jayboy

https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/current-members

By my count at least 15 current members have worse human rights records than Thailand.The Move Forward party should not be banned (actually it should be in power) but I don't see the argument in linking the issue to the UNHRC.

10 hours ago, susanlea said:

Country people speak slow

Not in Southern Thailand they don't.

1 hour ago, Gecko123 said:

 

You may find this hard to believe but I would be willing to bet that if Stuart Jay Raj started jabbering away in Thai to a total stranger that he could easily experience the same 'brain freeze' reaction that the OP and others have reported experiencing. As I said earlier, if your proficiency was anything approaching advanced level, you would have experienced this for yourself and know how common it is, and wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this frustrating experience as a lack of proficiency on the part of the non-native speaker.

Another irrelevant reference to my proficiency of which you are by definition ignorant and which in any case is irrelevant.Perhaps you have had personal experience of experiencing baffled expressions when you attempt Thai with a native speaker, just speculation but I seem to have touched a nerve.I of course agree there are some occasions when even a proficient foreign Thai speaker finds the interlocutor discombobulated - as touched on with examples previously.But general speaking, it's a reasonable assumption that foreigners who complain Thais don't understand their version of Thai - just don't have the facility they assume.

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Kier Starmer is responding to this coordinated threat to law and order exactly as should do.

 

Many on the political right aren’t happy about that.

 

 

 

There is no problem with Kier Starmer's line on the thuggery (much of it co-ordinated by extreme right wing groups) in some of our cities.I believe he has the country behind him but there is no escaping the selective indignation involved.

If some on what you describe as the political right draw attention to the application of different standards that seems completely legitimate.

1 hour ago, Gecko123 said:

The point I was making is that just because a native speaker fails to understand you or another non-native speaker does not automatically reflect poorly on their proficiency level, and anyone - including you - had they achieved a high degree of proficiency would have experienced this phenomena, and the fact that they - and you and jay boy - don't realize this tells me that it highly likely that your proficiency in the language isn't that high.

My level of proficiency in Thai is irrelevant and in any case from the forum's point of view is unknowable - as is yours.Your rather tortuously expressed, and if I may say rather commonplace point is regularly heard from foreigners, often though not always with an execrable level of Thai. For those genuinely interested I would recommend turning to Stuart Jay Raj who is illuminating in the subject.

38 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

 

It is my strong suspicion that if you yourself enjoyed any degree of fluency in Thai you would have long ago disabused yourself of that notion. The experience of being very easily understood by most Thai speakers and then encountering the occasional Thai speaker who has brain freeze when a non-native speaker speaks Thai is something that I am extremely confident even the most highly proficient non-native speakers experience on occasion.

That's a different point altogether.I agree that occasionally a Thai is shocked into silence when a foreigner speaks or attempts to speak Thai.If we are going to digress on this matter I would also add Thai airline staff/hotel employees etc who insist on speaking English.But my original observation holds.

19 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Thailand rightwing?

 

National health service, free schooling, heavily subsidized public universities, price controls on fuels and essential foods, government controlled rice and agricultural product markets, large effective civil service, on going centralized government run national development plans.

 

I don’t think Thailand fits western definitions of political right/left.

 

 

A bloated and corrupt military that interferes constantly in politics.A feudal establishment that demands obedience on penalty of imprisonment or even death.The dominance of a few gigantic corporations that squeeze smaller concerns.One of the most unequal societies on earth with wealth concentrated in a tiny minority.Structural issues that prevent Thailand from breaking out of the middle income category.

I agree the left/right labels don't fit but you have been somewhat selective in identifying the salient factors.Therefore a few other aspects to consider.

They will definitely go for Gripen for reasons that I would blush to expound on.

On 7/29/2024 at 1:22 PM, Cameroni said:

I have people in the street when we go out come up to me and tell me what a great body she has

There is something distinctly "off" about this narrative

1 hour ago, sirineou said:

The only thing "alleged" is your intelligence

I mean the genocide at hand 

You should try and avoid descending into personal insults when your narrative is challenged.It simply means you have no case (or are incapable of making one)

The fact that the Gaza conflict is "at hand" does not obscure the hypocrisy of the mobs in many major cities when there was no similar level of outrage over many other civil wars in very recent times. In the case of the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs, many Muslim countries simply shrugged and continued kowtowing to China.Other genocidal movements in Chechyna, Congo, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, South Sudan,Yemen, Darfur and Ethiopia have raised nowhere near the outrage of the current hysterical anti-Israel mobs. One wonders why there is such extraordinary selective indignation.Is it because Jews were not involved?

If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.

4 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

There’s a reason it sounds racist Richard.

 

Because it is.

 

“Nothing has worked in the past”
 

Except something has worked in the past:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45572691

Not as simple as you seem to think

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-community-approach-alone-wont-solve-knife-crime/

48 minutes ago, alanrchase said:

I suspect there will be a need to prove the money is savings

I think one must definitely have the receipts/evidence to prove the money comes from savings if required.But i doubt it will be called for except in the most exceptional circumstances.

51 minutes ago, alanrchase said:

I suspect they will consider money remitted to Thailand to be from income first until it is all used up

No reason to think this will be the case (especially if no tax return is filed on basis no assessable income!)

53 minutes ago, alanrchase said:

It will all be moot if they decide to tax worldwide income anyway.

Agreed

53 minutes ago, alanrchase said:

I don't think trying to remit pre 2024 money will work. Tax authorities are not daft. I suspect all tax authorities consider that the tax years income is spent first before you dip into savings. If you have income of $20,000 in a year they will not consider any money to be savings till you have used up that $20,000.

I don't see why.

Quite a few people I know are now funding their life in Thailand through savings incurred pre 2024, and letting tax year income pile up in their home countries.I believe, if asked by Thai tax authorities, they will be able to prove remittances were made through pre 2024 savings.If Thailand goes over to taxing world wide income,that is obviously a different situation.

6 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

If you have a Thai ID card (pink Identification card for people who do not have Thai nationality or blue/green Thai National ID Card) you already have a Thai tax ID, probably anyone with an ID card MUST use that number 

I've wondered about this.You are right about the number but doesn't it have to be registered at the RD before it can be used? Or is it the case when one is filing the tax return for the first time one just bungs in the number and the system just deals with it as a TIN? I just don't know.

Most Thai women don't prefer foreign men.

Foreigners whose main experience has been with Thai "working girls" often think differently.But they are deluded.