clinique

The name of the game is CAPITALISM.

Ehm.. no.

If it was Capitalism then the price would just go up, but anyone could buy as much as they want as long as they could afford it.

Compare: 70 Baht palm oil and you and me can afford it just fine. Versus: Same government limited price, but only one bottle for you, me, the rice farmer and the red bus driver.

So.. the name of the game is actually much closer to COMMUNISM!

Actually, the term is BAILOUT. The US went into such debt when it "saved" the financial system in 2008, (which of course was a problem it caused), then added to that debt through stimulus packages. The only way to pay back that and other debts is with inflated dollars, hence QE I and II...where the Fed monetizes the debt, by printing money out of thin air, which is the definition of inflation. Many of those dollars chase after hard assets, like metals, oil and yes, even food. It will get worse in coming years, perhaps much worse.

So that augers well for the other thread " Where is Gold going in this market".

Its rreasons like this that support an increasing gold price... fear.. So when there is very little food available those wiht gold will be able to buy it,, the rest of us will starve or eat our worthless US currency..

Not so good on the food front tho... the UN has been bleeting about food shortages for years but no one listens !! Surprise surprise..

Is all of this development in the Nimmen area increasing property prices or not? Three bars have no opened up right near me in my street in Nummen, and I feel as if it will hurt the property value since you can hear the noise from three different venues at some times. When are these places required to close? Some of them seem to "close" (sort of) around 12:30 AM, but the sometimes still have music. Sometimes loud music.

I believe its not - the noise is lowering prices - they have a great opportunity to make a swish area and pave some of Nimman and what do they do? blast everyone with loud music - if any buyers/renters come at night and hear that they leave.

Actually I would say the opposite. The increasing commercial activity/building IS increasing the prices in Nimman area.

It was possible last year to get land in Nimman for 70-80,000- per square wah. The prices now are 90,000- to 120,000- .

I believe him though that necessary commodities such as food and fuel will rise faster than overpriced luxuries such as McMansions.

The fact that there are so many interpretations of the same data is what is going to make the coming crisis so challenging. But for sure, if you want to take advantage of the situation, you will need a hard currency not affected by the crisis in order to get in the game. That likely means precious metals in physical form.

a logical and valid conclusion. however, i wonder about the practical implementation. will the chap who has a family to feed sell his precious food stuff for gold or silver and then will he, his wife and his children lick the precious metal pieces when they are hungry? my grandparents told me interesting stories at what low values gold and other precious items were trading when buying essential food stuff on the black market or in rural areas after the war in 1945/46.

Understood, but not sure that the 'actual' price of gold was effected. The fact that the "haves" (with the food and other essentials) took advantage of the holders of gold and other precious items and traded them for next to nothing was "usery" and not actually relatedto the then gold price/standard.

For example - It could happen today, if you are in say Afghanistan and in a poor area with no food but have an ounce of gold and are in desperation to get food and water for your children and someone comes along with a supply of food and water they are not likely to give you any where near the face value of the gold.

Negotiate with the bank . Then try to sell for what you can or rent it out to meet the loan repayments. The bank will likelyrenegotiate the repayments so the rent covers them. Just reneging on the loan is not a good idea, the Thai credit bureau keeps records forever and it would have serious consequences for your wife and and co-signer. As well as, if i may say, it makes it that much harder for farangs to get loans in the future when others run out on Thai banks.

Just look back 6 years and you will see mid $300's or look back 7 years and you will see sub $300. Thats why I told you to not buy gold immediately when it drops below $400/ounce, rather wait until it hits $365 or so because if it drops lower then it will be easier to average down!

Ok thanks Vic

Now that I look back to a 95 till present chart I see a different story.

hmmm

Man since 2001 Gold has had a nice little run hasn't it?

Fear is very good to gold isnt it?

I have to wonder why a bit though. In these days of cooked books & faulty govt.

I would have thought gold a nice solid investment. At least it is tangible & real in that sense. But again value is what everyone agrees on I guess.

that is correct. but a good part of that run is caused by the depreciation of the US-Dollar. and that goes for any commodity denominated and traded in USD.

Exactly and logical too that Gold is heading down, now the Greenback is up.

But...one of the most remarkable Congressmen in the US, 14th district of Texas, Congressman Dr. Ron Paul ® says he believes the FED is not only manipulating the US $ but Gold as well. He claims that it's easier to get hold of secrets from the CIA rather then information from the FED:

http://nl.youtube.co...h?v=USSAEQl0XMM

So, now we know it all; in other words.....if Gold would hit $ 2,000 the dollar would have had it's days of glory.....

LaoPo

Ah!!!! so then are we to beleive that much of the losses by Wall street in Subprime mortgages was made up by what they made on Gold ! Absolutely !! Bcoz the guys who make the decisions know better than we do that when the US$ goes down Gold goes up........Just another (huge !) manipulation..

Temporary capital controls from time to time...

...are actually permanent in Thailand. if i transfer on a tuesday a million dollars to my bank in Thailand, convert the amount into Baht on wednesday, have second thoughts thursday morning, want to change into HKD and swift these HKD to Hong Kong (that they are available there friday noon for that race horse my chinese mia noi wants to buy ) can i phone SCB and tell the chap or lady at the other end "do it"?

or will SCB say

"Sir, please submit your birth certificate notarised by a public notary of your country, consularised by your country's embassy in Thailand and thai-ised by the Ministry of Interior stating clearly who are you, what are you and why are you, add a hand written CV, attach documents of your academic degrees and we will submit your application to the relevant department in our BKK head office for further evaluation. oh, and Sir! please don't forget to add three handsigned photocopies of your passport, your visa, 6 passport sized photos, a letter of indemnity from your wife, a recent medical certificate and the bra size of your mia noi.

Actually provided you have the required paperwork (not as extensive as you suggest) you can do just that. In fact when you send the money into Thailand, there is a cooling off period, where you can hold the funds "unconverted" for i beleive its 7 days. Its the conversion to baht in your example that may cause some headaches but it can be done

If I opened a HSBC account in the UK, would it be easy enough to transfer money into the one in Bangkok? Or would you get the usual bank charges at both ends, and few days processing?

Also, what about exchange rates between the banks?

As far as I understand it, the HSBC in Thailand does not operate the same as the ones in Singapore, it's like a different banking company. Any info on that?

From experience with HSBc funds transfer between overseas branches normally reach your account the same day, indeed within hours, only subject to the time difference between the countries and any central bank requirements/limits.

Oh and there are always transfer fees that apply..

Some cards have written on them "For electronic use only" so they cannot be used online.

That means they "can" be used online, in Point of Sale (POS) cashier checkout devices, and ATMs which are all electronic actions, but "cannot" be used in those old style card impression machines that put an impression of the card on the old style receipt you sign. For electronic use only cards they do not have the raised letters and numbers, therefore, the card information cannot be impressed on the receipt you sign...plus many of these debit/ATM cards for electronic use only don't have the person's name on it. My Bangkok Bank Be1st debit/ATM says for electronic use only and does not have my name on it, but it sure works fine to make online purchases, POS purchases, ATM withdrawals, PayPal source of payment, etc....all of which are electronic actions.

Update.......as stated, the Bangkok Bank Visa debit worked. The SCB Mastercard debit did not work.

This was an online transaction.

I really, really appreciate the advice here. You saved me time and money.

I assumed that because the SCB card did not work, no other card would.......wrong: Bangkok Bank Visa works for online transactions.

May be worth bearing in mind that these cards have daily transaction limits (number of transactions and amounts) so maybe, just a maybe your SCB card has alower limit than your BBL card. Worth checking in any event, these limits can normally be changed by calling the telephone bankingcentre of the bank (with BBL its an automated service).

It will be interesting to see the outcome when you get here, so keep us all posted we will be interested to see.

There will be more paperwork for over 2m baht withdrawals. BUt anyway there will already likely have been questions asked of your freind who received the money as all amounts over US$20,000- are subject to Central Bank reporting - so the receiving bank asks the receiver what the money is for when it arrives, this is so the receiving bank can report to the Central Bank.

I tend to agreewith other posters as well; why dont you open your own account and then transfer to the person who you are buying the 'goods' from. Almost everyone uses the interbank transfer system, its instantaneous transfer and the seller receives cash - ie: there si no clearing required.

Obviously its your business and your money, but wouldnt recommend carrying around cash of 4m or paying for purchases in cash.

My experience is that generally people who pay tea money are people who haven't got all the required permits and licenses and are happy to pay off the cops a little to turn a blind eye.

Having said that, if you have all your ducks lined up in a row, and do things by the book, there is little people can do to extort things out of you.

Tea money is not only money paid to 'cops'.

And as for "having all your ducks lined up in a row" - to achieve that in itself it is often easier and less time wasting to pay the tea money.

Have seen and heard o f many cases of refusal to meet tea money and thigs just well "get bogged down indefinately'.

as far as im aware unless you have evidence of bringing it in in the first place they cold confiscate it, if its over the limit. why nottake travellers cheques or send by bank transfer,, safer anyway.

In that case the farang who holds the 49% should have no problem transferrign his full holding to you and enterign an agreement/ contract with you in regards to the other 1% and the operations of the business including your entitlements.

Other than that i wouldnt do it.

Must admit that using Thai script for the numerals sounds a bit tricky. After having been hereover 20 years that is not very often the case. Thais have been using arabic script for numerals for a longggggggggggg time.

But no doubt if you as afarang asked for the special set you would get it without problem.

Isn't the Burger King franchise in Thailand run by a company that is owned by a farang?

It is, but he is a Thai citizen now, has been for years.

Only investments in new developments apply.

In our experience of transferrign money from several countries including Australia to Thailand, you aremuch better off transferring the AUD$and exchanging in Thailand. Normally for amountsover US$20,000- the receiving bank in Thailand will call you to say the money has arrived, and for amounts such asyou are quoting you can negotiate a better rate with tme prior to conversion to Thai baht. Alternatively, and to be sure, you can call your Thai banks International Remittance dept before you initiate the transfer and tell them it will be coming and youwant to negotiate a rate. In turn they will tell you how many points above the standard rate they will give you (ie: say the rate for normalamounts is 30.00 baht to 1 AUD the bank may offer you .30 or .40 more on your large transaction.

I do agree however if you have no immediate use for the funds in Thailand, you would be better transferring it to Singapore and depositing it there ( very competitive rates on AUD$ cash depsoits) and then only transfer smaller sums as you need it.

Or a hotel carpark perhaps.

________________________

Your suggestions are sound.

I would, however, add that an airports' immigration provider should also have a 'procedure to follow". The current situation is too far below par.

The thread wasn't really about late pax. It was about previously unseen delays at passport control when exiting the kingdom.

Can someone with great patience please PM me to teach how to bl#$dy well use the quote feature in replying? Please?

Just click on the 'Reply' button inside the bottom of the conversation you want to reply to.

Rather than go to the bottom of the forum and click on Add reply which creates a new conversation box.

Ok last min changes, Instead of a Proton i manage to book the Mazda 2 Sedan. With Free insurance 1 year .

Now can anyone recommend me a good place to install either LPG / CNG in Bangkok , The cheapest place to install ? any idea?

Cheers

Proton comes with free 1st class insurance also.

Some of you really don't spend the 15 seconds needed to anaylze the situation.

So according to you ground staff remove all the bags from the hold & remove the bags of the no shows? I wonder how long that takes.

In the 15 seconds you spent analysing this situation, did you consider that by not removing the bags of latecomers, and by delaying planes for their benefit, you encourage this behaviour and in the long term, create greater delay. People have to know that there is a cut off time and if you go beyond it, it's tough tittie - otherwise everyone starts to ignore and abuse the rules.

He should maybe have taken 20 seconds to analyse the situation and he might have thought that it would be a great way to get a bomb on board and not have to get yourself killed too.

Which is the reason why airlines have been doing it for the last 36 years that I've been flying.

In fairness i don't think he was arguing that bags of latecomers should be left on planes that then take off without their owners on board, i think he was arguing that the time it takes to find somebody's bag in the hold and get it out is probably longer than it would take to simply hold the plane and wait for the late passenger. As i said, my problem with that is that once people start to become aware that arriving late is ok because they hold the plane for you, everybody will be arriving late.

Airlines have procedures to follow. Each plane has a departure slot (Time) , boarding time allows all checked passengers to board, airline reps normally will look for late passengers at immigration, if your not at immigration but sitting at KFC-bad luck-, once they cant find the late passengers the Captain makesa decison to close the door/s of the plane ready for departure, after that is when your late passenger bags are removed and this activity is managed from the cockpit, as one the door is closed and sealed it wont be reopended again if to turn up to the departure gate - tough titties. Suggestion - 1) get to the airport early or 2) at least be on time ie: 3 hours, 3) use an airline where you earn miles with aloyalty card, and can then use the first/buss class priority checkin with immigration clearance provided/escort.

My preference personally is Singapore. There are many international banks there who provide Private banking servcies including deposit accounts. Although some have minimum deposit amount requirements. Bcoz there are so many banks in Sing their rates are always competitive. Whilst i dont have all eggs in one basket, some of the best deposit rates ive had are at ICICI Singapore along with the best banking service ive had anywhere.(and before anyone jumps in, yes I am well aware it is an Indian bank, and also aware it is listed in NY)

FYI - the reason the Proton is cheaper than other brands with same engine size in Thailand is that there is a special tax arrangement between Thailand and Malaysia, which is much less than vehicles from other countries.

Do you need to collect you bags for a International to Domestic connection?

I'm thinking you do, and they can't be checked through like you would for a Domestic to International connection.

It depends on the airline/s he is travelling with and the final destination.

In cases where there is no Customs and immigration at final destination will need to collect the bags in Bkk and recheck for domestic.

islands in Thailand are property of the Crown or National parks, private ownerhsip is (supposedly) not permitted. There are however still islands with secluded beaches and resorts where you can go to 'escape' - as in the Beach movie.

There are other countries where ownership of an island is possible. I know 2 people who own their own island.

So, is it still possible - yes.

Far too complicated to answer the poll. For example,

1. In most cases, I wouldn't think a Thai man would do anything for very long that he didn't really want to do, on the other hand-

2. Drugs, debt and other issues which could result in unemployability might make it a more attractice choice, furthermore:

3. The lack of homophobia in the culture here begs the question of how much our cultural constructions of 'gay' and 'straight' are in fact defined by that phobia- lacking the phobia, are the distinctions as clear?

For once we are totally in agreement - although I would have used the term "pointless" rather than "complicated". How, for example, could a "straight" man who has by definition had little if any interaction with "Male prostitutes who service men" possibly be in an informed position to answer the poll?

The simple answer (none of the above) is that some are and some aren't, some enjoy it and some don't (and that includes many who are gay) and some are simply better actors than others.

I can tell you how I know about it. I'll give you a few examples.

When I lived in Chiang Mai I took straight women to a particular gay go go because it 1. prepped them for the evening to use a cooking term. And 2. Because I liked the place. They had wild stage shows way beyond anything I had seen in Thailand before especially the boy scout one was really funny. Also they had two big, fat, old tranny comics who were good and I liked the repartee between the comics, me and my straight girls. It gave the guys a whole new dimension to their act and I think they really appreciated the extra material my little harem provided. They bought us drinks after the show for being good sports. I was even there one night when the place got raided and that was well worth the price of the drinks to watch.

The other experiences were acquired when I dated a Thai lady bar manager in Pattaya. We would visit her friends who were other bar managers and employees daily to eat and socialize before work. The men that the women lived with also worked in bars, mostly gay bars and I would watch them all prepare for work. I got to know a lot of them and listened as they talked about work and income and normal stuff.

I don't live in Pattaya anymore but a number of times a month I take the latest GF to eat and do the town which involves a trip to a couple of Female go go's and because I am a liberal person a couple of male go go's. What's good for the goose is good for the gander you know.

Do I know more about straight men who work in go go's than the average gay guy on Thai Visa?

The question I have for you is, how would a gay guy know about straight men who work in gay bars? Do straight men who work in gay bars talk to gay men about their female lovers/wives with any degree of honesty?

I think it is an interesting poll but I wonder at the placement in the gay forum because I don't see how gay guys would have the knowledge to answer.

Do female prostitutes discuss there private lives including about their husbands and kids with their Johns ? Dont think so.