connda

Thailand welcomes Google's US$1 billion investment in data center Translated: Thailand puts itself on the hook to supply one small city's worth of stable, continuous power for each data center built in Thailand. Given the almost daily power outages we have had locally, I'm not sure where they plan to find the extra power. Oh - I know! Raise the rates for the commoners and then divert the power that they can no longer pay for.

Given that EVs are essentially a battery on wheels with that battery having been one of the primary cost of an EV, my guess is that EV prices will continue to trend lower. Not a bad thing if it brings them down to a reasonable price.

Yep

Keep up to date on your Covid boosters - that will help 100%. Safe and Effective.

And expert! You think the difference between a restaurant and a street vendor is the quality of the oil? That's just ignorance. Or stupidity.

Stick around with this attitude and you may get your wish when the West comes gunning for China unprovoked. You do realize where in the hell you live, don't you?

I like products made in China. And I've no problem at all with another country's political structure, China's included. Communist? Fine. It's not your Mao/Marx/Lenin flavor of Communism - it's evolve into a communist/capitalist hybrid, and it works for them. Who benefits? Consumers. And - let see, how many homeless drug addicts are living rough and s**ting on the streets in Chinese cities? Ahhh - About zero. In the West? Lot's of commoners sleeping rough on the streets with many more in the future, and the West can't help but become the recipients of the blowback of their own sanctions. The sanction-based economic blowback in Europe is evidence of that. And when all those countries band with the CPC Chinese and Russian (and Indian, Brazil, and South African) BRICS nations - Thailand included? 7 billion people will have access to affordable goods and services while the Golden Billion behind the Western firewall with be paying though the nose for basic necessities. Nope - I've got no problem with the Communist Chinese at all. Unlike most Westerners who spew their own home country's foreign ministry's hatred of all non-Western countries, especially China, I realize that the Chinese border is 200 km from my front door. Kids - you live in the Geo-political influence of China. When in Rome Shanghai.....

If I go electric, that will be my price range. Perfect. Get's ya from point A to point B? Good enough!

ICE ICE Baby.

Dissatisfied customer? 🤔

How many here on the Farang Pub hope to die in Thailand? That's the plan.

Me too.

My secret dream when I was a six year old. Had to come to Thailand to play out that fantasy with a couple of 20 year old Thai gals.

Freak show. <laughs> You boy is as sharp as a tack. Too bad he's not running for another term. IMG_3740.MP4

Yep. The Thai government will become the exact conduit for expropriating "Thai" land from Thai commoners. Once the government "owns" the land, the original owners will never get it back. Imho, they are paving the way to the privatization of Thai lands and the transfer of those lands to large multinational corporations like Blackrock. Then there is no coming back. Once a significant proportion of those lands are leased to foreign corporate interests, they'll be pressure from those ฿฿฿ Stakeholders ฿฿฿ to make those leases permanent. Who benefits? Large multinationals and the likes of HiSo Thais such a Thaksin. Buy up the lands from Thai peasants promising them 99 years of fixed income (inflation will eat that in less than a decade as the price of the physical land skyrockets), then kick the peasants into cities and then apply the economic thumbscrews. Don't fall for it.

Here comes Blackrock.

Yep!

Where's Soros?

It's called inflation 👈 (a phenomenon that our collective governments assure us is only a figment of our imaginations)

BYD are affordable unlike most of those listed above. EVs only become accepted if an average Thai can afford one without going deeply in debt. The costs of some of these cars are the price of a townhouse in a gate community.

Yes - it is as "healthy" as any food from brick&mortar restaurants. Same food, same ingredients, just cooked in a street stall.

Is street food good for you? Old rancid oil. Cheap oil. Food dripping with oil. What I see here is Westerner cultural superiority. Westerners are freaking clean freaks. In 17 years here I have seen all the tropes, exaggerations, and outright falsehoods about "Thai street food." This is reflective of Westerners who come here already prejudging something that isn't part and parcel of their own culture - well, outside of perhaps food stalls you can find a fairs. Ultra-clean Farang Fred: "Unlike Thailand we have whole branches of our excessively large, nanny-state government dedicated to inspecting food establishments, especially "ify" food stalls at fairs." Exactly! One of the things I like about Thailand is that it doesn't have a nanny-state government monstrosity getting into everyone's business. Kids can't even open a freaking lemonade stand in the West. I've lived in Bangkok, Korat, and Chiang Mai and have often eaten Thai street food as well as getting to know the vendors who prepare the food. Yeah - that does require you to have immersed into both the culture and the language of Thailand 👈 something most Westerners who lock themselves in gated communities and who associate primarily with their fellow farangs can never grasp. I personally have lived IN Thai communities since I got here in 2007 and made an effort to learn the language and to assimilate the best I can into the culture. So I find that the topic of "Thai street food" just brings out the worst of Western Cultural Chauvinism. "It's dirty! "It's greasy, cockroach laden trash!!" "You'll get food poisoning!!!" Hate to burst ya'll's ethnocentric bubbles, but the street food I've eaten is fresh, delicious, and generally prepared one order at a time right in front of you if you take the time to watch the process and interact with the staff. Like any brick&mortar establishment (where you can't see the staff prepare the food), on occasion you'll find a place where the food sucks. But those are the exceptions and not the rule. And, oh! I have had food poisoning in Thailand twice!!! 👉 Both times after eating at international fast food restaurants (I avoid those place like the plague now - can't name them due to Thai defamation laws). Denigrating "Thai street food" is just more Thai-bashing by Westerners who come to Thailand with bad case of Ethnic Egotism: Western food clean; Thai street food dirty. Most probably don't eat Thai street food because they already harbor the preconceived notion that it's unfit for human consumption. That's ok, go back to your clean gated communities and eat clean food from Michelin 5 star restaurants and wallow in your Western ethnic snobbery. Eating "Thai street food" is obviously beneath your social status. "Dirty food for dirty people! Grrrrr!"

Wait until the 10,000 THB freebee handout to Thai voters gets priced in. That 1/2 Trillion THB giveaway is going to devalue the THB.

You Thai wife wants to return to Thailand. I'd say you have about a 100% chance of a divorce in your future. And considering you live in the West. If you didn't have a prenup, she'll get half of what you own. Best of luck.

What's your point OP? I don't know about you, but I'm living in Thailand surrounded by a bunch of extremely nationalistic people who believe that "Thainess" is the most important aspect of there lives and they loath allowing all non-Thai into their "Thai" country lest it dilute that "Thainess", so in response they maintain some of the most draconian immigration laws in the world to keep all other ethnicities from settling in the country. Do you see any African or Middle Eastern refugees being welcomed with open arms here in Thailand? Nope. The only meaning "Whiteness" has here is that "whiter" skin tends to convey social status (more to do with the fact that darker skinned Thais historically work outside while "white skinned" Thais need not labor in the sun at all), and white "farang" make good ATM machines. If you have an issue with ethnic superiority, try addressing Thainess right here in your own backyard (if you actually live here - you may not for all I know). Most "white" people I know in the US are normal people trying to live a good life, although I'll admit that a tiny F'ed-up minority of "whites" in the US are "white supremacists." With that said, here in Thailand virtually all Thai consider their "Thainess" to be superior to other ethnicities and most are "Thai supremacists," yet those exact same people who will criticize those of European descent of being "white supremacists" for no other reason than they lack melanin in their skin, will completely give overt "Thai supremacists" a pass - in fact they'll defend Thai supremacy. I'm going to be blunt: Skin color does not determine a human being's sense of humanity, empathy, and compassion for other human beings. Racism and ethnic superiority are learned behaviors and are perpetuated through societal norms. Racism against all non-Thais is the institutional norm in Thailand. We live in one of the most ethnically superior countries in the world. Try addressing the problem in our own backyard instead of dragging this nonsense about "white privilege" 14000 miles across the Pacific and South China Sea. We farang are marshmallows in a boiling sea of Jasmin tea.