connda

Looks delicious.

You're entertaining.

Like many I'm looking back fondly on the days of Prayut.

Like I said, I don't have to try to figure out the difference between $40 for free shipping and the cap on duties which is pretty much non-existent now. Now I'll just buy whatever I want in a single purchase. More expensive but less headaches. However, God help iHerb if they ever do away with free shipping as it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me personally. Then? Then they will be too expensive. The only plus that keeps me a customer now is the variety of their items and $40 cap for "free shipping."

I just ran a test purchase. For a $20 and change purchase the VAT was 7.73%, so so much for "7% VAT" as they are adding something else into the mix. And like I said, the maximum purchase price to avoid duties used to be a flat $46.00. Now its based on exchange rate. So at today's exchange rate the max order to avoid duties would be 1500/35.85 = 41.84. So you have a $1.84 "window" between the $40 cap to avoid their outrageous shipping rates and avoiding another 5% to 7% in "duties and handling." The good old days are over. On the flip side, the 35.85 exchange rate beats the hell out of exchange rates hovering just below 30 back 5 years ago. So we've gain close to 20% on the value of the USD over the last 5 years, although I'm wondering what just happened at the exchange rate had bounce up close to 37, but the trend is your friend and the trend is upwards. That offsets some of the pain for local purchases as it offsets local inflation. However it makes it difficult to keep your order under 1500 THB. Well, what the hell - at the end of the day I'd rather have that 20% and raising premium on the exchange rate as most of my purchases are in the local economy.

That's good to know. Thanks for the update. However, this entire thing sucks rocks as it's again inflationary but this time compliment of the government. The VAT is 7% but the surcharges collected by iHerb range between 12% to 15%. You used to be able to avoid duties by keeping your order under $46, so I expected to keep my order between $40 and $46 and just have to pay the 7% VAT. This new tax is making iHerb purchases unaffordable. The inflation driving up the cost of supplements has been bad enough. The only positive I see now is that I don't have to worry about the $46 cap on my purchases. I can now see how much they are going to take right at checkout, and it looks like we are paying duties now regardless of the total price of the invoice. Tell ya'll what - this is going to impact my future purchases which will now only be items which are difficult to find in Thailand, and they will lose business from buyers in Thailand as a result imho. And I'll really be looking at the prices of items I need which I can get locally as compared to what the unit prices will be from items shipped from iHerb after "Taxes, Duties, and Handling." Well - it was convenient while it lasted. Sad.

Source or it's BS.

The Anti-China expats will be pissing themselves now. In the meanwhile capitists who envisions themselves exploiting the EV markets with expensive EV are screaming bloody murder that Chinese "over-supply" is driving down the cost of EVs. I find this hysterical. The US subsidized EVs to make the overpriced batteries on wheels more affordable. Thailand and China subsidize EV to make them affordable to the masses and the "not-so-free-market" West has a hissy fit. Imho - good from them. If the Greenies want to put their money where their mouths are, then EV prices need to plummet to the point where they push ICE vehicles out of the market - which is the point of Net Zero. The only difference is the West wants to impoverish their own citizens in the process. Here in the nascent rising BRICS nations? Their government want to pull their populations spending power up so that they have consumers in the market to which they can sell at affordable prices. Thai subsidies for Chinese EV makers wreak havoc on auto sector https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Electric-vehicles/Thai-subsidies-for-Chinese-EV-makers-wreak-havoc-on-auto-sector

A fact which I've been stating over and over and over again. 97% of politicians are power-hungry people who make a living out of lying while seeking their own self-interests by accruing political power as well as the wealth that political power brings with it. As representatives they should be working in the interests of the people, but few do. Most work for the interests of their wealthy donors including corporations. In that sense, where they develop public-private partnerships with the businesses of the wealthy and of corporations - it's there that we find the seeds of true Fascism growing out of control. If a political party is able to rise and express the interests of the populace, it is hammered by those who control the state. All major political parties as well as their members embrace a nascent Fascistic, totalitarian world-view. The only exceptions are a handful of Independents, and Centrists, and some from relatively new Populist parties who seek to work for the benefit of the masses in politics. And those in power seek to malign them, disparage them, libel and defame them, and ultimately to crush them.

Buttigieg Tells Fox Viewers that MAGA Is a Cult The Progressive Marxist Left are applying this strategy in most Western countries. They wrap themselves up in a rainbow and green flag, call themselves "Democracy," and unleash their true totalitarian natures by spreading hatred, fear, and sowing division. And then they attempt to go into action by banning the speech, the rights of assembly, and the political parties of their adversary who the label as "Dangers to Democracy." Yet the project their totalitarian agenda on those whom they hate. They seek to used the power of the state to silence their political enemies. They seek to use the power of the state to outlaw the gathering of their political enemies. They seek finally to disband the parties of their political enemies and jail their leaders and supporters. They seek to use the state and the media to whip their own supporters into a hate-filled frenzy and then unleash them on social media and on the streets. They seek to project their own hatred and intolerance on their political enemies and their supporters inferring that these people have the qualities that they themselves engender: hate, intolerance, and the embracing of totalitarianism. They then call this: "Democracy." It's not - it is nascent Totalitarianism - and that is a danger to our Representative Republic as well as nations in the European West who were once Democracies. It's happening in Europe right now and the only thing stopping it from infecting the United States is our Constitution.

Will do! I'm definitely curious how this is going to shake out. I'll keep this up-to-date. Delivery time is usually two weeks so, back in a couple...

They should just rename "Political Soapbox" to "Dumpster Fire." All that is here is hate and vitriol aimed directly at everyone who isn't down with the Left's Marxist totalitarian vision for the world that, by extension, will end up making Orwell's 1984 look like a walk in the park. And then you freaks project what your own desires are onto those whom you revile and hate - which is anyone who holds conservative or traditional values. Ya'll are seriously disturbed in a twisted, mentally unstable sort of manner. Why are you people even here? You should go back to the train-wreak that the West is becoming because you fit in better there than you will here when the change that is coming arrives. Every time I read some of the hate-filled nonsense spewed in this particular forum, I feel like taking a shower. Enjoy the freak-show and your hate-fest. I'm done with this.

I spread generosity where it is deserved or needed. I don't follow other's leads nor do I really care. I do what feels right.

Fact check

Prime candidate for the Pattaya Flying Club. You live in Pattaya bob?

I see the resemblance. Same laugh!

Selected: The Way Of The New Liberal Democracy. Elections are so passe.

Dream on.

"Oh Elizabeth, this is the Big One. I feel in coming. I'll need to go back to my penthouse suite at the hospital or it will be the end of me!"

So the victim was a "somebody." Had the victim been a "nobody" then there would be no cause for "deep sorrow" as only families from the Subdistrict Administrative Organisation (SAO) have the capacity for "deep sorrow." I'm a reading that right. God I hate Thai's addiction to status. It makes a mockery of the lives of everyone else.

Weed messes up the alcohol buzz doesn't it. How far into the bottle are you bob? You're writing like Biden speaks.

So you are pro-assassination? Would you facilitate the assassination of a politician whom you personally hate and detest, obviously such as Donald Trump? I do wonder about people like yourself. You very literally just wished death on Trump whom you must hate very badly. I just wonder how far removed you are from wishing death on someone and assisting to carry out your death wishes?

Green Energy and Net Zero will kill what's left of the manufacturing base in the West. But that's ok - it will move to China and BRICS nations. The West is toast.

Most of them speak English with fluency that most Thai women will never achieve. And most were raised in a Roman Catholic environment. Personally I like them both, but I'm an ex-Roman Catholic who embraced Buddhism in my early adulthood. That's pretty much is why I came to Thailand instead of going to the PI - which was an option that I considered before leaving the US. And I previously had spent time in both countries in the past. Actually I spent considerable amounts of time in the PI while in the Navy at the Ship Repair Facility in Subic. So I have a soft place in my heart for Filipinas. ❤️

Yes - Donald Trump was hit in the ear with a bullet. Source: The FBI. "No no no. It was glass and Trump is just a weenie and whiner for getting a little boo-boo on his ear and saying he got hit with a bullet. Ha ha ha." 🙄 Sorry Lefties. He was hit in the ear with a bullet according to the FBI which which came a few millimeters from killing him during the July 13th assassination attempt. Why trivialize that heinous attack? Well, other than ya'll being full of hated for anyone who espoused conservative values. Especially Trump and his supporters. "You're just a typical MAGA Trump Supporter!!! Grrrrr!" Sorry to inform you Lefty Conspiracy Theorists, but you've got that wrong too. Yeah, I'm gonna vote in November, just not for either of candidates from the Two-Party-DuopolyTM . Conservative doesn't = MAGA Trump Supporter. Both Democrats and Republicans suck. But neither deserve to be the object of an assassination attempt no matter how much any of us may dislike a candidate. A Liberal Democracy isn't built on assassination attempts on those whom you personally dislike although the Left-wing Conspiracy Theorists may disagree, it's built on the democratically elected representatives chosen in elections. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fbi-confirms-bullet-struck-trumps-ear-assassination-attempt-rcna163896