https://aseannow.com/rss/44-thailand-news.xml/National and regional news from all around ThailandenSat, 16 May 2026 09:21:00 +0000True. But they have a copy of the passport that can be fwd to customs to check those details of tourists that try to exit Thailand that have breached local laws.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:20:17 +0000Why do you care? He could be a Tory MP, or a brand-new Reform councillor.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:19:10 +0000Has anyone any experience purchasing items from tradeinn.com and their techinn technology store? https://www.tradeinn.com/techinn/en They have a tablet that I cannot find on the Thai market with 6-days delivery. Has the Thai import tax changed for IT tech? I recall it was exempt but more recently I believe they are applying tax (VAT?) to all overseas online purchases. Thanks, NLSat, 16 May 2026 09:16:49 +0000“worse (sic) ever”? Short memory eh scab? Disgraced former PM Johnson and looney Liz Truss don’t figure in your “worse (sic) ever” PMs? Good to see you and your tag partner Jonny Fartpants maintaining the far right comedic style.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:16:31 +0000Nice, that you repeat it. 👍Sat, 16 May 2026 09:16:28 +0000What did Trump 🤡 come back from China with , Xi presented him with some Rose seeds ,knowing he had nowhere to plant them after tearing up the White House rose garden ,and concreting over it ,then installing some Mar a largo umbrella's, nice one Xi... regards worgeordieSat, 16 May 2026 09:16:04 +0000Their problems seem to stem from their land being taken.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:15:58 +0000When I tried to log into my wife's account a scan thing came up and you had to use the KBiz app to scan it to access the website. The scan function on the K+ did not work.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:14:25 +0000And also not even pensionersSat, 16 May 2026 09:13:47 +0000If it wasn't for bad luck that woman would have no luck at all. My dad didn't buy me a pony when I was five, now I can see why. Time to drop the grudge and get on with my life. The couple in the story seem like decent people.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:12:29 +0000The nappy/diaper costs must be high! (I saw no reusable nappies). So I'll order up a good supply of reusable ones and useful bits of kit, such as teething rings etc. (Most people donate money directly, but I rarely do this - I prefer to buy specific items that are needed, rather than having the carers p*ss away my money on beer.... - this is hardly likely to happen of course, but I'm a cynical old git...)Sat, 16 May 2026 09:11:22 +0000Real-Debrid seems to have links for all shows and movies. 9 Euro for 90 days.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:11:19 +0000Stop renting bikes to tourists period.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:11:16 +0000Well it took off a bit of heat on his failure in Iran. Has he given any date yet to Bomb Iran back to the stoneage or will he give it a little more time, as there " Still Talking "Sat, 16 May 2026 09:08:00 +0000And the idiots keep coming and getting robbed..Sat, 16 May 2026 09:07:00 +0000The purpose of travel insurance companies is solely to have as much small print as possible so you are in fact not really insured at all.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:06:21 +0000Reads like he swerved to avoid another scoot and smacked a car. Why would the other parrty be liable ?Sat, 16 May 2026 09:06:10 +0000The world is going to see another Nuremberg style reckoning but this time, the evidence will expose the systematic, inhuman terror,Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, along with civilians, who joined them inflicted on innocent civilians, including rape, gang rape, sexual torture, and mutilation,burning bodies as deliberate weapons. Prepare yourselves for justice and accountability despite the outrage coming from the usual Marxist far left who will condemn Israel for documenting and exposing these horrors, while staying silent on or even excusing the actual perps who raped, tortured, and mutilated innocent civilians, to them they are freedom/resistance fighters. An independent Israeli commission just released a major report ("Silenced No More') based on 430+ testimonies, 10,000 photos, and nearly 2,000 hours of footage documenting 13 patterns of sexual and gender based violence across multiple sites on Oct 7 and in captivity. This coincides on the UN's own earlier findings of reasonable grounds for rape and gang rape. No one has better documentation, survivor testimonies, and raw video proof (much of it recorded by the perps themselves) than the Jewish and Israeli organizations and victims standing against this antisemitic barbarism. No one documents inhumanity on the innocent better than the Jewish organizations. The evidence is overwhelming , denial won't change the facts, barbarism payed a call on Oct 7th. Hamas 'weaponised' sexual violence in 7 October attacks,...The most comprehensive report of its kind details harrowing cases of sexual attacks which it says were systematic.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:05:54 +0000All peanuts compared to the 10 billion he is negotiating with his own DoJ, deal to be paid before the court rules on the legality of it. And possibly the conditions for this deal include him and his family being exempt from tax audits for life.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:05:47 +0000The Unpleasant Reality (Diligently Fact Checked) From the outside, investing in a Thai 7-Eleven franchise appears to be an absolute goldmine. The constant stream of customers, bustling checkout counters, and the fact that you almost never see a branch close down create a powerful illusion of a highly lucrative, foolproof business model. This perpetual activity, combined with high convenience store product pricing compared to local hypermarkets, convinces hopeful entrepreneurs to inject millions of Baht of their life savings into a franchise, believing they are securing a slice of a thriving retail empire. The reality behind the counter is a financially trapping illusion. Because CP All takes its heavy financial cut as a direct Gross Profit Split (often around 50% to 54%) rather than a royalty on net sales, individual store owners are left to absorb the compounding weight of 24-hour electricity costs, rising staff wages, inventory spoilage, theft losses, and rent out of an already depleted minority share. Furthermore, CP All controls the backend accounting and daily cash collection; franchisees do not hold the daily gross cash, severely limiting their liquidity. Despite massive daily turnover and packed aisles, the net margins are often so razor-thin that they leave the single-store franchisee with little more than a modest salary for grueling hours. The endless stream of customers creates a deceptive psychological link between busyness and profitability, when in reality convenience retail is fundamentally a low-margin business where enormous sales volume can still translate into surprisingly weak owner earnings after expenses and corporate deductions. This minimal return stretches the realistic payback period on their substantial initial investment out to a daunting five to seven years for average-performing locations, a brutal timeframe that turns the business into a psychological and financial prison while simultaneously trapping huge amounts of capital that could potentially generate stronger returns elsewhere with far less stress and risk. It is this lengthy timeline to simply recover the initial outlay, combined with ironclad corporate rules, that truly locks owners into their typically 6 to 10-year franchise agreements. Walking away early means forfeiting their cash security deposits and facing contractual penalties that can devastate their working capital position, effectively wiping out years of accumulated returns. Consequently, owners keep the doors open and grind through 14-hour days not out of hope, but out of a desperate need to claw back their original multi-million Baht outlay. Worse still, by the time they finally get their money back at the five-to-seven-year mark, mandatory corporate renovation cycles force them to reinvest new capital, resetting the ROI clock right at the finish line and trapping them into another multi-year cycle of staying open just to chase their money back. Unlike an independent business owner, the franchisee also has little real entrepreneurial flexibility because pricing, promotions, suppliers, product selection, and operational procedures are heavily dictated by the corporate system, reducing the owner to something closer to a tightly controlled site operator carrying personal financial liability rather than a true independent entrepreneur. Adding further pressure, aggressive network expansion quietly cannibalizes the sales of existing stores. Because contractual territorial protection zones are notoriously narrow, often spanning just a few hundred meters, CP All frequently exploits loopholes to maximize its own market dominance. If data shows that a franchisee has built a highly successful location, the corporation will often open a larger, corporate-owned store directly nearby to capture the excess demand, siphoning away the franchisee's hard-earned volume. This highlights the deeply asymmetric nature of the arrangement. The franchise owner assumes nearly all local operational risk, including rising utility costs, labor shortages, shrinking margins, theft, and declining neighborhood demand, while the parent company continues profiting through franchise fees, supply chain control, logistics, and network scale regardless of whether individual operators are struggling. Many owners ultimately discover that they have not purchased a passive wealth-generating asset at all, but rather an exhausting form of self-employment that demands relentless daily involvement in exchange for relatively modest financial upside compared to the capital and stress involved, whereas larger multi-store operators can survive thin margins purely through economies of scale. A further risk that many prospective franchisees underestimate is the mandatory purchase obligation. CP All requires franchisees to source inventory exclusively through its own supply chain at prices set by the corporation, removing any ability to shop for better margins or manage costs through supplier negotiation. This captive purchasing arrangement ensures that CP All profits from every item that passes through the store regardless of whether the franchisee does, and it means that when wholesale input costs rise, the operator absorbs the squeeze with no alternative sourcing options available. Perhaps the most important illusion of all is that failed franchisees are largely invisible to the public. When an owner finally breaks financially or walks away after years of losses and exhaustion, the store itself usually does not disappear. CP All simply absorbs the location back into its corporate-managed store network or replaces the operator while keeping the doors open uninterrupted. To outside observers, nothing appears to have failed because the lights remain on, the customers continue flowing in, and the familiar branding never changes. The public therefore mistakes the survival of the store for the success of the franchisee, when in many cases the original investor has already been financially destroyed behind the scenes. Since most Thai 7-Eleven locations are leased directly by CP All rather than the franchisee, the physical store infrastructure largely represents corporate capital, but the franchisee’s security deposits, years of operational labor, and working capital injections are not recovered when they exit. The corporation retains the established customer base, the continuing revenue stream, and a strengthened brand presence, while the departing franchisee walks away with little to show for years of grinding work. This dynamic quietly reinforces the illusion that opening a franchise was a winning decision in the first place, because the visible store survives even when the original owner did not. One final risk worth naming is the personal guarantee structure that many franchisees enter into without fully appreciating its implications. Because the franchise agreement places operational liability on the individual owner, any business shortfall, unpaid supplier invoice routed through the CP All system, or contractual breach does not remain contained within a corporate entity. For franchisees who have not structured their personal finances carefully, the business failure can become a personal financial failure, with consequences that extend well beyond the loss of the initial investment.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:05:21 +0000We have just had a few days away in that area. Thought I’d just update prices etc for anyone interested Watermill All in. M-F 1400. It’s a nice course Stay 1600 .accommodation quite acceptable so was the food Arititaya All in M-F 1200. WE 1400 Stay 1200 and there is a pool.Rooms 102/103/119 have new beds other rooms a bit iffee. I think a little better accommodation wise than Watermill. Rooms 102/103/119 have been updated with new mattress. Prime All in same price as Arititaya ..but the area is a bit like back and beyond. Course supposed to be ok though. Of course there are several other course around there eg Royal Hills and Khao Cha Ngok.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:05:02 +0000It's the new British way. Long gone are the days of personal responsibility and the 'stiff upper lip'. Now it's about victimhood. Is he from Liverpool?Sat, 16 May 2026 09:05:00 +0000Has Trump run this past Bibi? If not I expect we’ll shortly be hearing why the illegal Israeli/US war of aggression must continue. The announcement might not come from the White House.Sat, 16 May 2026 09:04:35 +0000I suppose those rose seeds will be confiscated at US customs as potentially biohazardous materials and the importer will be fined?Sat, 16 May 2026 09:03:20 +0000