things that thailand does well

[Tomtomtom69]

- Having a society that doesn't judge or look down on gays, transsexuals, lesbians, etc.

- Gender equality

- Little to no tax at all

- You can live a life where the only expense is utility and food..

- Internet is second fastest in South East Asia. No data caps. Prices are fair.

- 7-Eleven

- McDonalds [delivery], Starbucks, Burgerking, Dunkin' Donuts, Sizzler, and many more.

- College tuition fees are not a scam.

- Student loans have fair interest rates.

- Unemployment rate is very low.

I don't know where you get the "little or no tax" from.

VAT is higher than in Malaysia.

Excise duty is higher than Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.

Income tax is higher than in Malaysia.

Perhaps you meant Thailand is good at failing to collect the tax that is due.

SC

Correct - especially if you are referring to personal income taxes. Thailand is however particularly good at collecting taxes on all sorts of consumer goods, particularly imported ones. However, it's equally good at turning a blind eye to goods smuggled across the border, particularly it's land borders with neighboring countries.

And as far as unemployment is low is concerned - ha! Under Thai definitions of being "employed", one needs to work for only 1 hour a month I think it is, to be considered employed. According to a recent article from Forbes I think it was, 64% of all Thais work in the informal sector, such as selling noodles on the streets or clothing in a market, driving a motorcycle taxi etc. not that those aren't somewhat respectable positions in their own right, but they can hardly be classified as being "employed" under the international definition. Also, nearly all houses in my moo baan has at least one middle aged person sitting at home during the day not gainfully employed by a company, however that could be because they aren't actively looking for work thus not counted as being unemployed, and likely they choose to stay home, caring for the household and the kids rather than having been retrenched.

[HooHaa]

- Having a society that doesn't judge or look down on gays, transsexuals, lesbians, etc.

- Gender equality

- Little to no tax at all

- You can live a life where the only expense is utility and food..

- Internet is second fastest in South East Asia. No data caps. Prices are fair.

- 7-Eleven

- McDonalds [delivery], Starbucks, Burgerking, Dunkin' Donuts, Sizzler, and many more.

- College tuition fees are not a scam.

- Student loans have fair interest rates.

- Unemployment rate is very low.

while i believe this is a genuine attempt at finding positives, i think it is quite mistaken.

gays are indeed tolerated, but there is still a fair amount of condescension if not outright negativity towards them.

gender equality has a very long way to go, women make less, have less chance at serious promotion (glass ceiling) and attitudes towards rape need serious revision.

taxes are quite high here, especially once your income climbs over a couple million per year. corporate taxes are painful.

internet is great, especially in the capital, but sporadic elsewhere.

7-11 is in so many countries its damn near universal

the last ones may well be true, but perhaps at the cost of a universally competitive education.

unemployment may be low, but so in many cases are what can only be considered subsistence wages with little to no social assistance.

i very much enjoy my life and the freedoms i enjoy here, but my financial position allows me to dictate my own terms. house in bangkok, house at the beach.

id be hard pressed to leave.

What a knob . Could you be any more negative at the same time as building yourself up ? Classic case of small d... Syndrome ! Thought the guy had made some valid points but Miss Debbie Downer here lashed all over his bonfire . Must be good to be a pretend millionaire (baht)

sorry i have offended you, i was just commenting according to my own experience.

[BuaBS]

So much Thailand does do right.
No nanny/police state , not much social security.
Low taxes compared to the west (except for imported stuff ) . Low energy prices , low taxes on fuel , sometimes subsidizes them (dieselfund).
Trafic laws are mostly optional , the biggest on the big road always has right of way.
Pedestrians are kept in the right place : LAST. Police are relaxed about enforcement and nearly absent at night. Much more freedom than in the west.
Thailand does not squeeze you like a lemon for owning a vehicle and using it. Thailand doesn't look at trafic laws as a way to repress & tax people ( well , again not like in the west). Trafic implementation is great. I like the seconds counting at traffic lights , the free left turn at intersections , easy U turns. No stopping for pedestrian crossings. Park your car or bike wherever you want . ( except for the big cities).
Practically no camera's ,( well nothing like the over a million street cams like in the UK). No speedcams except for a few mobel ones. Left driving is better and Thailand sticks to it even with ASIAN coming.
Thailand is more rigid about illegal immigrants ( only if you can profit from them it is ok , rest of them out) Takes much more of a stance against moslims , instead of inviting them in and give them free housing and money like in the west.
Thai army has the balls to intervene when polititians are way out of line , again.
No repression against black/grey economy. Thailand is still for most people a cash based society , with barely capital controles. Thailand still has its own currency and a far lower debt than the socialist states in the EU & US. People don't get flagged when taking out money out of the banks.

Thailand is not a vasal of the US like the euro's. Thailand doesn't demonize Russia & China.

It's easy to find things that Thailand does well , just look at what you hate about your country and compare it to Thailand. Most of the time Thailand will be better.

[arunsakda]

Thai food.

[redandyellow]

They breed 'em good, spoil 'em - they end up jai dee - most of 'em anyways..

On the take? Nope.

[redandyellow]

T.T.T.T.

"Thailand Transparently Tolerates Transvestites"

Especially in the BKK clothing industry.

Has anyone else ever noticed this?

[LarryBird]

Not swallowing.

[Tomtomtom69]

So much Thailand does do right.

No nanny/police state , not much social security.

Low taxes compared to the west (except for imported stuff ) . Low energy prices , low taxes on fuel , sometimes subsidizes them (dieselfund).

Trafic laws are mostly optional , the biggest on the big road always has right of way.

Pedestrians are kept in the right place : LAST. Police are relaxed about enforcement and nearly absent at night. Much more freedom than in the west.

Thailand does not squeeze you like a lemon for owning a vehicle and using it. Thailand doesn't look at trafic laws as a way to repress & tax people ( well , again not like in the west). Trafic implementation is great. I like the seconds counting at traffic lights , the free left turn at intersections , easy U turns. No stopping for pedestrian crossings. Park your car or bike wherever you want . ( except for the big cities).

Practically no camera's ,( well nothing like the over a million street cams like in the UK). No speedcams except for a few mobel ones. Left driving is better and Thailand sticks to it even with ASIAN coming.

Thailand is more rigid about illegal immigrants ( only if you can profit from them it is ok , rest of them out) Takes much more of a stance against moslims , instead of inviting them in and give them free housing and money like in the west.

Thai army has the balls to intervene when polititians are way out of line , again.

No repression against black/grey economy. Thailand is still for most people a cash based society , with barely capital controles. Thailand still has its own currency and a far lower debt than the socialist states in the EU & US. People don't get flagged when taking out money out of the banks.

Thailand is not a vasal of the US like the euro's. Thailand doesn't demonize Russia & China.

It's easy to find things that Thailand does well , just look at what you hate about your country and compare it to Thailand. Most of the time Thailand will be better.

Thailand is a selective "nanny state" because it does have quite a lot of restrictions on smoking and alcohol advertising, promotion and regulations, though I think this is a good thing. It also has certain internet and media restrictions as well as restrictions on free speech, some of which are governed by a "moral code".

Low taxes? I don't think so! Personal income taxes are proportional to most western countries, even higher than some. Consumption taxes are high. In fact, not just for imported goods, which have exceptionally high taxes applied, but even for certain types of locally produced goods. The price of new cars in Thailand (and I'm talking about locally manufactured ones here) continues to creep up and up. For example, latest Hilux Revo 4x4 top model manual = 1.069 million Baht. Previous model? Under 1 million Baht. A few years ago? Barely 900,000 Baht. Taxes on fuel are not that low - they are higher than neighboring countries and certainly higher than the USA. Fuel prices are similar to Australia (occasionally a bit lower, especially for diesel, but they are no longer subsidized to the extent they were prior to 2004, for example). Also, diesel isn't the cheapest type of fuel anymore, E85 is cheaper.

Thailand is indeed very weak on enforcement of road traffic laws. Vietnam is much stronger in this respect, yet it's a much poorer country. Go figure?

As if Thailand was ever considering changing to driving on the right for ASEAN, what a croc. You must be referring to the April Fool's Day joke from April 1, 2013 here on Thaivisa and you actually believed it. Of course it will never change. Can you imagine the incredible difficulty such a stupid and futile thing would do to a country like Thailand? Just the logistics, the driver re-training, driving on the right with RHD, all of that would be mind bogglingly difficult to implement. And then of course the thousands of unnecessary deaths during the long transition phase all so 3 Lao drivers don't have to lean into their passenger seat when they're overtaking when in Thailand? Absurd. The more advanced countries in ASEAN all drive on the left (Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) and apart from Singapore these are the 3 main countries that manufacture vehicles for the ASEAN market. The only other one with any production capacity is the Philippines (which drives on the right) but their yearly output is tiny compared to any of these 3 countries. If anything, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam should switch to driving on the left as they have far less infrastructure to convert than Thailand, far fewer vehicles (although Vietnam has a lot of scooters and motorcycles, but they don't require switching a steering wheel from one side of the vehicle to the other like a car does) and generally speaking, in particular Vietnam and Myanmar also have stricter enforcement of road rules than Thailand hence it wouldn't be as difficult for them to switch as it would be for Thailand. BUT since very, very few vehicles cross borders in this part of the world (unlike in Europe) AND the current system seems to work just fine (for example, I'm going to be driving my RHD Thai vehicle to right-hand driving Laos tomorrow, like I've done 3 times already this year) there would be absolutely no reason to change something that works perfectly well already. Even in Myanmar, most vehicles are still RHD despite them driving on the right and that seems to work for them.

Edit: Better road infrastructure in the poorer countries like Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam would help and is probably all that will be necessary to allow more vehicles to cross the borders and drive safely in ASEAN member states. This means converting major roads to 4-lane roads in these countries, currently an excruiatingly slow progress. That alone would greatly increase safety thus negating any potential vision restrictions that one normally encounters when driving a vehicle with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the road to the norm in a particular country, on a 2-lane road. Thailand already has the infrastructure to cope with foreign drivers - most main roads all the way from the borders to Bangkok are dual carriageway, now it's time for these other countries to lift their game.

Thailand is home to many thousands of illegal immigrants and is finding it hard to cope. Everytime there is some kind of skirmish across the border in Myanmar, they come and take refuge on the Thai side. Thailand has over the years provided refuge to these people and treated them reasonably well. More recent press hasn't been good, especially the treatment of Rohingya refugees (often referred to incorrectly as migrants, but as people fleeing their homelands, the correct terminology is refugees or asylum seekers - migrants are those people that have been granted residency by another country not those in transition) who hail from western Myanmar's Rakhine state near the Bangladeshi border or even Bangladesh itself. These people have often been pushed back out to sea, but Thailand is hardly the only country that does such things. It doesn't have the resources to settle large numbers of such people - a small, managed number that can be provided work as labourers in industries where there is a labour shortage such as fishing or construction, perhaps yes, but thousands upon thousands - no.

Most of southern Thailand is traditionally Muslim so you can't say that Muslims in Thailand are newcomers. The Muslim population here is growing, due to higher birthrates compared to the indigenous Buddhist and other non-Muslim populations but the vast majority of Muslims in Thailand are either ethnic Malay or ethnic Thai, not foreigners from some other country. Most Muslims get along very well with their non-Muslim counterparts in most parts of the country, but the south (and that includes all provinces as far north as southern Ranong and Surat Thani provinces) are overwhelmingly Muslim and conservative. Mosques in Bangkok even have an audible call to prayer, not just the south. In some ways the authorities here are kowtowing to the wishes of the increasing Muslims population in order to preserve harmony but as long as there's no conflict everyone gets along. The violence in the south is an entirely different matter with lots of complex issues. Let's not go there now.

The Thai military has always had the power to intervene when the shit hits the fan.

This is a summary of some of the points you raised. Despite some of the bleakness Thailand isn't half bad in many respects. But one shouldn't be in denial about certain things - life here is certainly not as cheap or rosy as many expats think it is. And equally it's not a utopia compared to the west either.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Tomtomtom69

[BuaBS]

WOW dude. I just stated a selection of the things I thought Thailand does well like the OP requested.

I think you don't get my post .

[SantiSuk]

Globally recognized, banana republic quality, third world buffoons. As per canman's post.

I'm rich and old and have thousands of women at my beck and call. The weather is wonderful. My yard is full of flowering trees and sweet smelling plants. My dog loves me and is my best friend. I just received a big increase in my pension and money is rolling in so fast it is hard to keep track of it all.

In the past couple of weeks I have learned so much on Thai Visa that has improved the quality of my life it is hard to thank them enough.

Life is good; Thailand is wonderful and all is right with the world.

Could have written that myself. Must get a dog though!

[geronimo]

Thais are good at living for the moment and also not concerning themselves with things that they cannot change.

[BKResort]

Giving the opportunity to the poorest people to live with dignity, supporting small business without licenses, fees, restrictions, inspections, harrasment, etc, etc...I know many Thai people making a decent and honest living selling goods on streets and street markets. That may be the reason why not many Thais sleeps on the streets or beg for help, or live in extreme misery and hunger, like in many other "3rd world" countries...and some of the western wealthy "democracies".

[BKResort]

Thais are good at living for the moment and also not concerning themselves with things that they cannot change.

Very true...Unfortunately I still very "westernized"..and always worry about the past and the future.

Some day,,,even too late...I will change...I keep learning from Thais....My wife and her family are very good teachers............

Edited July 18, 2015 by BKResort

[Tomtomtom69]

WOW dude. I just stated a selection of the things I thought Thailand does well like the OP requested.

I think you don't get my post .

There are plenty of things Thailand does well, but you were mostly wrong on your choices. That's why I refuted most of them. You were right on enforcement of road rules etc., which we all know are a complete joke here in Thailand, but unfortunately not so much on the other items. Good try anyway.

[AZBill]

Lots of positives especially if you are just visiting but the food ranks at the top for me!i also enjoy the way family and friends share and enjoy meals together. This is something that has been lost here in the U.S.

[LarryBird]

I've found Thai's are creepily good at knowing what kind of mood you are in.

[NoshowJones]

Giving the bosses of Immigration offices and Banks etc, the authority to make up their own rules.

[VIPinthailand]

I like the cheap hotels in Thailand, you can have a good room with a c and hot shower plus a little balcony and a fridge with 2 free bottles of water for 400 bahts.

for the poor Thai, it s expensive... it will cost him 1. 5 day of work but for a farang it s a good price. in Europe I rarely go to an hotel. in the USA, same hotel would cost me between 50 and 100$ I think and they are not so good.

Edited July 24, 2015 by VIPinthailand

[slipperylobster]

Nose picking

[arunsakda]

Foot shufflin'

[Ace of Pop]

Pissing people of at Immigration.