GinBoy2

I would agree with that. At the time the thought was that admitting China to the WTO, would make China look more like Hong Kong. Well fast forward 20 years and Hong Kong is now looking a helluva lot more like China!

I'm not sure it's happening any more than before, more likely the advent of everyone having a cellphone camera in their pocket, means more of it comes to light than ever before!

Definition: woman who used to have sex for monetary gain who then left the profession of paid sex work to pursue other occupational opportunities. In other words they either got too old or landed some old farang to take them outta the bar

Well thats kinda the rub isn't it. We've all seen the 60/70ish guy slopping around the mall pushing the kid in a stroller. He'll never see a high school graduation, a grandchild or anything we're supposed to see before we die. The idea that you come to Thailand and hook up with a woman who could be your daughter or your granddaughter and then then have kids, I'm sorry it's just wrong. I've loved being part of watching all my kids grow up. HS, College, and my first grandchild on the way. You don't have kids in your 60's and 70's it's just not fair to the children you spawn

This is for the Europeans chickens coming hone to roost. The only reason Russia can afford this war is because idiots, in particular Merkel decided to become an energy cuckold to Russia. If you cut off the demand for energy from Russia, which is pretty much all they have to sell, they would be on their knees within a month. But here we are, Western Europe without many energy options essentially funding Russia's war in Ukraine. Well Done!

China has long been subject to restrictions to leading edge technology, and rightly so. My last job was in lithography and China was forbidden to acquire EUV equipment which would enable sub 10nm device manufacture without double patterning. We then get into highly technical stuff when trying to pattern sub 3nm which are essentially a few atoms width. Give the Chinese that kind of technology and we're <deleted>&^&^ed

One thing that all this turmoil has revealed is that globalization is dead and buried. The idea after the end of the cold war was that we could all be friends and trade together. Manufacturing moved swiftly from the West to China, energy dependance for Europe moved to Russia. Well Ukraine, Hong Kong, threats to Taiwan have pretty much knocked all of that in the head. We are seeing a pretty rapid retreat to the 1980's orthodoxy of power blocks. Manufacturing is beating a pretty hasty retreat back to the US and North America in general and the CHIPS act is pretty significant. I worked in semiconductors all my working life and few of you really comprehend how much we globally depend on one single company, TSMC for all advanced semiconductor manufacturing. The chip may well be designed in California or Munich but its manufactured in Taiwan. If and when Beijing does go for it and try to invade Taiwan all Hell will break loose. So the idea that the US would give Thailand access to F-35 technology which would without a doubt leak to the CCP and aid and abet the regime is farcical.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of Farang/Thai marriages (relationships) are ex-hooker based. I'm not casted any opinion here, but at least my anecdotal experience, especially with the Brits it's a lot. Some seem to work out, a lot don't for a myriad of probably well worn reasons

And as for giving F-35 technology to a country which is at best a 'leaky ship', that almost laughable

Don't wanna derail this thread, but... If Xi was to decide to invade Taiwan that would also imply taking out US military assets in Japan at the same time. Thats a WW3 scenario, and I'm not sure Xi is ready for that....yet!

That was kinda my point. The work 'trafficked' is overused, and debases the real meaning

Let's not confuse sex trafficking with the choice of poor women to become 'bar girls' ie hooker in the various sexpots of Thailand. The real destination for trafficked women and girls is I hate to say the Western world, which is where the traffickers make their money, not some massage parlor in Pattaya

Never thought about that but thinking about it, it's true of most asian cultures. I met my wife in Singapore years before we moved to Thailand. As I think back I can't really ever remember holding hands, let alone kissing in public while we lived in Singapore or Thailand. Yet here we are in the US, and while we're both a bit old for the kissing in public bit, holding hands at least is second nature. ....and maybe a peck on the cheek is ok lol

Thing is, Liz was never really from WY, I think she spent a couple of years there in middle school and that was it. She lives in VA and thats her home, never was WY We live in next door SD and WY is full of nothingness, but the folks, what few there are there are fanatical Trumper's. If she really had been from WY she might have had a better chance to make her case, but this is a lost battle, move on to the next

How harsh .....I thought they were all 'Cashiers' <coughs

I'm going for a Star Trek theme Seven of Nine, who I preferred as the older version in ST Picard T'pol, ST Enterprise La'an Noonien-Singh, ST Strange New Worlds Empress Georgio, ST Discovery

Interesting perspective. So you would pick the partner with the outlook of her being your care giving while not wanting to reciprocate. So your 40 something still capable of caring for you gets in a car wreak, and ends up in the 'chair' You dump her, for a more chair pushing worthy replacement? I'd like to think in any loving long term relationship it doesn't matter which one of you needs caring for.

Really you believe that? In many 'normal' relationships men & woman are of a similar age. If you are just talking about sex well OK, just go for it. But at the end of the day what does that 25 yo and the 70 yo talk about at the end of the day, other than "tillack want boom boom". I'm sure discussing her day at work, what book you are reading, let's watch this film together figure really high on the list of chit chat topics So if delusion sex is all you want that works, but watch out for the mysterious 'brother' or 'cousin' Sex is an important part of our lives, but really money for love, dangerous business

My thoughts exactly. Not wanting to derail the OP, but she will lose her primary in WY tomorrow that is just a given. But, I think she sees this as one battle, not the war and a run at 2024 Presidency is the next battle

Thats a great tool, tried in on my cellphone and my google voice numbers, and yep, did identify them correctly. But you are right this is a creeping thing, and in many aspects the banks are right to tighten the screws on security. I'm not sure if this is true in Europe, but in North America the scam calls you get which spoof the number to look like a local area code, even down to a local prefix for everything from car warranties, time shares, medical alert devices are insane. Those are an irritation, although I do like to play with them sometimes, but move that on to financial institutions and I get the concerns with virtual numbers

I remember the Oakland CA fire. It was in an old warehouse that had been converted as some artisan work space. There was an illegal rave organized by two guys. 30 odd people died. Difference between that and this case is that the two guys did some significant time in jail, and it cost the City of Oakland $30M in damages to the victims for failing to enforce building codes. We wait to see if lot's of wai's equal $30M!

Now I'm assuming you like most of us, late 50's 60's. Remember what interest rates were back in the 80's when most of us bought our first homes? I think I had something like a 13% mortgage, which at the time I was pretty relived at. Today they are hovering around 5%. Lot of overhyped nonsense going around, which if you believe means most of us of a certain age should be homeless and living in a cardboard box under a freeway underpass

And there is the rub. The US is a huge country, Not everywhere is California or Manhattan. Equally not everywhere is some crime ridden inner city Hell hole, as has often been suggested in this thread. Most of us seen to still be able to live regular middle class lives in not unaffordable homes and not in a version of 'Friends' or living under a freeway underpass

For the most part that not true. Many folks use real estate as part of their retirement planning coupled with 401K's etc. I don't 'brag' about it, but both in Thailand and the US it's provided us with steady income. Now the first time buyer thing, I could probably find news stories from 20, 30 years ago stating the same thing. Curiously enough all our kids in CO and CA seem to have found their way through the apparently insurmountable challenge and all three of them now own, well mortgaged, a home

If you're 65+ you get Medicare Part A as a given at no cost, its only Part B you pay for, that plus your other insurance should be good