5 hours ago, fakser said:

8.8% from 70 M = 6.6 M

??? Do you mean 8.8% pay tax?

4 hours ago, smudger1951 said:

It surely will, I understand thais have a lot of personal debt and when they start losing cars and motorbikes and are still hungry ? ?

That's why they enforced the lockdown on the country with all its social restrictions because it was getting nasty before the C19, after a few months of starvation and selling everything just to survive they'll need more than the threat of the Army to keep hold........   Oh yes....... A day of reckoning is on its way........  

An off topic rant about the poverty levels in the tent cities of LA and other West Coast cities has been removed. 

19 hours ago, Pravda said:

Every farang on pension here should kiss their homecountry feet instead of whining and complaining about councit tax and immigrants. How many thais would love to be in your situation and live in relative luxury. 

Many of those farang worked for 40  years and put money aside even when times were  hard, their  govts  also made them  contribute to pensions by taking it direct from their salaries, they have no feet to  kiss, instead of relying on having offspring as a "pension" maybe Thailand should do that instead.

18 hours ago, ronaldo0 said:

Feast and famine way of life . Do a days work , get paid , blow it on little bit of food and drink and then starve a couple of days before doing it again. People do it all over the world in some form .

Yes, but now they reap the price of doing that by whining that  they are  poor when the real  reason is staring them in the  mirror.

yes sad to see...the only thing i don't understand is the spending i see when we are out shopping  . seems they are spending as if there was no problems  also no lack of huge new 4x4 racing around ..is it just ..Put it on the card existence..?  

16 hours ago, smudger1951 said:

It surely will, I understand thais have a lot of personal debt and when they start losing cars and motorbikes and are still hungry ? ?

I am so sorry, I disagree. Thais are so a - political in their majority, they might revolt after their death, at the earliest ????

Would think this is highly understated by an enormous figure. 

Living in Udon Thani, you do not see a massive increase in poverty. Just as many cars and bikes on the road, no new shanty towns, no extra beggars. The only sign is an increase in roadside stalls selling food, clothes and other bits. I assume these have been set up by the ex-tourist workers who have returned and are trying to raise a little cash to survive on.

Of course, most of these people have extended family homes they can return to, so homelessness is not an issue. Still lots of building projects going on. But workers to cut rice by hand? Come on! I was having to load it onto the truck myself as we couldn't find enough workers. Fortunately not expected to do the actual cutting - ATM is to valuable, he might die of heatstroke.....

Poverty is relative. In a predominantly barter economy financial income is not an indicator of poverty My friend is from Bulgaria the average income was less than  £250 per month so it was classed as a poor country, however it was a predominantly Barter economy so people lived very well in the countryside a life of luxury because they traded directly without money being exchanged and could grow their own food, services were paid for with food or skills, very little monetary (and taxable) income. Having said that I think there are far more than 1.5 million people approaching or in true poverty (ie without any barter resources) in Thailand since many were paid cash in hand and did not pay tax especially in the Tourist/entertainment industry more like 10 million

An inflammatory post has been removed.

On 1/21/2021 at 9:51 PM, worldexpress said:

The title is not complete. Should read something like: "1.5 Million Thais Near Poverty and15 million at poverty."

If 1.5 million is correct that's helluva better than the US. ????

There's a huge difference between being poor in the U.S. and being poor in Thailand. The vast majority of the people in Thailand live in far worse conditions than the poor people in the U.S.. Even poor folks who don't work in the U.S. get welfare, free money, subsidized housing, food stamps, free medical, can attend state universities for free and on and on. The only thing a poor Thai gets from their government is a thumbs up and a "good luck".