Why this cynicism against Thailand?

[thaibeachlovers]

also I am all for buck toothed uneducated issan girls. especially if they are fit and think i am handsome

Many people in Thailand are not well educated because they were too poor, so shouldn't be criticised for that, and did they teach sex in your schools? That's all they have to be good at to make more money than an "educated" girl working in a 7/11.

[thaibeachlovers]

Since the richest 1% possess over 50% of the wealth, it doesn't seem fair that they only pay 30% of the taxes.

As far as pushing them as far as we can? Not even close. That's what they want you to think.

Well, you have to - and I should have - draw a clear distinction between income and wealth. Most tax isn't paid out of wealth, and if it was we'd run out of money very quickly and set up a whole load of bad incentives.

If I own wealth - a house, shares, bank deposits - I get a return. The return on cash is 0.8%, on bonds 1.2% and shares 5.1%, in the long run. So if you want to take all of the benefit - all of the advantage - of owning one trillion pounds you'd get 8bn, or about a fourteen of the in-work benefits bill. Taking a trillion pounds worth of shares is more problematic - if people know you will just take things they won't buy your companies, will they?

Now we can have wealth taxes, but most people think that we should encourage people to save and invest. We have a productivity crisis caused by under-investment. The high-earners and the wealthy are often the same people, so if we start hitting wealth hard we might lose high-earners. When you lose a high-earner you lose all the tax they pay. So if you raise the tax rate from 45% to 50%, you only need one high earner in nine or ten to leave to take away all the benefit: you gain nothing.

But, as I say, most people don't want to think, don't understand the importance of the long-run, don't think that behaviour changes depending on the rules, don't think much about why apparently similar nations can be in very different economic circumstances.....

Which takes me back to my first point. In terms of economic resources and human capital there's no good reason why the Japanese should be four times wealthier than the Thais. It's the rules that make the difference. Most people will never understand what makes some rules good one, but that doesn't matter as long as they obey them. If they don't then they'll elect Jeremy Corbyn, because he has all the answers, doesn't he?

To have good rules, you need good politicians and there aren't any. Subprime look good to you now?

IMO the reason people don't save anymore is a/ because they are ignorant and want everything NOW, b/ because there is such a low interest rate on savings ( almost 0% in some countries ) and c/ because the political obsession with inflation is eroding the value of money too fast, so you might as well spend it. Had I saved every penny of my 8 pounds 10 shillings wages back in 1967 what could I buy with it today?

You don't need good politicians, you need a system that will catch, remove, modify or remove the mistakes.

This needs several layers of checks and balances, not power sitting in the hands of a few.

That will never happen, and doesn't happen anywhere. To do so would be to admit that politicians make mistakes. Most of the laws we live under are very bad pieces of legislation.

[VIPinthailand]

how much I need to have to be considered in the 1%?

[JLCrab]

how much I need to have to be considered in the 1%?

Based upon Forbes (low end) and others, in the USA, one would need to have $US 1.5 to 5 million in liquid assets to be in the top 1% bracket.

[pomchop]

As the Thais so love to say, "up to you".

If you choose to dwell on the negative things you see everyday in Thailand you will very likely end up finding plenty of negatives to whine about and be a miserbale grumpy guy..

If you choose to dwell on the positive and funny things you see everyday in Thailand you will likely find that the negatives don't get you down very much as you'll nearly always be laughing at something you see or experience.

Up to you.

[JLCrab]

As the Thais so love to say, "up to you".

If you choose to dwell on the negative things you see everyday in Thailand you will very likely end up finding plenty of negatives to whine about and be a miserbale grumpy guy..

If you choose to dwell on the positive and funny things you see everyday in Thailand you will likely find that the negatives don't get you down very much as you'll nearly always be laughing at something you see or experience.

Up to you.

... and if you see as few things as possible everyday in Thailand you won't have to dwell on either.

[thaibeachlovers]

As the Thais so love to say, "up to you".

If you choose to dwell on the negative things you see everyday in Thailand you will very likely end up finding plenty of negatives to whine about and be a miserbale grumpy guy..

If you choose to dwell on the positive and funny things you see everyday in Thailand you will likely find that the negatives don't get you down very much as you'll nearly always be laughing at something you see or experience.

Up to you.

Nice attitude, BUT.

If I go outside on the broken roads, the negative is in my face as long as I'm outside the house.

If I watch tv, the negative news and the hundreds of people being killed every day in the B movies that WETV shows us make me grumpy.

I guess I could stay in bed all day, but I'd get very fat and that would make me even more grumpy.