Thais With Wads Of Cash

[barsie]

I know a businessman who prefers to pay for day to day expenses in cash- he'll never have less that £10k in his pocket.

[Peterbigeyes]

I wrap my lifesavings in newspaper and put them in the freezer under my stash of tiger prawns and catfish.

[jackr]

As somebody already said, Thailand is more of a cash society whereas North America is a credit card society. I seldom have very much cash in Canada and purchase everything by credit card.

... whereas THE WEST is more of a... btw, where/what is Canada?

[dmax]

whats wrong with that, are you really that small minded to think that all thai,s are poor? just take a look around u and see the fotuna,s and pickups theyre driving, i couldnt afford to drive one in uk.

[IanForbes]

With all that cash being moved on a daily basis I think Thailand needs a few Dillingers and Bonnie and Clydes. Robbing a North American bank these days is no longer worth it. Hardly any cash available.

[elliss]

Think the OP is just jealous.....A Thai having more cash in hand than the average farang..

thai,s with many money ,

is not good for the superior farang image .

lets not forget , thailand is still refered to as a third world country .

and long may it stay that way . :jap:

[pitrevie]

Several years ago I was in a bank and this guy wearing a rather large overcoat with numerous inside pockets was busy filling them with wads of cash. I guess wearing the overcoat was meant to make him look inconspicuous. However I also noticed he was accompanied by a couple of rather large menacing looking gentlemen. It was apparent that I was the only one who thought this looked a bit odd, having lived here several years since I now realize it was anything but.

[Spee]

I wonder when Thailand will create a 5k baht note. I think there is need for it.

There are two reasons for having smallish notes (e.g., $100 USD 1000ThB, etc.), fighting counterfeiters and drug smugglers.

We law abiding types would welcome larger notes, but so would the bad guys.

As for the cash carryers, the only people in Thailand with issues are those who flash it in public places where they shouldn't.

[wintermute]

Most asian societies are cash societies. I know that when they have a lot of money laying around they usually put it into property (foreign and domestic) or things like gold. The savings rate is also much higher in asia as well. Whereas the western world has spent itself into a revolving door of debt asia is still economically looking good right now.

Which is better in the long run? I still think the system in asia is superior for future considerations.

Edited September 14, 2010 by wintermute

[bkk_mike]

Reason 1:

There's no law in Thailand saying that you can't charge someone extra for using a credit card. (like in the west) - so obviously credit cards aren't as useful here.

Reason 2:

Even in some places in the West, it's actually simpler/faster to take out cash from one bank and walk around the corner to deposit it in another.

i.e. I've done that in London, where doing an internet transfer of cleared funds takes (for some unexplained reason) 2-3 days, but you can walk into the bank, take out the cash, and walk round the corner into a branch of the bank with the bank account you want to credit, and pay in the cash, and you bypass the whole 3 day wait. (and with the amount of cameras in the City, you're pretty safe).

In Thailand, I've done the same thing - taking money out of Bangkok Bank (where I have a bank account), and walking along to Siam Commercial Bank to pay the kid's school fees. Simply because paying the school's SCB bank account from Bangkok Bank would cost money whereas it's free to get out cash, and free to pay in cash to the school's account at SCB.

[Lancelot]

Think the OP is just jealous.....A Thai having more cash in hand than the average farang..

Actually, Thailand has many wealthy citizens that have tons of cash-and more than the average farang