Shiver

13 hours ago, Jip99 said:

 

Some of the wealthiest people I know seek out cheap beer.

That.  We're brought up to think that being Scrooge is a bad person.  If asked how he got to have money, it may just be that he spent less than he earned, was discriminating in purchasing choices, never got in debt unless for exceptions (eg. borrow at 5%, resell at 6% etc).

Okay so we're not all going to be multi-trillionaires, (well, hyperinflation...) but even a non enterprising person with a steady job has choices in life.  That said, sometimes sh!t happens and that's why we have community rather than just being out for self.  It's a form of game theory.

Drifting topic slightly, a friend is trying to sell his business as he can't make it pay in this financial climate.  Several people have expressed an interest "but I don't have the money".  It's like everyone is comfortable or strapped for cash at the same time.  We can't all be Sines, we need CoSignes too.  This climate we're in now is a Contrarians wet dream, and people will say "the rich get richer...".

I suspect your friend is a Contrarian.

20 minutes ago, Aussieroaming said:

Yes, I'm calculating on 1.5% interest but if it rises to 4 of 5% that would be a bonanza. Reality is though 2M/annum wont be a deluxe life by the time I'm in my 70's. I also know things can turn pitong, having lost over $800K about 7 years ago, which put a spanner in my works. 

That link I posted yesterday showing exchange rates had as much as 0.53% difference depending on which bank is used.  If you're working on 1.5% that addition is significant, even if it's only a derivative addition.

I was chatting about exchange rates with a friend last night because of this thread, and he said he goes to a gold shop that will beat any bank rate (maybe not by much, but if you're bringing over an annual amount it's worth the extra effort).  I don't know if the dedicated exchanges do T/T or if it's only for walk in paper currency (they don't have one in my part of Issan).  Maybe BKK/Patts people can chime in.

1 minute ago, InMyShadow said:

"Turn meters on or else"

What does that even mean

It's Thailogic:

If <condition1> then <action1>
   Else_If <condition2> then <action2>
Else <no_action>
End_If

Or summink like that, depends on your language, code cleanliness, and...what was the question again?

I've never used Uber and rarely have 'need' to use Taxis of any kind (though I would sometimes if they were metered for certain journeys), but what I'm wondering now is, can a meter taxi also be an Uber taxi?  After all, we know a 'meter' taxi is usually an unmetered taxi.

Instead of 'driving' them out of town, be an Uber with meter taxi privileges (eg. colour of vehicle, roof sign etc).

I'm guessing the answer is that they don't own their own car, but if people who want to be taxis act as a hive mind, mafia, as powerful as they can be intimidating an individual, wouldn't really stand a chance if nobody needed to be under their racket.

In the meantime my ever attentive missus will get me around to friends on the bike when I want to see a friend in a nearby village for a couple of cold ones, and as soon as she gets around to getting her license she can have a new car (with 'personal taxi' obligations of course).

This site has reasonably up to date exchange rates for various Banks:

https://daytodaydata.net/

16 hours ago, NiwPix said:

Not only alcohol prices were raised ( according to bangkok post ), but also coffee, fruit drinks, carbonated sugar drinks, carbonated sugar free drinks, cigarettes.

I can not post the link here, but if you google "bangkok post new excise tax" you should be able to see everything that got a tax hike.

 

Seems like nothing dramatic though...~1-2 Baht per bottle. Why on earth somebody would refuse to shop at their local village store because they raised their price is beyond me. Does somebody really expect the local business to "carry" that hike themselves? Unless the local village raised the price for beer more than 3-4 baht per bottle.

One local shop raise beer 2 baht, and another on the same soi 5 baht (3.6% and 9% respectively).  They were both identical prices before that.  I don't think any malintent is there.  Lack of a battery for the Casio "machine that thinks about numbers" maybe.

I guess now that they've given a heads up, you can follow progress on one of the online Met sites for your local area.

Even if they did give specific predictions I wouldn't put too much weight on it, as the accuracy is limited to the amount of data points they can process in a timely fashion to keep updates reasonably fresh.

A few years ago we had a small part of the city centre blowing in windows and a KFC sign land on half a dozen parked cars (enough to kill any occupants were it not that they were all huddled up in the bricks and mortar building instead), branches everywhere, concrete and metal posts level on the ground...the usual.  A couple of hundred metres away in any direction it was just a heavy storm and a couple of temporary outages from power lines.  I don't think there are any systems out there with enough granularity of data to say that part of one road is safe and part is not, so we have to accept our responsibilities.

On 9/25/2017 at 12:28 AM, Acemaker said:

Bitcoin is traceable , dont believe the BS thats peddled by the Banks.

Somewhat true, but there needs to be origin info to reverse engineer.

What about Atomic Swaps (still in test and not even Alpha yet, but already proven to work).  That has no detail - not because it's trying to hide something, just that the information isn't required in an assured transaction and would be superfluous to the protocol.

It will be done, and there's not a thing anyone can do to stop it.  To down a target...you need a target.

6 minutes ago, topt said:

I saw the bills for a Thai lady with no visible means of support who had 60k plus baht owing for over 4 months.....

I am sure there are many with far higher totals than that

I don't wear a bra either, but I still get to pay the bills.

I wrote last week that a m&p shop that was 55 baht for Large Leo had gone to 57 baht.  Next time it was the husband that did the transaction and it was 55 baht again, then last night it was his wife and it was 60 baht.

Ass...meet elbow.

Who is the fraudster - The American or the credit card company? (or both).  

Looks like someone is going to get Amex'd.  Wonder if he can use plastic to pay for deportation... but for everything else, there's Bitcoin.

I read about 10 years ago the lessons learned from 1997 (which was before my time here) that they had implemented a basket of currencies now, so that could never happen again.  It reminded me of UK when they said the BOE had been given the power to set their own rates, so boom/bust was to be a thing of the past (like that happened).

What I'm getting to is this:  USD is a large part of that basket, and the plan as I understand it is for 2017/2018 to create another $15 Trillion (yeah well, it's 20 Trillion in the hole already, but the more the merrier right? cough..).  If the dollar is being diluted and THB is pegged to it, how far backwards can that peg bend without snapping?  My first thought is perhaps they'll start making more THB to relax the tension a little, but the whole world being in a race to the bottom just screams inflation, and inflation without appropriate interest rates is going to cost the social side as counterparty in a very rude and moody way.

If it were honest money then USD should be heading for about 26.8 baht by end of Q1 2018 by my own back of an envelope calcs.  At the same time I find that sticks in my throat as a possibility as it would devastate the economy.

I don't think there is a good answer if we're going to stick with a fiat inflationary model, but something has to give.  No doubt that will be you and I.

Euro is enjoying a reverse-halo effect at the moment.  Where that will go I don't know, but suspect it is at the top of a cycle.

On 9/20/2017 at 2:37 PM, OmarZaid said:

Not an Adam's apple .... more like a goitre ... but since its asymmetric, might be a cancer  - should be checked -- if anyone knows this person, please advise them

I agree completely with everything the Farang in the video said 

Re goitre, I figured out some years ago that inland Thais are notoriously low on Iodine (and Magnesium).  I was trying to find out why they have the most migraines, and the most breast cancer.  Conversely, Japan has just about the lowest, that's what gave me the first hint as to what to research.

As an add on to my previous posts (Big Leo 55 to 57, can of Leo in another shop from 36 to 40) I walked by another this evening (yeah okay I bought one as I was too shy to poke my nose in and not buy) and they were 55 baht and are still 55 baht.  All these shops are within a minute or two from each other, so some immediately chose to take on the new ruling with same stock, and it would appear that others are selling the same stock at the same price, and I would expect it to go up a little when they have new stock.  Others are grabbing.

The difference in price is not of importance as it is 'dust', but the difference of the business model says a lot.  I'll give my business to the straight traders from now onwards (small increase as I expected, or same until stock is replaced, both good actors), because as previously mentioned, I think in percentages in this kind of scenario, not prices, and I can now see the good actors from the bad, which was invisible to me previously.

"Backed by Government" - Who backs the government?  

Don't know about boxes, but one m&p shop nearby is 57 baht for Leo large (was 55).

Another shop nearby charges 40 baht for a can of Leo (was 36) - and old stock too.  In a way I prefer that price, because with the right notes I can be in and out of there in 10 seconds rather than standing around waiting for minutes while they think about the change, count it on their fingers, then when that doesn't suffice, switch to the calculator, then check all their pockets for small coins...Arggh! let me do it for you.

After further consideration I have concluded that the reason is because operating the vehicle pedals is more challenging due to the use of high heel shoes.

I believe women can also have the same issue.

Sent from my VIC 20

Agree @SpeakEasyThai.  Smaller denominations would have been much easier to pass off.  

I would have thought that most of the largest denomination notes come from the bank/ATM before being split, so fakes would be less prevalent than if it were smaller notes, which would be passed around a lot more and diffused into the system before making it back to the bank.

Hope they don't "do a Modi" and use it as a reason to recall all large notes and screw both themselves and the people over at great expense to all.  I'm not sure they would be able to create a secure and inexpensive digital baht processing system yet, as it would likely have to be a phone based scanning system for smaller market and street vendors to use.  It's not exactly Japan where they are much more likely to know how to use and secure their cryptos.

4 hours ago, jmccarty said:

The exchange rate is going to go to 3,000bht = $1 by then.

The USD is accelerating down the plug hole, and with THB pegged to a basket case of currencies which is heavily weighted towards USD, it's not that visible with casual observation, especially since  the rest of them are doing it too.  Long live Keynes.  Oh, wait.... he doubled died.  Go Austrian!

Purchasing power is a better measure.  Price of food/beer/tobacco/spirits etc compared to a decade prior.

[Edit]: In my ramble I missed my own point - given the state of fiat, the latest tax revision I think is extremely lenient.  Hope it's been thought through properly.

Why farang ask stoopit question?  It's to save power!  Same reason to put 20 baht in the scooter at a time.  Gotta love 'em.

I've noticed it with next door drilling (they've been doing 1 or 2 drills per week for about 2 years now, must be a big project...  Whipper snippers, chainsaws they do it  with those for sure also.

Curiously, they don't seem to do it with angle grinders.  Maybe it's just a throttle thing and doesn't apply to on/off devices.  Which reminds me, I need to turn off the refrigerator at night to save power too.

I say this affectionately (and with resignation).  I did my grumpy old man rant yesterday.

12 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You may be right about W S and Nana ( it's pretty bad now ), but Cowboy was doing fine when I was last there.

Monging will not stop, but it's moving away from girls in bars to girls on the internet.

Tourists do NOT come to LOS for the shopping or western style pubs, though they use such when they come for other reasons.

For every monger that came to LOS, probably 10 come for the culture and the food, or the beach.

 

They can build as many malls as they like, but it's not going to increase tourism numbers, and all the malls will just compete for the same pool of shoppers ie they will all earn less, as mall numbers increase.

The days of building a huge mall full of shops all selling exactly the same thing and making huge profits is ending. Most people can probably buy the same stuff back home, and don't have to pay to travel to buy it.

You don't understand.  More malls = more profit for everyone.  What's left to understand?

But seriously,  my boat arrival was in 2006 and it was very interesting meeting a new culture, even though I thought it was crazy.  Now it's not as interesting, leaning to western prices without western standards, and somehow losing the soul of the machine in the transition, but I have maintained that it is crazy.  Also the pale faces are getting scarce around here (Issan) - not that I would like to see the locals overwhelmed by us, but a conversation or discussion here and there would be nice, maybe 0.01% of the population or something(?).  At a guess I'd say maybe 5% of the western aimed businesses are actually viable, and should be taking care of the populous instead, and the rest if not funded from afar, are something (a hobby) to do to stop from going insane.  Habits have inertia though... I wouldn't want to leave because of my wife, but if I was single I'd be exploring Asia lot more, and pop in here on a whim to catch up with a handful of friends & acquaintances.  My better half really wants to see lots of other countries.  I did that before I got here and put my slippers on.  What used to be exciting now is a bit of a chore.  Also she wants to pop out some sprogs which leaves me less than enchanted as I'm on the wrong end of 40 now and getting more selfish every day that I get more accomplished - but I ask her to think about that if she wants to be a world PT.  All is lost somewhere there.  I'm going to get that 'grumpy old man' medal if it kills me, and in the end it might just do that.

Because of this thread, I called in a mom&pop near me, who sold a can of Leo for 36baht (I think Chang 34baht) before, and it had immediately gone up to 40baht.  I looked in the refrigerator and it didn't look like the stock was much different than any other day I walk by.  4 baht you may say is nothing, but with money I in think percentages first, price second.  It's also above what the consensus here was about the price difference, which I was guessing to be about a baht or so.  There's a place around the corner that I don't frequent too often, but last time I was there, a large Archa was 45 baht, so will have to swing by and see if their calculator on existing stock works better.

Today I was at a friends whose wife has a modest village shop.  Same stock same price for now (in beer I mean - no wine cigs/cigars or anything there).

2 minutes ago, SunsetT said:

Thanks....Thats not too bad.

 

Why the hell are they so down on imported wine? Is it to protect the domestic sales of the 'Spy' type full of sugar sh*te.

I was gifted a bottle of "Chateau de Loei" some 10 - 11 years ago.  I know it's criminal to pour wine down the sink, but I was forced to break the unwritten law on that one.  It made the art of making Lao Khao appear positively amazing.  I remember thinking "mental note: try again in 20 years when they've sorted out the variables".

4 hours ago, marino28 said:

Anyway a 66cc of beer at 5% will have 14.19thb of tax for alcohol . Old scheme 3.3 thb.  So around 11 thb of difference regarding the alcol content. Than the old scheme tax 60% of the production price and the new one 22% of the selling price . Since I don't know the production price i cannot calculate this part 

If I'm reading that correctly, doesn't that mean that really they want move to tax at point of sale to get a greater catchment area?  If so they should have waited until they had the Digital Baht replacing paper currency in order to not create a mammoth Accounting headache and black market expansion.

Then again it may lean towards normalising the delta between mom & pop prices versus night clubs or similarly priced venues.

Taxing at manufacture point is the simple way I think, the new way will go further underground.  You can herd humans to a point, but if incentivised to get creative then the yield curve will flatten out.

And and and.... They have a sidewalk in the future walking street.  Good to see there'll be plenty of street stalls making more than the rented buildings.