buddy

I just feel sorry for my relatives in the UK who feel completely disenfranchised that they have no control over there own destiny (European Union Governed) and want to get out but cant for various reasons.

If the Liebour Government get back in and continue with Social Engineering and the importing of Labour voters (immigrants) there futures look very grim...they will live in a dystopia.

They will also be very poor!

you are correct with 10,000 baht is a concern for me but really all i want to know is if a 36,000 baht daikin will be much better than a 26,000 baht panasonic both being inverters and both the same btu

No one got around to the question of brand names and why one might be worth more money than another. That is always a key question but difficult to answer, I suspect. Is one brand really that much better than another? Technical specs can be compared or customer satisfaction quantified but it can remain difficult to place a baht difference between brands. One suspects that some brands can demand a premium without being that much better and simply due to brand recognition. I am satisfied with my Daikin but have no way of knowing if it is worth more money than a Panasonic.

Daikin are the specialists in the field of Air-conditioning, all they produce is refrigerant, which is the gas used in the units and refrigeration units.

They have invented many World firsts, VRV (Variable Refrigerant Volume) being the most famous...the other manufacturers manufacture cash tills, calculators, cookers and a whole host of appliances and industrial goods...Daikin are the specialists, you wont regret it as long as it is sized up correctly for the load !

hard thing man, gotta try and help, but at the end of the day you need to draw the line, and be ready to change the locks and walk away.... unfortunatly this is how it works out sometimes, no matter how much you love them

Concur, guillotine the relationship, shes cheated/cheating on you, disappearing till the next afternoon (cheated/cheating on you), on drugs (and you are at serious risk here in Thailand)...your a doormat man!

Plenty of nice Girls out there, good luck, go get em!

Can anybody point me to shop or know where I can buy a telescopic fishing rod in Pattaya or the surrounding area?

One of the happiest times of my life was when I was on my ar*e financially and had nothing, I couldnt even afford the bus fare and had to walk everywhere, I found I missed so much of the World around me previously wizzing around in the car.

You have a lot to learn about poor if you think being poor is not having bus fare. Being poor means having insufficient food to eat and no place to live.

Sure, you can be happy without bus fare, but not without food.

Didnt say I was that poor I didnt have food in my mouth, I used the bus fare example as all things are relative, in my Western Country not being even to afford a bus fare would be considered a person is brassic...but it did have its positive side!

How do you know that I have never been that poor anyway, there was one time in my life your referring to, however that is another story and not for this forum.

So yes I have experienced both!

Not everyone is rich. Calling thrifty people names, whether Thais or expats, is disgusting and elitist. People are more than their bank accounts. Have so many expats internalized such disgusting values, that money is everything?

Spot on Jingthing...Far tooooo many materialistic judgment's made on assumption of peoples wealth,

I know a (very) rich guy who travels business class and his Wife and daughter has to travel behind in economy class??

This Guy even bought a new 5 bed-roomed house in central Pattaya with maids quarters and private swimming pool etc and moved in, at the same time he moved in he rented a 10,000 Baht a month old Thai house a couple of Kilometers away to put his 3 year old Daughter in out of the way, this was so she wouldnt damage the "things' in the new house...unbelievable but true.

Needless to say his nickname in England is Billy No Mates!

One of the happiest times of my life was when I was on my ar*e financially and had nothing, I couldnt even afford the bus fare and had to walk everywhere, I found I missed so much of the World around me previously wizzing around in the car.

Lesson...the more possessions you own, the more they own you!

" More than half of all workers are at risk of occupational hazards, with about 2.9 million injured or sick annually, the minister said".

2.9 Million injured or sick will be more than an underplay of the real figures, the real cost to the economy and suffering of families cant be calculated in terms of human suffering.

In my other life when I worked for a Western Multi-National Engineering Company in a specialist field in Thailand, I actually had to develop and deliver Technical training from scratch to our own technicians and Clients Technicians alike, as the Technical & Health & Safety standards were so low due to the fact that there was (and amazingly) still is no vocational training schools in this field in the whole of Thailand.

This specialist field is essencial to any Countrys existance and maintenance to the quality of life in the modern world, and is essential to food production and preservation, medicines, manufacturing etc

The reason I am stating this is that i investigated through a Millionaire Bangkok business figure with his political contacts wether it would be a viable proposition to set up a vocational training school for Technicians in this field, however it would require Government support for Technicians and apprentices as they could not afford the tuition fee's over a 4 year period...the answer not interested!

Maybe I knocked on the wrong doors but I would still be interested in setting up a vocational training school even now.

Part of the training included strong Health & Safety, so no vocational training in Thailand, the undertakers and hospitals keep busy.

I have found a Solution! In all the readings I am doing about Buddhism, some of it from hundreds of years ago, by great Buddhists [can I call them 'scholars'? {probably not, eh}]; every time, and often they call Buddhism a 'religion', I close my eyes and 'vision' philosphy and move on.

I class Buddhism as a belief system, which is more benign than Mono-Theistic Religions.

All banks in every country are nothing more than crooks without a mask!

Bank of America SUCKS!

I'm afraid all the UK banks are much the same.

You got it spot on, ALL BANKS ARE THIEVES...trillions of free money pumped into them by your respective Governments and the little man and his family for generations has to pay the thieving Banks back the money that has been borrowed without permission in his name...you couldn't dream it up!

follow the rules and there is no problem

Really...and who's rules might they be then?

Sounds like Big Brother and Orwell 1984 to me. These Draconian security laws invade people's privacy and violate their constitutional rights and fools allow it in the name of "security". What a threat these so called terrorists have been... not a major strike to the U.S. since a bunch of wing nuts boarded a jet with box cutters. WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and now all it takes a few loonies in a jet to strip Americans of their rights. Perhaps there is an ulterior motive at work?

The "Land of the free" evaporated in the last Century...6 Corporations control the media, the Federal Reserve is a private Bank, National Identity Cards, Patriot act and so many other laws and taxes now make it impossible to do anything without Government permission, and still Americans and similaraly most other Western Nationals think they live in a Democracy ??

For the fans of Thailand, even with all its faults have you ever wondered why when you visited Thailand on your first holiday from your industrialized Nations that you felt free, ponder this question??...was it because you did not feel free at home??

Most people are hopelessly disenfranchised in there own Countries, at the moment there is an election looming in the UK, the head may change after May 6th but the machine underneath will not.

Expect more debt slavery, Government uncontrolled borrowing that you, your children and your childrens children will have to pay back through high taxation long after the man who enslaved you, Gordon Brown is dead, and expect more erosion of the little liberties you have left...there is nothing you can do short of anarchy which is not the way to go...wake up!....Enlighten your self with alternative media sources such as the must watch at www.sprword.com

I once worked in a British Embassy as a non diplomat and I remember on my first day at work I passed 2 guys in a corridor - I later found out they were dips. I said "good morning" but they took one quick look at me then looked away with frosty faces and didn't reply. Not very diplomatic really (sorry about that).

Don't expect too much help and you won't be disappointed.

People working for the state tend to give poor service as there is job security with gold plated pensions and no real pressure to perform well - the UK seems to be worse than the norm though

The State demands loyalty to its bidding and rewards its conforming Civil ahem servants with early retirement and Gold plated pensions that you could not find in comparison in the business World, all this is paid for out of your hard work and sweat...Embassies are a part of the machine, they do not exist for your interests but the States interests, once you accept that then you will not find any action or non action of an Embassy so frustrating!

^Cruelty to animals is only carried out by pathetic individuals who aren't brave enough to stand up to a real opponent.

Pathetic.

Agree.

But like the well fed domestic cats that are pathetic individuals that torture fledgliing chicks and any other baby animal that is under a cats size for hours on end.

Cats are the conmen of the natural World, torture is there pastime and they kill millions of songbirds every month in the UK and not for food...a purge is due.... humanely of coarse.

Homespace,

I am interested also in the areas from Siracha, Pattaya, Jomtien, Sattahip and Rayong areas.

Please post me with the details for land AND properties.

best regards

Buddy.

This is the banking and ivestment forum which deals with finance around the world. If you do nt want to read about the UK simply read the title ? Theres plenty on thissection about the US !

I will predict the finances of the country will be a lot worse than we are being told. Brown the clown is a master at keeping debt off the books and the true scope of debt will only come to light when the new Government takes over. The UK is finished. Unless the UKIP get in there is little chance anything will change in the future!

Yes, and who will pay for all this borrowing with out a murmur....the UK taxpayer and there yet to be born generations to come.

Borrowing with impunity is a National disgrace.....a few tax revolts as in the Boston tea party should concentrate Politicians minds!

<<snip>>

Governments borrowing with impunity and mortgaging my children and childrens, childrens futures is what I strongly object to, tweaking the current system will benifit the whole of mankind until an original thinker comes along with a viable replacement to the unfair system we have inherited.

<<snip>>

Methinks you sound too much focused on government fiscal policy, government debt, government spending and government programs, to include the attack rhetoric of "impunity" as supposedly practiced by governments borrowing from banks. 

I'm from the US so I inherently distrust government and continually keep my eye on it and am skeptical of it, but I also see government making positive contributions to society such as, among other things, social security in the US, social compensatory programs, the national highway system, medicare, medicaid, NASA (hoo boy here it comes now!) and presently social health insurance for virtually every citizen. 

You folks keep howling about government borrowing and expressing condescending attitudes towards those who dispute your great and grand focus on banks, bankers, banking - banks as an institution of society and the interaction between banks and governments. Your issue is banks, government, taxation..........banks, government, taxation.............banks, government, taxation. The proverbial broken record.

Businesses small and large, to include especially huge corporations, borrow and transact with banks too. One can recognize and understand your concerns as a taxpayer, but businesses small medium and large, and corporations especially, also deal with banks every day of the year. 

Spending all this time energy and effort on the interaction of banks and government alone, focused especially on government borrowing - which has happened since banks became an institution of society - seems overblown, simplistic, agenda driven.  

Your issue sounds very American, very conservative American, very tea party right wing American. Or are you so far over to the right that you're already beginning to come at us from the completely opposite direction? You indeed focus on the US by trying to pounce on the Fed while dismissing the various and complex relationships between governments and banks in all other societies and civilizations while simultaneously ignoring business and corporate borrowing in the US and elsewhere. The focus on taxation and national debt is particularly right wing American.  

Banks, government, taxation. That's the core of what we're getting here. I've heard it already before.

And we should be attentive to those who have their own agenda to hijack a thread, in this instance the minimum wage in Thailand 2010.  

 

And we should also be attentive to those who do not offer at least one proposal that could benifit the poor rather than a minimum wage that keeps them poor.

Heres the first of the USA bashers!

OP writes about the Russians:

"how well turned-out and polite they are in general"

you must be joking?!

They are impolite, uncouth, treating other nationalities as invisible and inferior.

Most of the russians are cheaply attired and ask the Thai's what they think about them and most will say they dislike them for their unpleasant manners, impoliteness and meanness.

-------------------------------

Right on the spot.... keep out of their way. Russians have never been any good news to anyone in this world.

New money in Russia, all kind of lowlife comes to life and begin to travel. watch out!!

Glegolo

Heres the first of the USA bashers out of the woodwork!

I know this may invite the USA bashers out but consider this,

If the Soviet Union (Russia) had won the Cold War what would the World be like now?...return to the dark ages and no travel, so most of you Guys living in Thailand would never of had the chance to go to Thailand never mind live there and most definetely the internet would not be allowed to exist.

What does Russia contribute now, freezing Winters for your Granny?

Russians only understand strongarm tactics...just like Putin the KGB thug.

I'm not even a USA basher, but that is preposterously misconceived, embarrasingly naive, Fox News style perspective of the world. It seems you may be a USA basher in disguise, posting nonsense to bring out the worst in us.

What do you think the Cold War was? It wasn't a real war, it's just a figure of speech. The Red Army wasn't going to roll into Europe and the Good Ol' USA if Ronnie the nutter hadn't stopped them. (if they had, maybe the illegal war in Iraq and the face-saving sideshow in Afghanistan wouldn't have been fought)

But now I find myself digressed into your digression., so I'll stop before I get my bottom immoderately smacked again.

OP writes about the Russians:

"how well turned-out and polite they are in general"

you must be joking?!

They are impolite, uncouth, treating other nationalities as invisible and inferior.

Most of the russians are cheaply attired and ask the Thai's what they think about them and most will say they dislike them for their unpleasant manners, impoliteness and meanness.

-------------------------------

Right on the spot.... keep out of their way. Russians have never been any good news to anyone in this world.

New money in Russia, all kind of lowlife comes to life and begin to travel. watch out!!

Glegolo

I know this may invite the USA bashers out but consider this,

If the Soviet Union (Russia) had won the Cold War what would the World be like now?...return to the dark ages and no travel, so most of you Guys living in Thailand would never of had the chance to go to Thailand never mind live there and most definetely the internet would not be allowed to exist.

What does Russia contribute now, freezing Winters for your Granny?

Russians only understand strongarm tactics...just like Putin the KGB thug.

I certainly wouldn't want to be on record as accepting greed or accommodating greed, much less promoting it. I wouldn't advocate laws, rules or regulations that say to bankers that they can be greedy but not too greedy. That would be poor public policy, a dubious morality and personally objectionable. 

There also is more to a government's fiscal health, its monetary policies, taxation and the overall state of the economy than its relationship with banks and bankers. In other words, this single focus on banks can be overdone. In most market economies to include mixed ones a government and a business are two different beasts, which is why it's a good idea to keep them separate as each relate to banks differently and for different purposes.   

The privately owned Bank of America (which repeatedly assures me I'm a 'valued customer'  )  just recently purchased the legal limit of 20% of the China Construction Bank in the PRC, largely because it's more detatched from ownership by the government than the other banks in the PRC, especially the massively corrupt and inefficient People's Bank of China.

What say you about banks in state owned and operated economies such as those in the PRC? Also, how about France? Is the French government too involved in ownership of banks and unwisely, or immorally, engaged in usury and in placing the French population and their posterity in exploitative debt, unmitigated or otherwise? Is Islamic finance such as in Malaysia a better system, worse or same?

If one is going to focus excessively on banks and bankers, one would need to be both comprehensive and discerning based on the particulars of the numerous systems of banking and because of the great differences in the various corporate relationships governments have with them. 

As to the minimum wage, I'd stated previously to this thread that even in the 30 or so advanced economies upwards of 15% of the population are poor, are 'dribbled' on by the economy, so it's no surprise that a lower class exists in any one of them even if it's in relative terms. Hence the 'civilized' factor of the minimum wage.    

Err Publicus, you already accomodate greed by not protesting and being compliant to an economic banking system that is greedy beyond imagination.

The focus is on Banks and Bankers because they are the hidden controllers of the current economic system and unfortunetely also the political systems of the West, the one does not nessaserraly mean we have to have the other, it was manipulated that way by one group way in the past and we and successive generations before us have meekly inherited it.

We already accept like mindless drones excessive greed in proportions that boggle the mind by accepting and paying excessive tax demands by our governments who dress the interest up as some thing else.

Usery, interest, duty, fee's, licenses, rates, taxes what every term governments wish to fluff it up as, the fact is the largest portion of your tax is being collected to pay back the Bankers interest.

What I am trying to advocate is not abolition of the system as I do not have an answer for a replacement and Communism is not the answer, and to totally exclude the Bankers would only invite bloodshed.

So whether the Bank is in France or America, Islamic or Christian makes no difference as they use the Fractional Reserve Banking system in some form or other.

The only two American presidents who did actually try to challenge the bankers were JFK and Abraham Lincoln... say no more about there plight!

Governments borrowing with impunity and mortgaging my children and childrens, childrens futures is what I strongly object to, tweaking the current system will benifit the whole of mankind until an original thinker comes along with a viable replacement to the unfair system we have inherited.

I also think that the Bankers will have a World currency as there next goal, mull over that horror!

The minimum wage is not a civilized factor, it is a political gesture (read stunt) with no real intent to improve the lives of the poor as 1% of &lt;deleted&gt; all is &lt;deleted&gt; all.

Dogs with coats on.

Khun Yings with pink mauve hair and there fussy attendants.

Brightly coloured dyed dogs.

Sleeping security guards, and I mean full Gold braided uniform, legs propped up snoring loudly away.

Dogs on Motorbikes.

First time Farangs in Thialand.

Appetizer last to be served.

Indians haggling.

I know I shouldnt - Falang Ladyboys.

Just noticed Dogs make me laugh in Thailand!

seanocasey,

Very informative, Do you know where can I gleen more knowledge about these peoples from the internet?

I had an unpleasant experience in Bangkok once where a Falang evengelical Christian missionary blatantly lied to me (and others) for months about his real purpose in Thailand, told us and kept up the pretence that he was a lawyer.

He was only exposed by the fact that his Falang girlfriend visited him when taking a break teaching the Gospel in Cambodia?

They were then going up north together to the Chang Rai area to err "work" with the hill tribes.

Quality people huh?

Why cant these Monothiestic Religions just leave people be?

Bangkok and Washington DC were founded contemporaneously in history and look at the difference (pathetic). Buddhist civilization is decrepit.

While the billions in poverty have to extents been victims of the nosy, greedy and aggressive aspects of Western civilization, not to mention its racism, those billions were born into civilizations that have been bereft of ideas and industriousness, worse, they are moribund and ossified, factors one cannot ascribe to Western bankers such as the Rothschilds (unless one wants to extend the factors of religions further but in other, unacceptably negative ways). 

Where some see bankers and usury others see a linear progress to history, imperfect as it is. 

Would this be the very same Washington DC that murdered millions of indigenous North American Indians and nearly drove Bison to extinction in a few decades and that is the capital of the richest country in the world where there are more poor people lined up at soup kitchens and panhandling on the streets than pathetic Bangkok?

My point previously is that Governments who borrow money with impunity and make generations and generations of fellow citizens slaved to a system because of high interest usery is morally wrong....it means nobody is born free!

If we have this imperfect capitalist system (as no system is perfect) and this is the best humankind has come up with so far, why cant we "tweak" the current system to make it even better by reducing the amounts that Governments can borrow and how much these private banks can charge interest?

Of coarse the Bankers will obviously resist there sacred cow being touched, however its a valid arguement I am proposing from which millions if not Billions of people would benifit.

The Bankers can still be greedy but just not so greedy.

Unlike billions of other people living in squalor, you are probably a person who benifits greatly from the Status Quo of the current system being maintained?

Instead of making snide remarks, are you able to offer any constructive alternatives to the grossly unfair system we currently have?

So populations get it coming or going, i.e., a couple of billion living in rathole conditions on less than USD $2 per day or some couple of hundred million (aggregate) in rich countries with their noses pressed against the window. It seems unresolvable under any ism or any mix of isms.

Wrong. It seems unresolvable under any ism - or rather: any government - currently practiced.

See my previous post for more information.

Ah yes, that well worn road to.................wherever.

The paths of history are beat down by the answers so here we are still regrouping to recover from the certainties of those solutions. The roads to the future are, well, the roads to the future, which means more regrouping ahead from more future shock.

No sale.

   

Try this for future food for thought-

How about as the first move we write off all the interest that Governments borrow with impunity from certain private Banks (including the US Federal Reserve Bank, Yes it is a private Bank) which is the basis of high taxation, after all the Banks did get there money for free!

The guarantee that the Governments offer up to these private Banks are there populations of current tax payers and future generations of taxpayers not yet born.

Banker - Yawn, Oh you want to borrow some more money Mr Brown for another one of your fluncky schemes or another War Mr Obama, yawn, What security do you have that I will get my money back?

Brown/Obama/Politicians - No problem Mr Banker we will increase taxes by another 10% for a hundred years, but we will impose the new taxes by stealth so they wont know about it.

Banker - What happens if the taxpayers get educated about this, they'll be rioting on the streets?.

Brown/Obama, If some of the idiot taxpayers are smart enough and twig on that over half of the money they pay in taxes goes to your private Bank and refuse to pay we will throw them in jail and take there houses, cars and the shirt of there backs.

Banker - Jolly good, heres another 20 Billion at 5% interest and dont forget the 0.25 of a cent I charge you for every dollar bill i print when we fool them with 0% interest.

With the exception of National emergency's I propose that fiscal responsibility needs to be enshrined in the constitutions to prevent governments continually mortgaging off future generations lives by borrowing with impunity!

When Blair/Brown and Obama/Bush are dead and gone, generations of taxpayers would still be paying for there actions well into the future...its abuse of power of the highest order!

BUT THIS IS THE RUB....Who dare challenge Governments, especially Western Democratic dictatorships and there hidden masters, the Bankers??

How do you do it, partial Tax revolt?.....see you in jail!