spidermike007

All I had to see was the US and the UK at 23 and 24 to know that there was some fishy about this survey and that the results were fairly bogus. The quality of life in the US is so low these days I wouldn't be surprised if it was 120 rather than 23. Thailand is facing alot of problems no doubt, the economies is in really rough shape, but for those of us who live on foreign currencies many of us live very well here and enjoy a very high quality of life. I still find the Thai people to be relatively lighthearted and I find most to be warm, gracious and fun-loving. I love living here, that hasn't changed. Having said that I can only imagine what it must be like to be living on 300 or 400 baht a day, which so many people are doing, and when you have a nation that pays 5,000 baht a month more to those with the University degree then to those with no specialized training at all, you know there are some serious inherent problems.

This is a great thing and as an American I totally support this kind of action, the US needs to be put in its place and Trump needs to be taught that US influence is nowhere near what it used to be, it has been declining for decades and he is doing nothing but precipitating the decline. Though he has no interest in education, reading or learning, it would really be beneficial for him and his administration if they knew even just a small amount of information about globalization and the inherent ecosystems required. It’s a total mess. As the Ford Motor chief executive Jim Farley courageously (compared to other chief executives) pointed out, “Let’s be real honest: Long term, a 25 percent tariff across the Mexico and Canada borders would blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we’ve never seen.” So, either Trump wants to blow that hole, or he’s bluffing, or he is clueless. If it is the latter, Trump is going to get a crash course in the hard realities of the global economy as it really is — not how he imagines it. Ecosystems? Listen a bit to Beinhocker, who is also the executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. In the real world, he argues, “There is no such thing as the American economy anymore that you can identify in any real, tangible way. There’s just this accounting fiction that we call U.S. G.D.P.” To be sure, he says, “There are American interests in the economy. There are American workers. There are American consumers. There are firms based in America. But there is no American economy in that isolated sense.” The old days, he added, “where you made wine and I made cheese, and you had everything you needed to make wine and I had everything I needed to make cheese and so we traded with each other — which made us both better off, as Adam Smith taught — those days are long gone.” Except in Trump’s head. Instead, there is a global web of commercial, manufacturing, services and trading “ecosystems,” explains Beinhocker. “There is an automobile ecosystem. There’s an A.I. ecosystem. There’s a smartphone ecosystem. There’s a drug development ecosystem. There is the chip-making ecosystem.” And the people, parts and knowledge that make up those ecosystems all move back and forth across many economies. As NPR noted in a recent story about the auto industry, “carmakers have built a vast, complicated supply chain that spans North America, with parts crossing back and forth across borders throughout the auto manufacturing process. … Some parts cross borders multiple times — like, say, a wire that is manufactured in the U.S., sent to Mexico to be bundled into a group of wires, and then back to the U.S. for installation into a bigger piece of a car, like a seat.” Trump just waves off all of this. He told reporters that the U.S. is not reliant on Canada. “We don’t need them to make our cars,” he said. Actually, we do. And thank goodness for that. It not only enables us to make cars cheaper, but also better. All that a Model T did was get you from point to point faster than a horse, but today’s cars offer you heating and cooling and entertainment from the internet and satellites. They will navigate for you and even drive for you — and they’re much safer. When we can combine more complex knowledge and complex parts to solve complex problems, our quality of life soars. But here’s the catch. You cannot make complex stuff alone anymore. It’s too complex. And if you are not part of these ecosystems, your country will not thrive.” And trust is the essential ingredient that makes these ecosystems work and grow, Beinhocker adds. Trust acts as both glue and grease. It glues together bonds of cooperation, while at the same time it greases the flows of people, products, capital and ideas from one country to the next. Remove trust and the ecosystems start to collapse. Trust, though, is built by good rules and healthy relationships, and Trump is trampling on both. The result: If he goes down this road, Trump will make America and the world poorer. Mr. President, do your homework.

As guests in this country the very least that we can do is show a consistent level of respect to the local people, this kind of behavior is never justified. Never, ever.

Well, I was sidetracked by a personal attack. Just trying to provide some clarification.

You might be right. You are one of the more reasonable intellects on this forum, so I will take this into account. Thanks.

Well I have a lot of Jews in my family and I have a lot of very close Jewish friends, and I have a lot of affection for the Jewish faith and culture. But for people with relatively simple minds, the concept of separating how one feels about Jews from how one feels about official Israeli politics and policy is just simply too much to grasp. It is alot more nuanced and is just too complicated, for jingos, memes and hateful politics. Hence, it is easier to use a term like you use. It is always far harder to understand nuanced beliefs. Especially for a supporter of the goombah.

Though this is true, back then a man's word actually meant something, and they honored things like a covenant between nations, and between people's. Trump is way too unholy to even understand the concept of a covenant or honoring an agreement. That is about honor, none of which he possesses. He is Mr. Dishonor.

Well I would say it's an exaggeration to say that the US is being colonized by Russia, but they're certainly being influenced by Russia, they are certainly allowing Russian Kompromat to have its desired effect, and they're certainly allowing Russian spying and hacking and likely they're allowing infiltration of Russian spies into US intelligence organizations. But that's just who Trump is, that's just to be expected, we can't expect any more of an imbecile creep than that. He is a traitor to his nation and he is very dangerous.

Oh my God, oh my God he doesn't like me, he disapproves of my policy, he criticized me. I'm so hurt, I'm so emotionally damaged, I am such a weak victim, this is terrible, we must prevent him from entering the country. He could cause such great harm to my soul and my psyche. I'm such a delicate creature, I just can't handle criticism. I don't like it and I don't want it, keep them out please. Bad people. No fealty at all.

It depends on how dangerous the guy is if he's of the life-threatening variety then you just leave them out on the ice for a month the cold or the creatures will take care of him. If he's less lethal, then you keep him sedated, or tied up or locked in a storage closet with a bowl, and you feed him once a day, there are solutions.

Buchanan was widely considered the worst, then Harrison. Though none of them were nearly as destructive as Trump, and neither of them were insane, unhinged, and as creepy, nor as felonious as Disaster Don.

Hopefully Zelensky understands that Trump will throw even his best friends under the bus if it benefits him one iota, and it would be very surprising if Trump did anything to harm the interests of Russia and Putin.

Which is a rather bizarre thing when you're talking about 60 against 1. In a place like Antarctica one would think that it would be quite easy to contain one rotten or aggressive individual. There's something about this story that doesn't smell right. And when there's a rank spell in the air it often means there is rotten fish in the vicinity.

It is of extreme importance to differentiate between people protesting against Israel's approach to this war in Gaza, and antisemitism. They are two completely different things, however Israel is an extremely thin skinned nation, and very intolerant of any sort of criticism. As a Jew I know that many Jews are thin-skinned when it comes to any sort of criticism of Israel, and it's often interpreted as being anti-semitic. I've been called a Jew hater for criticizing Israeli policy so I know how sensitive the issue can be, and it's very important to interpret it correctly. Jews and all people have the right to be critical of Israeli policy, especially now that the extremists have taken over gotten the support of a hateful PM, and are engaging in what could be called a ridiculously disproportionate campaign against the Gazans. Israel must be very careful at this point as they are losing support around the world, by the day it's gotten to the point where there are very few nations who are still supportive of Israel, and the IDF, and even the US is considering withdrawing some support. That would put them in dire straits, and very isolated. But, they deserve that, in my opinion. This move by Trump is not surprising since he's an avid supporter of the extremists in Israel, and he's very much against the concept of dark-skinned people having any level of power, including the Palestinian people.

Outstanding news, anytime someone in Thailand is held responsible for that level of negligence it's a good thing for society, it shows the Thai people and the world that there is a semblance of law and order here, and it benefits everybody. It's very possible that even the mother of the owner of this pub is not going to miss him.

Highly inaccurate and likely totally fake, or false. But, integrity is out the window, when it comes to defending the indefensible. Regardless of whether you use Baron or Fidelity numbers, it’s clear that the Twitter takeover has so far been a financial fiasco for Musk and his co-investors. By my math, Musk et al. have about $33 billion invested in X. That’s $44 billion to buy out Twitter’s shareholders plus about $2.5 billion of expenses, less $13.5 billion that X borrowed. Even at Fidelity’s new, higher valuation, the original $33 billion of equity is down by about $23.7 billion. Musk is down about $18.6 billion; his co-investors (who put $7.1 billion into the deal) are down about $5.1 billion. Sure, Musk, the world’s richest person, may be able to laugh off those losses. But to Baron, Fidelity, and Musk’s 17 other co-investors, those big losses are no laughing matter. https://www.barrons.com/articles/elon-musk-twitter-x-valuation-baron-fidelity-72850dec

It seems like a step forward now let's get rid of the 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. prohibition window and then let's go a step further and encourage the production of microbrews. Just to make sure small brewers were thoroughly intimidated, the rewrite back in 2017 also increased inflated penalties. Fines were increased from their original, almost quaint 200 baht ($6) for possession of bootleg alcohol to 10,000 ($300). For actually brewing without a license, fines were increased from 5,000 baht ($150) to a range of 50,000–100,000 baht ($1,600–$3,200), plus jail time. Reporting in 2017, The Bangkok Post estimated that in order to meet the new regulations, a brewer would need to have a billion baht—around $30 million—in start-up capital. For some, craft beer is associated with anti-establishment politics. “It’s very similar to the French Revolution, which started from a cafe in Paris, where people drank coffee,” says Taopiphop. “The fuel of the revolution is not coffee any more, it’s craft beer.” Taopiphop adds that, after the 2014 coup in Thailand, many pro-democracy activists chose to meet in Bangkok’s craft beer bars. If only the younger Thais were allowed to express themselves, be inventive, be creative, be industrious, and use their smarts and ambition, Thailand could have a future. Craft beer is needed here, and so are the young entrepreneurs. But, that future appears to be suppressed at every turn by dinosaurs, who only answer to money, money, and even more money. Money is the God of lesser men. The money first attitude is holding back Thailand on so many levels.

This kind of action should surprise nobody as Trump is showing fealty to Putin and erasing any evidence of Putin's crimes. I think what it really comes down to is that Putin gives him a greater comfort level and makes him feel better about his own lifetime of crimes, that he himself has committed. Granted though Trump is morally bankrupt, a scam artist, a huckster and a felon, I don't think that he has been involved in all that much in the way of genocide or serial killing like his buddy. But they are still birds of a feather.

Yes correct, I meant the second worst out of 47 presidents. Time will bear this out.

Well since Twitter has been a money loser ever since he purchased the company, I don't think it's a particularly good gauge at his ability to cut staff, save money, and generate a profit. Perhaps you haven't read about the federal government hiring back tens of thousands of people that he fired unnecessarily, who were absolutely essential employees. You know people who keep planes from colliding into each other, forecast extreme weather events, prevent disease from spreading, and other such things. Oh my God they were really needed after all?

Thanks Bob, I appreciate your kindness, goodwill and positivity. You certainly bring a lot of wonderful energy to this forum. Ha!

Give it at least 2-4 years, together ful time, before you propose. Time is ALWAYS our ally, and never theirs. The vast majority of Thai people are way immature for their age. And many women and men are emotionally undeveloped, and really just 13 year olds, who look like adults. So take you time, get to know who they really are. Take as much time as you need. If it's good it's only going to get better, and if there are problems, they are going to manifest themselves over time. You have NO idea what she's made of, you have no idea how good a job her family did raising her, you have no idea what her underlying neurosis or baggage is, until at least 12- 24 months into the relationship. Together, not online. They are always trying to push the timetable and you need to push back. The longer, the better. If she walks, let her walk. See if you like her family. It is far harder to have a successful relationship here if you don't.

I agree not to strike refineries nor any other energy facilities, however please let me continue to massacre women and children, as I consider that to be extremely fulfilling and satisfying, and since Trump's not really putting any pressure on me, I can do whatever the hell I want. Nobody can do anything to hurt me. I am the Sith Lord.

You have quite a life Bob, there's no question about that. You know there's a very bizarre concept in life called contentment, perhaps you should research it and even make an attempt to embrace it. Some of us have really good lives here, and we're thankful for our lives on a daily basis. Granted we don't live in cities that are infested with Russians, and that's one element to a recipe for success.

So far it would appear that Trump is even less competent than Biden, and significantly more insane, unhinged, unworthy, and undignified. He may go down in the history as the 46th worst ever, he has an awful lot to prove in order to make sure that's not the case. And it would appear that Trump has BDS, and it would appear that his obsession prevents him from talking about real issues. Unless you call his Gaza development plan a real issue. A big smoke screen it would appear.