Poll- Do You Feel That Thailand Wants You Or Wants You Out?

[click2delete]

What rule do I not fulfill? I'm totally honest about all my finances and my status and intentions and they are always helpful. I can honestly think of no rule I don't fulfill. Please educate me.

You couldn't be educated with a Bronx attitude adjustment - some people are not educable.

You're time is coming and when it does, be sure to post it here for all of us to see.

[BAF]

The transition from living in a safe, comfortable welfare state to the typical day to day life in a land like LOS is difficult, if not impossible, for many farangs. The guarantees they were used to back home don't apply there. The frequent changes of government policy wouldn't be relevant in lands with a safety net. It pays to be aware that LOS and other Asian lands have made no provision for lasting farang security. I have everything I need in this cold northern land, except the warmth and comfort of a long leisurely break in LOS, which I can easily finance by staying where I am to earn for it, so I have the best of both worlds. IMO, my way is best.

My point is that I need living in a "safe, comfortable welfare state", its "guarantees" and its "safety nets" ONLY as a married man raising a family.

So, "my way" is to live in the West as long as I am a married man raising a family and to go back to a LOS-like 3rd world country if/when I go back being a single guy looking for "warm leisurely breaks"...

...with the difference that those "breaks" wouldn't be "breaks" but pleasant everyday reality like they have been for 4 years of my life.

[BAF]

The OP revealed the falicy of his own thinking in his very first line.

This country has made promises, contracts, and implied contracts with the foreigners

Thailand has made no promises, no contracts (implied or otherwise).

Oh... no... this country simply keeps retroactively changing the laws (and their interpretations and actual applications) under which many foreigners establish themselves and their families in Thailand in the first place...

There are however minimum income/age requirements to be allowed a visa to live in Thailand - And let's be honest, the minimum income levels are pittiful.

Several times the Thai average is "pitiful"?

So at which level does it become outrageous for you?

At the level which you personally are no longer able to afford?

[jumnien]

I gotta hand it to ya Clickey, your persistent! Thanks for providing one of the most entertaining threads in a while. There's been a lot of good humor and fun in it all. Cheers.

[qwertz]

BAF, I was generalising and posting my take on your situation. But speaking as an expat in another hemisphere, it is a hard fact that being accepted in a foreign land is about as reliable as an organ transplant.

[kmart]

Well, after 21 pages of e-pissing up cyber walls, the concensus still indicates that Thailand wants us out then? I don't blame her.

[jumnien]

If Thailand had any integrity they'd get rid of the lot of us, that's for sure!

[cdnvic]

You couldn't be educated with a Bronx attitude adjustment - some people are not educable.

Please tell me you were trying to be ironic. If so, well done

[click2delete]

Is it the policy of Thai Visa to change the basis of a huge thread by a moderator without asking the original poster?

Astral admits to adding a poll question to which he answered by choosing his option.

Well why not just have all the moderators change the thread? hel_l, why don't you change the poll numbers to suit your particular agenda?

I wasn't aware of a policy here that allows you to obfuscate the message but if there is one please elaborate on it so we can all know.

Why did you change the poll Astral?

[astral]

I think it is easier now to get a visa based on marriage.

If you have been using the 400K in the bank route you are still OK - Grandfathered.

If you are uisng the 40K a month income, you can now send the wife out to work as well.

In fact you can be a "kept man" and be OK.

In the old days it was hubby only, who had to provide the income.

[click2delete]

If Thailand had any integrity they'd get rid of the lot of us, that's for sure!

If they had integrity, even a shred - they would start with you.

[ColPyat]

I am sorry, but i am not exactly impressed. There are people with far more years of "deep interaction", who did not leave when the period of 'i am sick of third world countries' set in.

You have grandly missed it.

I left ONLY once (and ONLY because) I got married since I knew that no normal life is possible in Thailand (and in practically ANY other 3rd world country).

Were I still a single guy I would still be happily living in Thailand and happily enjoying the only kind of life 3rd world countries like Thailand are great for.

Thanks for making my point - 4 years on the fringe, convinced to know everything, and not able to make a living here, and bitter because of it.

Yawn.

What is this supposed to mean?

I thought you were smarter than this.

I WAS "making a living" there, and a great one at that.

I was also ACTIVELY trying to avoid the situations (ie falling in love -> getting married -> raising a family) which would necessarily see me back at valuing and seeking normality, stability and safety, in other words, going back to the West.

If you are meaning that you have managed to find in Thailand normality, stability and safety for your children ("making a living"?) , then good luck to you.

And your children.

If you made a great living here, then i really wonder what you are on about with all your winging.

A great living entitles you here in Thailand to much more than back in the west - excellent health care in top hospitals, comparatively low taxes, excellent private schools with outstanding facilities for yuor children, luxurious housing, and a government that actively supports your stay.

If you made such a great living here in Thailand, i really have to wonder though why on earth you have to enter the 'nursing' profession in order to get to live in the States. Generally, nursing is not exactly the sort of job in developed countries that earns one a great living, and if you had been able to make such a great living in Thailand than i wonder why you lack any other skills to go to the states. There is a certain discrepancy in your description.

Interesting also that making a great living here in Thailand gave you the free time to travel all over Thailand's villages to make such profound statements on village culture and society.

Now, either you exaggerate a little here, or you just had it all and flunked it away, which would explain your bitter posts.

And if you "actively" tried to avoid marriage, then why did you marry? Seems that more things went wrong with your life than what Thailand had done to you, if marriage forced you to forsake a life of hedonism that you chose for yourself.

I never came to Asia to find "normality, stability and safety", and the obvious risk is that things might go wrong one day. But then, i will have nobody else to blame than me, and would rather shoot myself than making the whole of Thailand responsible for my own decisions to suit my own mistaken self worth.

You may blame me that i might be irresponsible towards my wife and son, but then, if i would have made the sensible decision - i would have never met my wife, and my lovely son would have never arrived.

I still might return to the west with my family one day, things such a school fees and rising nationalism here is a worry. But that is not the fault of the entire Thai male population - this is the natural problems of a developing nation.

The world doesn't turn around myself - and most Thais do have far more problems than we have in their own country, without the option of going somewhere else when things turn nasty.

Sorry if i sound harsh, but i feel you are a bit too bitter, and maybe, a few years down the line, you realize that your opinions are more than a bit influenced by your own present situation than by facts.

[click2delete]

The OP revealed the falicy of his own thinking in his very first line.

This country has made promises, contracts, and implied contracts with the foreigners

Thailand has made no promises, no contracts (implied or otherwise).

There are however minimum income/age requirements to be allowed a visa to live in Thailand - And let's be honest, the minimum income levels are pittiful.

So it dawns on some guy that he is not the rich foreigner he has been kidding himself he is, the truth is out.

The biggest lies foreigners hear in Thailand are the lies they tell themselves.

You either meet the visa requirements or you do not. If you do not, and anyone is to blame then it is you, not the Thai government.

And apparently the biggest bullexcrement that can be found is right here with posters who have little understanding of law.

The readership here has shown that they can neither comprehend nor interpret what is written. The herd mentality is alive and well here.

I came here under a set of rules which I followed without difficulty. In midstream the government changed those rules. Then they reniged on grandfathering people like me in the system.

If I were 50 it would be easy to solve - retirement visa.

Take your head from the orifice you have it screwed into and try thinking with it.

[click2delete]

I think it is easier now to get a visa based on marriage.

If you have been using the 400K in the bank route you are still OK - Grandfathered.

If you are uisng the 40K a month income, you can now send the wife out to work as well.

In fact you can be a "kept man" and be OK.

In the old days it was hubby only, who had to provide the income.

Ah, it must be wonderful to read through 23 pages of information and get it completely wrong.

The whole thread is about the grandfather clause - it is no more after Oct 1. NO MORE.

No grandfather clause for me in 2008 but I can use it next month. After that it is gone. Gone for me, you and anyone else who was relying on it.

Gone.

Want me to be clearer?

It's $#*#$*$*$* GONE!

[astral]

The whole thread is about the grandfather clause - it is no more after Oct 1. NO MORE.

I have yet to see this confirmed by Suan Plu.

Where did you get your info?

The captain at the Pattaya office?

[wolfmanjack]

wolfmanjack- My girlfriend got her 10-year multiple entry two years ago. We had to go to the US embassy in Bangkok because there's no place where we live. They are difficult but not impossible to get. Very much a case by case basis.

Dr. Naam is correct. No guarantee re any attempt to enter, and very difficult to treat the thing like a visa run device. Frankly, was shocked to read the well to do Thai you know has apparently done that for most of her ten year period (you didn't say she's done it the whole ten years, I'm guessing that part). Did she have any legitimate special circumstances? That would be my guess, rather than connections or money, but no way to know for sure of course.

I also believe it's relatively difficult to get in to the US with twenty thousand dollars are so and some kind of vague plan to open a business. Don't do immigration law, but believe it's much tougher than doing the same thing in Thailand.

Yes she has been doing it for 10 years. She started out with a student visa then switched to a 10 year tourist visa. She works at her uncles thai food restaurant and attends school for her masters degree off and on but mostly off. The connections may have something to do with it i do not know. I do know that her uncle married an American citizen, got permanent residence then divorced. At one point in time this girl and her 2 brothers were all working at the restaurant. Only one of the 3 finished the masters degree but it took him 4 years to do so.

I agree that you would not get a visa if you told them that you had plans of opening a business and staying. We are comparing thailand to the USA so we need to keep the amounts of money in perspective. What i did say was that a wealthy thai, with 160 times the average monthly salary in the USA in a savings account the same as 20,000 dollars would be to thailand, would not have much problem getting a tourist visa to the USA. Once in the USA they could marry a USA citizen and change their status to temporary resident then to permanent resident then to citizen. All of this is much easier done in the USA than thailand.

[GuestHouse]

So at which level does it become outrageous for you?

At the level which you personally are no longer able to afford?

Yes, that would be one definition of 'outrageous' and I suspect outrageous to a lot more people than just myself.

But get back to the ‘actual pitiful’ sums that Thailand requires foreigners to have in order to meet the minimum financial requirements for a visa.

They are reasonable minimum financial requirements to demonstrate the ability to meet minimum needs of keeping yourself, provide yourself with a home, and luxuries like health care.

It is not at all unreasonable for Thailand to set these limits, the limit are extremely reasonable and have not changed in real terms for years.

The bottom line is if you can’t meet the minimum requirements you may well become a burden on the Thai government, so hats off to the Thai government for taking measure to ensure that you do not

[click2delete]

The whole thread is about the grandfather clause - it is no more after Oct 1. NO MORE.

I have yet to see this confirmed by Suan Plu.

Where did you get your info?

The captain at the Pattaya office?

Yes.

and it was confirmed by Bangkok - why don't you read my post in the Visa section of Thai Visa.

My information comes directly from the man in charge of Suan Plu. Read my post.

[Maigo6]

JRTexas to Maigo6: Can you think of one single tragic event in history where the victims do not have themselves to blame? Just curious given that your posts seem to always flow from the belief that "the individual is the only person responsible for any negative event."

JR, the persecution of the Jews by The Nazi's can not really be compared with the visa status of Farangs in Thailand can it?

The Farangs have a choice in Thailand, they have passports enabling them to travel to other countries where they are treated better, the vast majority of Thai people don't have that luxury.

And to those that have left, good luck to them, I would certainly leave Thailand if I thought my life would be better elsewhere.

[rafval]

I dont get this does thailand want us idea, are you talking about the dictatorship, country folk, middleclass or what? maybe you mean the 800 that were arrested yesterday for interagation?

[GuestHouse]

Future whinging in the making

It's not like there is an end to this whinging that the Thais want us to be able to keep ourselves - Those Nasty Thais!

There's a whole bunch of foreingers in Thailand kidding themselves that these rules don't apply, just because they haven't been strictly enforced in the past.

So if you're a young(ish) bloke living in Thailand or giving up large parts of your working year to be in Thailand and you are not stashing the cash to meet your future retirement savings and income requirements NOW, these rules will bite you when you want to retire.

This IS going to happen to significant numbers of people and when it does they'll whinge that the rules are not fair.

Where do people get this whole 'entitlement thing' from?

[qwertz]

Future whinging in the making

It's not like there is an end to this whinging that the Thais want us to be able to keep ourselves - Those Nasty Thais!

There's a whole bunch of foreingers in Thailand kidding themselves that these rules don't apply, just because they haven't been strictly enforced in the past.

So if you're a young(ish) bloke living in Thailand or giving up large parts of your working year to be in Thailand and you are not stashing the cash to meet your future retirement savings and income requirements NOW, these rules will bite you when you want to retire.

This IS going to happen to significant numbers of people and when it does they'll whinge that the rules are not fair.

Where do people get this whole 'entitlement thing' from?

I think it's a flashback to their former safe lives, GH. The Thais are naturally attuned to a life without long term aims where little can be taken for granted. Most of the rules and requirements being discussed here are simply not relevant to them and only become relevant perhaps if they marry farangs. We farangs, on the other hand, are unpleasantly surprised when the rules become barriers to our aims. Then we start to cry "Foul". You can have the best of both worlds with a little forward planning but who in their right mind attaches credibility to politicians' assurances in any land?

[jumnien]

I think most of us will be getting our visa information from more reliable sources than the eyes clouded with anger OP. Remember a year ago when the visa reg changes were supposed to cause this mass exodus? My town has been inundated with new residents since then, and so it goes. There's quite a history of "henny penny the sky is falling" delusions over the years amongst the more confused in the farang population.

[shochu]

ColPyat,

Your last post seems quite on the money.

I hope BAF is not one of these guys (back in the 90's who thought that computer science was the IT thing) who now think that nursing is the right thing - WELL - just until the boomers start to really start retiring in numbers and they open the floodgates to al the training nurses in india, china, and such.

BAF, I think if you really are well off - then you would really enjoy thailand - or any country for that matter. Oh, by the way - the U.S. has bad schools, and is among one of the most dangerous countries in the world - IF - you don't live in a good (read - EXpensive) neighborhood. Hope you have the bucks to live the good life in the states. MY salary there - 1/3 for rent, 1/3 living expenses, 1/3 tax. I was lucky if I could save 500 bucks on a very good salary - the bonuses made all the difference.

Go to the wrong neigborhood by chance and you may never get out. Welcome to K.F.C. with bullet proof barriers like they have in all the banks.

O.P.

One makes his bed - AND - thus has to sleep in it.

I find the rules according to LOS more than acceptable and have no problems with them. I have never had problems here. Whenever I need some help - whether at the bank, immigration, whoever - it has been good.

Too often - people who say they have no money problems - HAVE - money problems. Retiring is a luxury - only to those who have earned it. If you thought you could scrape by on minimum - then you only have yourself to blame. And then going off on a rant about how thais' are this and that - is just pathetic.

If you really do not have money problems - then you would have no problems in LOS either.

[ColPyat]

The Thais are naturally attuned to a life without long term aims where little can be taken for granted. Most of the rules and requirements being discussed here are simply not relevant to them and only become relevant perhaps if they marry farangs.

Not really.

Thais have long term aims, but there are a whole set of rules relevant to them, that make their life very difficult. In many cases even more difficult to evade than the rules designed to make our live difficult.

[BAF]

So at which level does it become outrageous for you?

At the level which you personally are no longer able to afford?

Yes, that would be one definition of 'outrageous' and I suspect outrageous to a lot more people than just myself.

So you are nothing more than another one of those "setting the standards" on themselves...

Under this "logic" all it takes to make you a worthless and unwanted "low quality" farang wannabe scum resident is a richer (than you) farang with your same mindset who sets the standards to suit his wealth.

Pathetically stupid.

But get back to the ‘actual pitiful’ sums that Thailand requires foreigners to have in order to meet the minimum financial requirements for a visa.

They are reasonable minimum financial requirements to demonstrate the ability to meet minimum needs of keeping yourself, provide yourself with a home, and luxuries like health care.

It is not at all unreasonable for Thailand to set these limits, the limit are extremely reasonable and have not changed in real terms for years.

So the "extremely reasonable" situation is that foreigners are REQUIRED to provide to themselves the luxuries which the vast majority of Thai population admittedly CANNOT provide to themselves... and the state wouldn't provide to foreigners anyway.

BTW, I have more than 1 million Euro worth of properties in Italy (from which I get rental income) plus about € 350000 in cash and short term investments and my monthly disposable income is several times 40k Baht BUT AFAIK rental and investments incomes AREN'T acceptable income for the NON IMM "O" requirements...

Why? They want you out.

Where has gone the "investment visa", by definition designed to attract wealthier and more desiderable types?

Have they upped the requirements? 5 million, 10 million baht? NO, THEY HAVE SCRAPPED IT.

Why? They want you out.

The bottom line is if you can’t meet the minimum requirements you may well become a burden on the Thai government, so hats off to the Thai government for taking measure to ensure that you do not

What do you think Thailand is, GuestHouse, a 1st world caring and undiscriminating social welfare state?!?

It's a 3rd world cesspool with more than half its pop still at little more than subsistance farming level, it's a country which (being optimistic and with acid drugs help) provide VERY FEW social security type of services for its citizens (AND NONE FOR FOREIGNERS) and has VERY FEW safety nets available to its citizens (AND NONE TO FOREIGNERS).

I can see it now what the Thai govt is really scared of: endless hoards of skint foreigners living on the (non-existent) Thai dole and claiming (non-existent) Thai free housing, schooling, healtlh care like the Thais actually do where they are granted them: IN OUR HOME COUNTRIES.

Are we talking about the same country GuestHouse?

[BAF]

I think most of us will be getting our visa information from more reliable sources than the eyes clouded with anger OP. Remember a year ago when the visa reg changes were supposed to cause this mass exodus? My town has been inundated with new residents since then, and so it goes. There's quite a history of "henny penny the sky is falling" delusions over the years amongst the more confused in the farang population.

I thought we had already touched on that "resident" thing mdeland...

Or are all of them that "one day at a time at most" kind of folk of yours who just like to call themselves "residents" for a laugh..?

All of them, you included (and you before many other of them actually, from what you have told us...) could be gone at the next monthly or three monthly or annual begging for a visa.

[ColPyat]

BTW, I have more than 1 million Euro worth of properties in Italy (from which I get rental income) plus about € 350000 in cash and short term investments and my monthly disposable income is several times 40k Baht BUT AFAIK rental and investments incomes AREN'T acceptable income for the NON IMM "O" requirements...

Why? They want you out.

Too much money and not enough brains.

Such assets and income open ways and opportunities here that most people don't have. Don't blame Thailand for not using them.

But maybe you expected things to be as they are in a western European welfare state, but they aren't. I wonder though why you came here in the first place, oh, no, sorry, i forgot - the cheap booze, available pussy, while avoiding the traps of marriage.

Nobody said that Thailand is a paradise, but maybe that is what you expected. Yes, Thailand is a developing nation with huge problems. The smallest of them though are wealthy westerners not being able to use their brains and money to set themselves up here properly.

[jumnien]

16M baht income per year, 70 rai in Prachuab, 4 condos, high net worth, 2 airplanes, 2 cars - I don't see why people think I'll be going anytime soon. I said I don't have a job, I do generate a lot of income. That said I'm ready to go if they'd prefer it and take my family with me. My soul is very happy here. Out of 200 or so countries I choose to live in Thailand - I love the people and love the culture and think it's an ideal place to raise a child. There are 199 or so other countries to choose from if circumstances warrant it.

[qualtrough]

BTW, I have more than 1 million Euro worth of properties in Italy (from which I get rental income) plus about € 350000 in cash and short term investments and my monthly disposable income is several times 40k Baht BUT AFAIK rental and investments incomes AREN'T acceptable income for the NON IMM "O" requirements...

If you have all that money and you still can't figure out a way to live here easily and comfortably then I have to assume you inherited the money since you clearly don't have the brains to have earned it. Actually, I don't believe you have anything like that amount of money, since the rest of your story doesn't make much sense either.