retsdon

"My house/ apartment/ car is in my wife's/girlfriend's name" Correction: Your wife's/ girlfriend's house/apartment/car is in her own name.

When your growth model is based on the availability of cheap labour it stands to reason that growth is going to falter when the labour stops being cheap. It's hardly rocket science.

Yesterday, after 3 days of 400+pmi readings, the wind blew and here in Chiang Rai the PMI readings dropped to 160. Overnight the wind dropped to nothing and the PMI readings this morning were back up to 400+. Is this because the smoke is being carried in over the borders? I don't think so!

These days pretty much nobody cuts by hand. All the farmers use contractors with a combine to cut their crop. And this has made the problem worse because the contractors, to save wear on their machinery, cut as little of the straw as they can get away with. The result is that the farmers are left with stubble over a foot high which is impossible to plough down. So they are almost forced to burn it off. The fix isn't difficult. Just make it a law for that rice stubbles must be chopped and mulched and provide grants to cover the cost. And if it adds a few baht to the cost of a ton of rice - so what? In the meantime, introduce an educational program to encourage and promote no till cropping. It's not rocket science. All that's needed is the will.

It was almost inevitable that the breakup of the Soviet Union would be the catalyst for conflict because that's what always happens when empires die. WW1 was sparked by the breakdown of the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Vietnam war by the decline of French power in Indochina, the Biafran war, the Rhodesian war, multiple Indo-Pakistan wars, etc, etc, following British withdrawal, not to mention all the Middle Eastern conflicts stemming from the Sykes-Picot agreement and its arbitrarily drawn borders. Why would the breakup of the Soviet Union be any different, especially in regions and countries that had gone centuries as part of the Romanov empire before the Soviets. Knowing all this, political issues and divisions among post Soviet states should have been handled with kid gloves diplomatically. Instead, the opposite happened. And now there's war.

Good luck promoting tourism with visibility down to to 300 meters on account of the smoke. 'Oh look, there's a Viewpoint. Let's stop and look at the view!' 2 minutes later... 'Cough!Cough! What view? Where!?'

Never mind the tourist industry, what about the health of the people who live here? My eldest gets asthma and every year he's subjected to what amounts to low level torture for three months because the government is too feckless to crack down on the national pastime of pyromania and to educate people on alternative planting and cropping methodology. It could be done easily but would require a bit of organization and a properly thought out plan. But no. Every year, half the country has to go through this nonsense. The annual pollution is not an Act of God like rainfall or drought, it's an easily fixable man made problem.

Having a contract and having the means to enforce it are two different things.

Years ago I worked in a law firm that had a big trade union as one of our clients. Nearly all the work involved negotiating with insurance companies who were basically trying to wriggle out of their liability to pay accident and personal injury insurance on behalf of their insuree (the workers' employer). These insurance companies would deny all liability as a matter of course, and every time we'd have to go through this tedious rigamrole of multiple meetings in which they'd try to gyppo some poor sod out of compensation for having lost his leg or whatever, before eventually with a County Court action pending they'd roll over and pay. They had no compassion whatsoever and if the union hadn't been there to back their members with the money for legal bills, these injured people would have got nothing. Never been a fan of insurance companies since....

The keys to effective fencing are 1) a good earth - 3 connected copper earth rods should be fine, and b) good insulation. If your fence is permanent or you leave it in situ for a long time keep an eye on vegetation growing up and shorting it out. Get 1 and 2 right, and any fencer will do the job. Get them wrong...

One problem is that drunk people don't realize how loud they actually are. I've shocked myself a few times pressing a switch the next morning and getting almost deafened. And yet the night before it hadn't sounded loud at all...

You mean it's the middle path?

No planning laws and unimaginative concrete architecture mean that - generally speaking -Thailand is a pretty grubby place. It sometimes has a kind of unique charm about it at times, but a high-end holiday destination it most definitely isn't, and never will be. As for families, forget it. Kids on holiday want to DO things, and Thailand isn't a venue that caters well for kids -as any parent here will tell you. Better to stick to the formula that works.

Thai children still learn using the same rubbishy materials that their parents, and probably their grandparents, used. They are still taught using a talk-and-chalk methodology that, in the rest of the world, became obsolete 40 years ago. By any measure of learning,Thai children consistently lag their peers in poorer Asian countries. And compared to children in the developed world.... But nobody in the Thai government cares less. As long as the education budget is there to be pilfered wholesale, it's doing its job. The whole edifice from top to bottom is rotten to the core.

If I had more money, I wouldn't be here!!

The industry already pretty much destroyed itself. If you want a case study in self-destructive short-term greed, look no further than the Thai tourist industry over the last 2 decades.

In Thailand, if for whatever reason you're in the frame you're for the high jump.The facts will fit the case. That's just how it works.

This campaign is like the alcoholic who says he's going to address his disease by watering down his scotch. Thailand society is built on corruption and nepotism. They're the pillars that everything else stands on - and nothing will change that short of complete and all encompassing revolution.

'discovered? Not really. It's all been in plain view for years. And the police aren't any kind of exception. Every Thai government institution is rotten to the core. The sad part is that nobody really cares.

Thailand is tacky. And really, that's why most tourists come. There's nothing of real quality here.

The only problem is that 'quality visitors' visit quality destinations. And Thailand is not, and never will be, in that category.

The whole Thai education system isn't fit for purpose. It's run by clueless ignoramuses in brown uniforms whose ignorance is only surpassed by their petty nationalistic arrogance. The really saddening part is that in today's inter-connected world there is absolutely no excuse for the antiquated methodology, universally third-rate materials, and pathetic lack of proper teacher training. Money has nothing to do with it. The poor performance of Thai education is wilful. B2,000? Take it and shove it.

Grounds for despair.

1.9 trillion was supposedly the tourism revenue for 2019, so their best case scenario is a return to the revenues of 2 years ago. Worst case scenario is 60+% of that. A bit optimistic IMHO. This covid thing doesn't look like it's going to be finished any time soon.

...University? Right....