bkk_mike

When did Swift change sides? She has never endorsed Trump? She didn't endorse anyone in 2016 (but in a later story in the Guardian said she should have come out for Clinton), and she endorsed Biden in 2020 and has endorsed Harris now. Literally it seems to be whoever is not Trump... The only apparent endorsement of Trump by her is the AI generated fake that Trump posted on Truth Social.

I was wondering how someone doing "high end IT" got caught. Because most of that would be people logging in remotely to a company offshore... Figured it had to be someone doing it for a Thai company... Only to find installing CCTV cameras is apparently "high end IT" in Thailand...

The Thai wife lets him avoid the long immigration queue (on entry)...

Hate to annoy you, but most of my pension is in Hong Kong, and the DTA means Thailand can't touch it.

Thai tax year runs on the calendar year, so possibly. Although as this one needs a law change, I'd expect it to be 1/1/3026 (if ever). Remember we now have a Prime Minister whose father is well known for using the method of keeping money offshore to avoid tax...

Especially where the data you enter is literally the data from your passport. The same data that they'd scan currently when you enter...

The story is about electric BUSES. And a lot of the issues are the same as everywhere... Slow rolling out of charging where it's needed by the electrical utility company; starting the service with fewer buses than planned for; selfish gits using bus lanes when they shouldn't.

Got a mortgage no problem. Based on offshore income. Paid a higher rate because of the perceived higher risk from being paid in a currency other than Thai baht. Definitely helped that I work for a multinational, rather than some tiny company they had never heard of. Also helped that we were borrowing something like 1x salary, not some crazy multiple.

Luna 2000 series looks like it's LFP The home page on them says 100% DoD. (That is making an assumption that all Huawei Luna 2000s are LFP, maybe prior gen weren't... - but for house batteries, the extra volume for LFP is not really an issue - and they would normally be cheaper than regular lithium ion by capacity because they don't need any cobalt.)

Sorry, but booked with EVA directly - and they definitely charge for seat selection. So this must have changed...

Personally. The current amount is far enough above the monthly interest that you're actually paying down the debt even if you're only making minimum payments. That's better from the point of view of long term debt than in places like the UK where the minimum payments barely covers the interest.

I'm just glad we bought our house when it was 60+ baht to the pound rather than now.

Exactly. Qatar airways goes out of the way to advertise their Q Suite. But a significant number of their planes don't actually have it - and it's not like they highlight that the plane doesn't have it - or discount the business class ticket. If you're an airline geek, you can generally work it out - and pick the flight with the QSuite when booking. - But regular people simply expect to get what was advertised.

They're buying a house they intend to live in. That's unlikely to get cheaper if they invest the money somewhere else for a while. I bought our house in Thailand back in 2000. We lived in it for over a decade until work forced me back into the office in the UK in 2013, and we intend to retire in it when I stop working. Do you think I could still buy it now for what I bought it for then? - Even in baht terms, not factoring in that I was getting over 60 baht to the pound when we bought it. And yes - the house in Thailand is in my wife's name because I'll take it being in her name over some hopefully extendable lease or a dodgy company structure. But we've been married 25 years and have three kids, so I don't think I have anything to worry about on that score.

Do people not understand that winnings on gambling are not taxed in the UK? So long as they don't transfer it to Thailand in a year where they spend more than 180 days in Thailand, it's also not taxable in Thailand, even under the new rules.

No they won't. HMRC take their money out of the bet, not out of the winnings.

You really should say where you're from... If you're British, the Philippines has an advantage for retirement in that your state pension won't be frozen. English is spoken more widely in the Philippines. The food is generally better (and spicier) in Thailand. Retirees to the Philippines have the option of joining the government's universal healthcare scheme (not an option, I believe, in Thailand, unless you work and pay taxes there.) Both countries have similar restrictions on foreign ownership of land, but in both foreigners can own condominiums. You're far more likely to see a Typhoon/Hurricane in the Philippines. Due to the history, with the Philippines having been a US territory, with long term US military bases, there are more American retirees in the Philippines. You're more likely to get shot in the Philippines. You're more likely to die in a traffic accident (especially if you're on a motorbike) in Thailand.

You know, if they're living full time in Canada, they're technically not allowed to travel to the UK to use the NHS. It's called fraud.

The UK stopped signing new reciprocal agreements in 1981. The only time since then that countries got added was with the EU Single market as it became illegal to pay different amounts to people just because they moved to another country in the EU. You might have a better chance of persuading the CPTPP to have a similar rule, and force the UK (and New Zealand, which is the other country that freezes pensions of people who retire abroad) to increase pensions consistently across CPTPP members. After all, the UK state pension isn't frozen if you live in the Philippines, but is frozen in Thailand...

Is Thailand a country where home schooling is legal? After all most home-schooling is religious nuts making sure their kids aren't taught evolution.

I've travelled for work to enough countries, enough times to know what immigration deem as covered, and what they would have issues with. Admittedly I'm talking about going to the local office of the company you already work for in another country. (Maybe another company if you're going on a training course). Essentially it sounds like Thailand wants their rules to be the same as other countries - maybe in an attempt to simplify matters for multinationals where they might currently skip Thailand and just go to Hong Kong and Singapore. i.e. Rather than require people on a business trip to get a special visa for Thailand if they're touring around their regional offices (which is what Thailand has demanded in the past), they want to be as easy to travel to as other business locations. Admittedly most business trips are a week or two. The longest I had was 3 weeks in Tokyo in 2000. I did have a two week training tour once (I was the one giving the training) - Sydney, Tokyo, and Hong Kong - for two weeks in total back in 2003 if I remember correctly. Business travel is not what it was - far easier to just go on a zoom chat with people than get signoff for a trip nowadays - except the big boss trips... - those still happen - but I don't go on those...

It doesn't look like good news for everyone. I seem to remember Russians were getting 90 days on arrival in the last year or so (Russia has a bilateral agreement meaning Thais don't need a visa for Russia), but they're getting downgraded to 60 days also.

It's where you're here on business, but not employed here - still being paid in the country where you're employed. Most commonly it's training (either as the trainer or going to get training), or, back in the day at least, to do software upgrades. Still true where the system is, for security reasons, not accessible via the internet. For companies with operations in multiple countries, it will include things like visits to teams working for them by the big boss from abroad.

Thailand has hydro and solar. Including floating solar on a lake created by a hydro dam. So not all the electricity is from fossil fuels. Also, electric motors are that much more efficient than a combustion engine that it's still cleaner even if all the electricity is generated by coal. But keeping passing on that oil company misinformation that you read "somewhere".

I realise I'm preaching here but. Until I saw it said GB News... - I thought it had to be the Daily Fail. The "net-zero" climate policies, if actually followed, rather than curtailed by the government back when Cameron was in charge, would have had more wind farms (where the price of electricity did not shoot up because of a war in Ukraine), and less gas-fired power station when the gas price shot up two years ago. The cost of electricity and gas is higher in the UK because of the cost of gas being higher - nothing to do with net zero. Admittedly part of the price hike is actually Brexit - but god forbid somebody pointed that out... - Because not being in the EU, we couldn't join the scheme where countries without their own massive gas storage facilities got allocated facilities in countries which did have storage. Admittedly we used to have storage facilities ourselves back when British Gas was a public company and security of supply was a factor in how they operated, but all our facilities had been closed, because for the privatised British Gas, it wasnt a problem to just buy gas at the spot price when they needed it - because British Gas gets to pass that price on to the electricity generating companies, so they didn't save any money by having any storage facilities. - There were of course mass bankrupcies in some of the electricity generating companies because they had to pay the spot price for Gas, but had already agreed electricity prices with their customers - based on far lower gas prices. So how has the government dealt with this... - by subsidising the remaining electricity companies, but in such a way that customers get screwed over. - Prices are all a lot higher (at certain points the UK had the highest electricity prices in the world), Standing charges are a lot higher, but at least the electricity companies are now raking in the money, rather than continuing to go bust. - But it's all because of the jump in gas prices, and the lack of storage facilities meaning the UK didn't have the option to not pay for gas when it was literally the worst time to be buying gas. All of this is nothing to do with net zero. Hence the assumption it was the Daily Fail, and their usual what shall we make up this week bull<deleted>. But instead it's GB News, living down to the fact that they are not classified as a news service - because they simply aren't one.