some Somchai mistreat the injured due to lack of training.

And the bed of a pick-up truck might not be ideal to transport sick people...

You also probably have to pass an emmisions test which I understand is very very costly if you can get it.

Worse - much worse: my understanding is that the emissions test is so tough that bikes with carbs will fail invariably (and others are known to be forced to pay for another round of testing @ about 30,000 Baht.

I did that once when I moved to California and it was stupid & expensive

It should be considered unbroken if they were full year contracts. You might get screwed if they give you a 10 month contract like some schools do in order to avoid holiday pay.

For severance, there will be the minimum requirement for 30 days' pay met even with one 10 months' contract.

Q: is this a government or a private school?

The latter gets you to access the free Labour Court. File, then they will arrange a settlement conference and it could all be over in 6 weeks' time.

For government schools, you have to go to Administrative Court and pay 2% of the amount claimed.

Thank you so much, Jake!!

did it work? good. now take a hoover and clean your notebook. fan, air ducts, so on. if you're a smoker, take glass cleaner - spray it on a towel/hanky and wipe your computer. use an old toothbrush to clean your keyboard.

The T60/61 is way more cheap in the US , so if you need a new one don't buy it here.

Greetings

Jake

Couldn't try it yet - I will ask someone at work to swap the RAM. (New Crucial RAM, bought in the USA - have had issues with another notebook taking the same RAM. DDR2-5300 with 200 pins)

Thanks again for pointing this out to me, Jake!

Chris

Well, I like older Thinkpads like the T-61P = titanium or their 12" models (X-something). Get the maximum RAM and you should have a solid notebook for 10 grand. Source? Ebay USA. The usual stuff like watching videos, doing word processing can be handled by an old CPU with maybe 2.5 Ghz. And I'm a fan of XP - compare the boot times and speed and weep.

Thank you so much, Jake!!

Well, we all have difficult classes.

I've found the M6s to be sometimes not bothered (to learn) but usually, they are pretty docile IMHO.

My bad M3 students are more challenging.

There is a 3/11 class where students just walk out at the end of the previous class. sometimes, they will all walk back in th elast 5 minutes of my class. With high energy, fast paced activities and an attempt to engage each and every one, I have kept the select few (maybe 7 out of about 33) happy. Pretty abysmal - and the Thai assistant stopped showing up weeks ago. (And if she's present, she will just sit there and not participate).

Q: Have you ever thrown the worst two or three students out?

I like to make them stand on their chair and raise their arms in the air, as mild punishment. Or make them hop like a rabbit etc. But then, when there is PANDEMONIUM, just getting the noise level down will be tough.

Will you be looking for a new job?

You will find work definitely. Don't use an agency and don't accept an 11 month contract unless you are only going to stay in Thailand for 1 year. 11 month contracts suck if you are going to return to the job and not get paid during your holiday.

Hear, hear!

the semester will end in March, but at my school, the foreign teachers' contracts will end in February. This sucks big time!

Thailand has many places, be open and see the ads on Ajarn.com

Am getting an annoying blue screen with the message page fault in nonpaged area.

At other times, there appears to be an added visual layer of black dots, allowing one to see the website underneath. The see-through layer starts moving and often turns into colourful displays of thousands of tiny dots.

Then the HDD light won't go on any more.

Q1: Does this sound like a software issue (a virus?)

At times, the notebook won't boot at all. The HDD light stays dark.

Q2: could this be a HDD issue?

Thanks for your thoughts!

These days, one reads disturbing news articles on rice farmers not getting paid for their goods.

Then there is the sordid tale of woe regarding my pay check.

Intentional withholding of wages appears to me quite common over here. I know of 7 teachers who are all owed 70,000 B each by some Tessaban up North. When I hadn't been paid on time, I just tried to ask for my money. The excuses have been quite astonishing. As was the regulatory office's instructions to send a letter to the employer. Been there, done that.

Now they claim they couldn't hand over this check unless I come and sign their book. That would mean a 20 hour round trip by bus!!

Administrative court charges 2% of monies claimed. Bet few of those farmers can afford to sue the government. and the credit rating agencies are what, asleep?

Is this kind of non-payment of salaries common? How would you tackle such a problem when it comes for time worked?

They have my bank details. Transfer payments to my bank account have been the established way to pay me. Who cares if they claim "the director has your check"?! Why on earth would that be the case? He won't be putting it into my account (no problem - as all employees had to open accounts with a certain bank), nor putting it in the mail.

Months later, I refuse to travel for 20 hours to pick up the damned pay check from Fall 2013.

Hope someone knows some way to get this sorted without filing in Administrative Court for the 2% fee, then having to wait - months, years?