Will Thailand break out of middile income status?

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, SiSePuede419 said:

 

If the median income in Thailand is $10,000 a year, that means half are below and half are above.

 

$10K USD is 25,000 a month here. 

 

You can live like a King here on that kind of money @ 40B per bowl of Noodles and maximum 30B per Government hospital visit.  Well, a King in a 3000B studio apartment & motorcycle. ????

 

Contrast that with the median income of 40K a year in America or even less in Europe.

 

Can people really afford a similar lifestyle there on the median income?

 

Doubtful.  Check out the price for lunch in Switzerland.  What?  About $32 per person?

 

Everything is relative, mis amigos.

 

Please read more carefully. 91.7% are under $10,000 a year. That is by no means the median. Many are making $3,000 to $5000 a year. 

[cocopops]

4 hours ago, Thaidream said:

The Thai people one sees in  Western style restaurants are those who have  upper management positions in banks ; the military or police. or stable industry.

 

Quite so, but don't overlook the owners of successful small businesses - from busy market stalls to regular shops and cafes. Plenty of these people doing very well, by western or any other standards, too.

 

They are still, of course, a relatively small minority compared to the very poor though.

 

[saengd]

7 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Please read more carefully. 91.7% are under $10,000 a year. That is by no means the median. Many are making $3,000 to $5000 a year. 

Average earnings is one area of the Thai economy that truly mystifies me. I'm OK with sampling as means of calculating many unknowns but I don't believe it works when it comes to calculating income, simply, people are just not honest. This is not a problem in the West where earnings are reported by the givers rather than the receivers and large swathes of the population are on PAYE. But in Thailand less than 3% of the population are on a PAYE equivalent, the remainder pay tax on the basis of trust and self reporting honesty. Forgive me for being sceptical but I just don't think most Thai business owners cherish accurate accounting and honesty if the end product involves handing money over to the government.

 

I have seen first hand the way that Thai's handle income and expense at various levels, if the reported average income is THB 14,000 per month I think we can safely say that translates into earnings of THB 20,000 or THB 25,000 or more.

 

[Assurancetourix]

13 hours ago, saengd said:

Europe, household consumer debt, 50% of GDP, that's a big number.

 

Yes, it's a big number ;

But if you want to compare you have to compare everything.
In Europe individual houses or apartments are very expensive;
In Paris it is not uncommon to see apartments sold at 10,000 euros per m2 (330,000 baht per m2), often more in prestigious districts.
In London it is still much more expensive.
However, in Thailand for 330,000 baht you can build an entire house in the countryside.

In France the middle class is in debt on the purchase of an apartment or a house which will be used, when it is paid, of social cover for its inhabitants or inheritance to their children.

The French do not go into debt to buy the latest Apple smartphone that has just come out or a car beyond their means.

[saengd]

14 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

Yes, it's a big number ;

But if you want to compare you have to compare everything.
In Europe individual houses or apartments are very expensive;
In Paris it is not uncommon to see apartments sold at 10,000 euros per m2 (330,000 baht per m2), often more in prestigious districts.
In London it is still much more expensive.
However, in Thailand for 330,000 baht you can build an entire house in the countryside.

In France the middle class is in debt on the purchase of an apartment or a house which will be used, when it is paid, of social cover for its inhabitants or inheritance to their children.

The French do not go into debt to buy the latest Apple smartphone that has just come out or a car beyond their means.

Agreed, but taking a percentage of GDP takes that price differential into account!

 

Thai GDP is about USD 450 bill., household debt is 85% of that figure, about.

Euro. GDP is USD 18.8 Trill., household debt is 50%.

 

The fact that the actual Dollar amount is higher or lower is not relevant since it is expressed as a percentage of total GDP.

 

 

[Assurancetourix]

2 hours ago, saengd said:

 

 

I have seen first hand the way that Thai's handle income and expense at various levels, if the reported average income is THB 14,000 per month I think we can safely say that translates into earnings of THB 20,000 or THB 25,000 or more.

 

An impressive percentage of the money circulating in Thailand is dirty money recycled in buildings, cars and luxury watches. We can talk about 20 to 25%.
In lax European countries, France, Italy for example, this percentage is around 2 to 3%.
It is not comparable.

Here in Thailand, salaries for junior civil servants start at less than 10,000 baht monthly;
it climbs regularly but slowly to reach around 40,000 baht at the end of the career for teachers, police or military under officers, city hall employees ...
Farmers, more than 50% of the Thai population, they are far from being all the owners of the land they cultivate survive on a few thousand baht monthly.
The wealthiest manage to pay themselves, with long loans, for recent agricultural equipment; tractors, harvesters, but they are few.
In addition, you just have to go to Kubota dealers or other brands to see the impressive number of materials that are for sale second hand because the first buyer could not pay the credit.
(ditto with cars and pickups that clutter roadsides at the entrances of major cities).

Employees of supermarkets are paid cocoa beans;
We will not talk about Burmese, Laotian, Cambodian who make trades that the Thai people do not want to do for a lot of reasons;
slave on a fishing boat or on a construction site and pay with a slingshot when the boss is nice; otherwise it's a bowl of rice with nam pla at noon and the same in the evening ..

Here in the countryside, the minimum wage of 300 baht per day is not respected by anyone; when the agricultural worker has 250 baht he considers himself happy and in addition he must bring his bowl. 

[saengd]

Also agreed. It's the extent of the black money that makes a realistic estimation almost impossible to achieve.

[cmarshall]

15 hours ago, CNXexpat said:

First world are developed industrial countries like USA, Japan, Germany and so on. Third world are the poorest and undeveloped countries. Second world are the countries in between like the BRICS countries, Thailand and others. It´s easy to google. You would find this explanation by example: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/second-world.asp

If so, the meaning has changed. "Second World" used to refer to communist countries.

[cmarshall]

Thailand will not be able to escape from the "middle income trap" as economists refer to it.  Thailand's growth beginning from the 1980's has been achieved by supplying cheap labor to foreign companies that manufacture products such as hard drives and automobiles in Thailand mostly for export.  But even after 40 years, there are no Thai-owned companies exporting hard drives and automobiles.  Compare that situation with South Korea, which started off in the post-war period by letting the Japanese build factories that produced automobiles, electronics, pianos, etc.  However, the Koreans insisted on transfer of technology and eventually started their own companies to produce and export their own brands of those products.  South Korea has the second largest steel manufacturer even though there is no coal or iron ore on the peninsula.  They also lead the world in building the most complicated ships such as LNG transporters.  All of this was the deliberate policy of development to achieve a rich economy established by Park Chung-Hee in the 50's and 60's who recognized that they had to develop their own products that could compete in the global market.  Education was certainly part of the whole industrialization program.  In 1960 South Korea had a lower literacy rate than Thailand.

 

Thailand, like all the other SE Asian countries, has no globally-recognized company like Samsung or product like flat-screen TVs.  The elite families that control the Thai economy have been so far content to maintain their positions within Thai society without attempting to compete on the global market.  Lately there is some expansion of Thai companies, such as banks, into Asean, but there is no national attempt to export from Thai-owned companies, except for food products.

 

It must be said that the drive to develop their economies among the now rich nations of Northeast Asia: Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, was driven not by a desire to raise living standards, but by the need for self-defense.  That was the motivation behind the revolution of Meiji Japan, Park Chung-Hee's South Korea, Taiwan, and, indeed, the PROC itself.  The nations of SE Asia are under no fear of invasion by their neighbors and so remain economically inward-looking.  

[KhaoNiaw]

15 hours ago, Thaidream said:

Walk around a construction site and  look at all the roadside stalls set up where the construction workers eat- they are not sitting in air conditioned restaurants.  

Most of the construction workers are not Thai.

[Pravda]

There are far more uneducated posters than uneducated Thais.

 

I especially love the ones who live near skytrain, work in their barely maintained first world wanna be office and then preach how salaries in Thailand are really high and how many people eat in malls and restaurants.

 

Someone  who was only dated middle class Thais and not bargirls I can say that there is a lot going on under that facade.

 

My first girlfriend was very rich, but that meant her father was supporting and lending money to a dozen or more family members that made 500 baht a day or less.

 

My wife was working for international company, but none of her wealth came from there. She has a huge property in her village thanks to her parents that they bought 50 years ago that she will eventually inherit. Her "hiso" international job that so many pretentious uneducated Farangs think are so well paid are actually very stressful, insecure, with long hours and frankly worthless. Oh yes.... everyone is asking her parents to borrow money.

 

My current gf, an educated middle class 100% Chinese Thai (for the Thai Visa batman crowd) works for international Japanese company, has a decent salary, but still lives in a crappy house with her parents. You would never know this as she dresses like a 5 star pop idol, drives a nice car and speaks 5 languages. Oh yes.... her sister lives in the West, actually makes real money and supports her (their) parents. Oh, I'm also sure a lot of family members ask her to money ????

 

 

[elgenon]

On 1/8/2020 at 7:30 AM, Bullie said:

Tech industry in Thailand is being relocated elsewhere for lack of skilled technicians, and an appalling lack of English skills.

As to the number of graduates churned out by Thai Universities: me thinks it is the wrong question to ask. What is the QUALITY of graduates would be a more appropriate question. Here again, English-speaking and understanding skills (the lingua franca of the world) are sadly missing.

 

What with the dwindling number of tourists, and all the other navel staring qualities the Thai posses, I would say they are rapidly progressing towards the exit, instead of aspiring to even BE a middle income zone (top 5 percent of pop. excluded).

America is not graduating enough Americans in Math, Science, Engineering etc. Allowing skilled foreigners to make up the shortage is necessary. Americans dream of getting rich quick.

[Thaidream]

17 hours ago, saengd said:

You are quite correct, Thailand is not a middle income country, it is an upper middle income country!

The World Bank stats simply take the  total wealth of a country and divide it by the population/

 

It is the distribution of wealth that actually determines how  well all people are living/ There are approximately 500,000 Thais that are hugely wealthy and control about 75% of all wealth in Thailand.   The  rest of the  population  control only 25%- the largest imbalance in the World.

 

The reason there are not many homeless Thais living on the street and begging is the strong  extended families in Thailand and  that many families do own land or have land available to grow rice and crops.  In addition, the Temples serve as a backup where a person can be fed and housed for a short period of time.  The Thai medical system also allows for  free medical care for the very poor

 

The minimum wage in Thailand was just raised by 5-6 Baht per day hardly enough to make any real change in a person's spending habits.

 

Huge amounts of money are being spent on  military; state enterprises like Thai Airways as well as pork like eat and travel as well as support to keep  fuel prices relatively stable and other attempts to  mask the real World Price of commodities.

 

Anyone who thinks  Thailand is a real upper middle class or even a low middle class country has been drinking the propaganda kool aide.  

[saengd]

How can it be that two or more people look at the same things and see completely different things? Is it because some don't understand what they're seeing or is it that some have no point of reference in order to make a comparison? I know for sure that many posters here don't know what they are seeing but that's a different story perhaps.

 

I don't claim to be the definitive source on this but when I look at Thailand I'm pretty upbeat. I remember how things were in the late 1990's, the infrastructure was pretty poor, Sukhumvit was a mess as the skytrain was first being built, western food wasn't that easy to find outside the big hotels or the farang ghetto's and the people were poor. Walking down Suki. one Saturday morning, on the way to work, a gaggle of countries beauties competed for my attention asking 90 baht for everything! 

 

Today, Bangkok could be almost any city in the modern developed world, the huge malls compete with the best in the West, Michelin starred restaurants abound and even the Waldorf has a presence. The SET has gone from below 300 to over 1,600, the currency has gone stellar, exports are booming and so on and so on.

 

So in the space of twenty years the place has gone from absolutely nothing to something quite significant. Sure that journey is not complete and there were lots of mistakes along the way but the growth and the progress are real, even if they could have been bigger or better.

 

More kool aid please, I'm thirsty! 

Edited January 10, 2020 by saengd

[Thaidream]

2 hours ago, KhaoNiaw said:

Most of the construction workers are not Thai.

Then you might want to walk around the outside of factories or any other place where Thais work and you will find the same thing.  The average Thai person is not middle class; they do not go to air conditioned restaurants to eat; they do not go to private hospitals.

 

Why do you think  every department store; every mall and most other large scale business has double the staff they need.  All of them are paid just about the minimum wage.  The company owners who are the super wealthy already make sure the average majority of the population do not starve; are employed making money and as such allow the current system to go on.  Can you  imagine what would happen with massive unemployment.

 

In Thailand, the only way to move forward is through connections; a superior education at a top Thai University or through the military; Armed Forces or Government employent and you need to know someone in these occupations to even apply.

 

 

[Thaidream]

1 hour ago, saengd said:

How can it be that two or more people look at the same things and see completely different things? Is it because some don't understand what they're seeing or is it that some have no point of reference in order to make a comparison? I know for sure that many posters here don't know what they are seeing but that's a different story perhaps.

 

I don't claim to be the definitive source on this but when I look at Thailand I'm pretty upbeat. I remember how things were in the late 1990's, the infrastructure was pretty poor, Sukhumvit was a mess as the skytrain was first being built, western food wasn't that easy to find outside the big hotels or the farang ghetto's and the people were poor. Walking down Suki. one Saturday morning, on the way to work, a gaggle of countries beauties competed for my attention asking 90 baht for everything! 

 

Today, Bangkok could be almost any city in the modern developed world, the huge malls compete with the best in the West, Michelin starred restaurants abound and even the Waldorf has a presence. The SET has gone from below 300 to over 1,600, the currency has gone stellar, exports are booming and so on and so on.

 

So in the space of twenty years the place has gone from absolutely nothing to something quite significant. Sure that journey is not complete and there were lots of mistakes along the way but the growth and the progress are real, even if they could have been bigger or better.

 

More kool aid please, I'm thirsty!

What you are seeing is nothing more than a mirage.  When I compare what I first saw in 1971 to now- I see sifferent things than you.

 

-I see a population that never struggled before to live;  where each family had vast tracts of land and the land and sea fed the population. Now I see a population that has lost vast tracts of land; sold to survive and buy consumer goods or cheated by  the wealthy at exorbitant interest rates.

 

-I see  most of the infrastructure as  overbuilt; over priced and in the process an environmental disaster.  To what end- to make more money for the wealthy- exploit the poor doing it and forcing low income people from the heart of Bangkok to the provinces and  outskirts of the capital.

 

The skytrain; expressways and malls have  been built  by the government and super wealthy on borrowed money from places like the  World Banks; Asean Development Fund and other international institutions . As a result Thailand's GDP is leveraged for decades; the Thai Government runs a deficit and is unable to channel money to a needy population.

 

-I  see overpriced hotels in Banfkok attempting to garner a tourism increase with poor service and unable to compete with other countries due to greed.  I also see overpriced condos being built by wealthy land owners and  sitting unoccupies  because  Thais cannot afford to live in them. Instead the owners have to turn to  running them like hotels to get any income.

 

-I see a huge increase in traffick making Bangkok a nightmare to live in because the  powers that be refuse to limit traffic; the police refuse to use the computerized traffic control system and the wealthy continue to park on the street  at will.  I also see a city that is so polluted becuase of inadequate envirnmental controls that it is becoming unlivable.

 

I could go on an on- if you call this progress- you are mistaken.  The average Thai person has regressed- lost buying power and can't even open a food stall in Bangkok to try and survive.

 

By the way- when I first arrived in 1971- I could find Western Food  everywhere in Bangkok.  I used to go to the Chavalit Hotel (now the Ambassador) for a 79 Baht buffet -all Western and Japanese food-  and sit  looking  at Sukhumvit Road watching the people walk by.

 

There was no polution- plenty of  fairly priced hotels- a  happy Thai population where a smile was real.

 

Now a population awash in drugs; under employemnt; high prices; massive pollution, a tired overworked population struggling to  send their kids to school.

 

Walk in their shoes for a week and see if  they  feel the good times are here.

 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Thaidream

[Brunolem]

45 minutes ago, saengd said:

How can it be that two or more people look at the same things and see completely different things? Is it because some don't understand what they're seeing or is it that some have no point of reference in order to make a comparison? I know for sure that many posters here don't know what they are seeing but that's a different story perhaps.

 

 

Today, Bangkok could be almost any city in the modern developed world, the huge malls compete with the best in the West, Michelin starred restaurants abound and even the Waldorf has a presence. The SET has gone from below 300 to over 1,600, the currency has gone stellar, exports are booming and so on and so on.

 

So in the space of twenty years the place has gone from absolutely nothing to something quite significant. Sure that journey is not complete and there were lots of mistakes along the way but the growth and the progress are real, even if they could have been bigger or better.

 

More kool aid please, I'm thirsty! 

To look and to see doesn't lead to good conclusions... to observe does... 

 

You are talking about Bangkok as if it was Thailand all by itself. 

 

During these same 20 years, I can tell you, for example, that Sisaket city, an average Thai city, has barely changed at all... 

 

What Bangkok (center only) shows is that there is an insane concentration of wealth in a few hands, while the other hands remain more or less empty. 

 

Bangkok (center) is a spit in the face of the Thai populace, it is the modern equivalent of Versailles in the time of Louis XIV. 

 

It is also proof that Thailand is not a middle class country, and its elites probably don't want it, because the advent of a middle class (bourgeoisie) is generally considered dangerous by the owners' class... 

 

 

[saengd]

19 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

To look and to see doesn't lead to good conclusions... to observe does... 

 

You are talking about Bangkok as if it was Thailand all by itself. 

 

During these same 20 years, I can tell you, for example, that Sisaket city, an average Thai city, has barely changed at all... 

 

What Bangkok (center only) shows is that there is an insane concentration of wealth in a few hands, while the other hands remain more or less empty. 

 

Bangkok (center) is a spit in the face of the Thai populace, it is the modern equivalent of Versailles in the time of Louis XIV. 

 

It is also proof that Thailand is not a middle class country, and its elites probably don't want it, because the advent of a middle class (bourgeoisie) is generally considered dangerous by the owners' class... 

 

 

The middle class didn't go from 20% to 55% of the population via the trickle up theory!

[saengd]

20 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

To look and to see doesn't lead to good conclusions... to observe does... 

 

You are talking about Bangkok as if it was Thailand all by itself. 

 

During these same 20 years, I can tell you, for example, that Sisaket city, an average Thai city, has barely changed at all... 

 

What Bangkok (center only) shows is that there is an insane concentration of wealth in a few hands, while the other hands remain more or less empty. 

 

Bangkok (center) is a spit in the face of the Thai populace, it is the modern equivalent of Versailles in the time of Louis XIV. 

 

It is also proof that Thailand is not a middle class country, and its elites probably don't want it, because the advent of a middle class (bourgeoisie) is generally considered dangerous by the owners' class... 

 

 

TD you've come across all nostalgic, made me reminisce about how things have changed in the town where I was raised also. Goodness me, of course things have changed, they may not have changed in ways that you or I personally would like to see but people have acquired greater wealth than they had previously. That banks have targeted that class with loans they can't afford is part of the same disease in many countries, consumer led recovery is the intention and hope...sometimes it actually works.

 

But the wealth is not just concentrated in Bangkok. In Chiang Mai where I live the story is similar but not nearly as large scale, infrastructure has been built out and is continuing to be so, malls have been built, factories have been constructed to provide jobs and the people have more money. I'm certain the story is similar elsewhere in Thailand, perhaps Sisaket is an anomaly, dunno.

[KhaoNiaw]

1 hour ago, Thaidream said:

Then you might want to walk around the outside of factories or any other place where Thais work and you will find the same thing.  The average Thai person is not middle class; they do not go to air conditioned restaurants to eat; they do not go to private hospitals.

 

 

You're not wrong, many parts I agree with, but you're overstating the case, especially if you believe everyone is on minimum wage.

Who do you think, for example, buys all the townhouses that have been constructed in the hundreds of housing 'villages' on the outskirts of Bangkok in places like Samutprakan? Factory workers mostly, usually husband and wife both working. The first house we bought here was a townhouse and nearly all of the neighbours were working in factories. When we moved to our first detached home, still some of the neighbours were from factories. Some of the guys in the car factories, not at managment level, were on very good money. 

I've been here for 30 years and have seen the changes not only in Bangkok but parts of the Northeast I'm familiar with. Big Tesco Lotus branches in many districts now, full of people buying food and shopping, and taking the kids to KFC. 

So, while the overall distribution of wealth may be little changed, it's not true to say that the benefits of the economic growth of the last 30-40 years have not filtered down. That should be by design, of course, because those at the top need a housing market to sell the low and mid-end townhouses, the cars, to make their retail businesses work. 

So you're quite correct to say that people have been given just about enough of the benefits but that's a little bit above simply keeping them from starvation. 

[Assurancetourix]

55 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

and its elites probably don't want it, because the advent of a middle class (bourgeoisie) is generally considered dangerous by the owners' class... 

Exact; do not forget that the French Revolution of 1789 was the work of the bourgeoisie and not at all that of the people contrary to many erroneous beliefs .

[ICELANDMAN]

21 hours ago, Pdavies99 said:

What rubbish! Another foreigner who thinks Pattaya and Bangkok represent the wealth of Thailand!!!

 

Get out into the country and see if thre is any wealth, stop believing the Newspapers,  Thailand is still 90% poor.

I agree, majority Thais people 90% have not more 3500 baths on the bank account, only the majority public government employment 8% is the really middle class where the corruption is normal and accepted by incompetent governments, and nobody will change this, western governments is not also a better way, the corruption on the world is growing every where.

Edited January 10, 2020 by ICELANDMAN

[Alex2554]

What does the term "middle class" mean?

Modern definition is people having a reasonable amount of discretionary income, beginning at the point where people have a third of a discretionary income left for spending after paying for basic food and shelter.

 

[Hal65]

I know it's fashionable these days to point to every person in an expensive car or mall outlet as an overspending, debt ridden mess. To some degree there are people like that too.

 

But until there is a wave of bankruptcies it is not fair to say this is the majority of cases.

 

What about all the middle management types making in the 60,000 to 120,000 range? Yes this is mainly in Bangkok, just as advanced services are clustering in the big cities in the US. It seems like that is a fair sized middle class.

 

Even in Pattaya I see a fair amount of 4 wheeled vehicles these days, many of them not low end models.

[Max69xl]

On 1/8/2020 at 10:31 PM, CNXexpat said:

There are many people with a middle income. When I am out for dinner in medium expensive restaurants like sushi restaurants, there are a many Thais too.

My dentist is married with a dentist (both have no own dentist offices) and at her Facebook site I saw that they are traveling around the world: Iceland, Austria, India, Japan, Switzerland, New Zealand, Korea, etc. 

Read this how many Thais are traveling abroad. Many of the Thais have a good salary.
 https://thaiembdc.org/2019/04/15/thais-becoming-outbound-tourists-in-greater-numbers/

"Many people with a middle income"? Really? Do you know how large the total workforce is? It's a very low number of people with a good salary compared to the ones with a very low salary = minimum wages up to 15,000 baht/month. 

[Brunolem]

10 minutes ago, Hal65 said:

I know it's fashionable these days to point to every person in an expensive car or mall outlet as an overspending, debt ridden mess. To some degree there are people like that too.

 

But until there is a wave of bankruptcies it is not fair to say this is the majority of cases.

 

What about all the middle management types making in the 60,000 to 120,000 range? Yes this is mainly in Bangkok, just as advanced services are clustering in the big cities in the US. It seems like that is a fair sized middle class.

 

Even in Pattaya I see a fair amount of 4 wheeled vehicles these days, many of them not low end models.

At the beginning of this still young century, debt among the large majority of the Thai population was about zero, because there was no access to it, save via loan sharks.

 

Then a new billionaire prime minister introduced credit to the masses, via schemes such as the one million baht per village.

 

Since then, multiple similar schemes have mushroomed, sending people ever more into debt (that's 100% of the families in my village).

 

Obviously, when a country starts with very low debt and goes into a debt binge, as has been the case in Thailand, it gets an economic boom (just ask the US or China).

 

Unfortunately, this is unsustainable, as Thailand (and the rest of the world) is discovering, because there is only so much debt that the population can take on.

 

From then on, the affected countries are stuck in a state of economic limbo, out of which they hope to escape with some central bank magical trick...

[CNXexpat]

31 minutes ago, Max69xl said:

"Many people with a middle income"? Really? Do you know how large the total workforce is? It's a very low number of people with a good salary compared to the ones with a very low salary = minimum wages up to 15,000 baht/month. 

Yes, many. Really. I know many of them with salaries up to 200k per month. Look in the restaurants of the shopping centers, like Fuji and so on. They are not cheap and full of Thais. Nearly 1 million new cars are sold every year. 

"...about 11 million Thais are expected to vacation overseas this year" 
https://thaiembdc.org/2019/04/15/thais-becoming-outbound-tourists-in-greater-numbers/

[Hal65]

46 minutes ago, Max69xl said:

"Many people with a middle income"? Really? Do you know how large the total workforce is? It's a very low number of people with a good salary compared to the ones with a very low salary = minimum wages up to 15,000 baht/month. 

I guess it would be like the US where I knew many people whose household made in the $80,000 to $130,000 range. But if you zoomed out this was the upper 15-20% of the population or so.

 

Still seems like quite a lot to me when the Bangkok metro area has millions of people.

 

I don't want to get stuck on semantic arguments so I'll talk about the top 20% in Thailand/Bangkok when I speak further about this group. To me it feels like there are a fair amount of them in Pattaya too, maybe from surrounding cities I don't know.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Hal65

[Assurancetourix]

11 hours ago, CNXexpat said:

Look in the restaurants of the shopping centers, like Fuji and so on. They are not cheap and full of Thais. Nearly 1 million new cars are sold every year. 

I was walking in Central PlaZa de Udon Thani a few weeks ago; it was almost deserted, and the only establishment where there were a few people was the "food court" where the dishes are at 40 or 50 baht.
The restaurants of international chains were deserted;
as for the million new vehicles sold each year, they belong first to the banks and will not be in the name of their buyers until after sometimes 8 years if they manage to pay each monthly payment in due time which becomes more and more very rare.
All you have to do is leaf through the books of the banks about sales of apartments, houses and vehicles.
Or just open your eyes when you arrive in a relatively large city; stores that sell second-hand vehicles, sometimes almost new, have their parking lots full ...

[Nyezhov]

On 1/9/2020 at 3:05 PM, malibukid said:

never here.

Gee I cant get the students in BKK to leave me alone. But Im kinda good looking too. They tell me that they only practice English with hansum men.