new2here

THIS is what I think is a better solution. I don’t think it’s the job or position of the “state” to label something shrinkflation or not. Yes, it exists.. but.. there could also be other conditions that go into that - so I think a public entity labeling something with the clearly negative-bias “shrinkflation” label is a good public policy. I think giving consumers the unbiased and factually driven data - to make informed objective buying decisions is the better way to go.

if i recall correctly, a Thai ID is physically inserted into the ATM, then once read a OTP is sent to the phone registered to that ID A THAI credit card from SELECTED thai banks will also work; I recall that Kasikorn and UOB are credit cards that currently work. i also know that perhaps strangely enough at BBL, their own BBL-issued CREDIT cards don’t work .. So there’s really 3 options: OTP using Thai ID card, Thai credit card from selected thai banks, ATM card from thai bank. clearly #1 isn’t going to be an option for a non-Thai, #2 works for nob-Thais IF they have a CREDIT card from one of the eligible banks, so the best solution is the ATM card

Naturally the exact definition of “alter” can vary from person to person. IMHO, when it comes to passports - I personally take the narrow definition .. that being any change constitutes “altering” .. and that would include the addition, deletion of any stamp, mark or other official act made within the passport itself…

yes. US passport numbers always change .. So, yes, you’ll need to update all kinds of places that have or use it actually as a sort of data point or personal identifier. Bank (for all accounts deposit as well as any credit accounts like credit cards), SSO, Revenue Office, Drivers License (Land Transport), National Credit Bureau (if you have a credit file), D-ticket (if you buy SRT tickets online), some loyalty programs (ie store frequent shopper programs) and any airlines your regularly fly and book with online.

I’ve seen people do this, notably with the older cambodia “sticker” visas - which apparently after some time, the adhesive wears down and the sticker can be removed somewhat easily The only risk - and I cede it’s probably small, but a risk none the less - is that for US passports (and I would reasonably think others as well) it is a violation of law for a person to “… alters any passport…” as per 18 USC 1543. and I think you could make a compelling case that the willful “peeling off” of a previously applied stamp would constitute “altering”. While a foreign official has no jurisdiction to address the matter as such, they can however refuse to accept the passport — ostensibly under the premise that it’s an altered passport - thus not valid. We hear sporadic reports of people being denied aircraft boarding due to passports having “novelty” stamps, again, rendering them altered and now invalid. example: https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/15131117/passport-stamp-warning-novelty-souvenir-ban/

The part about 5MM compensation… Truth be told, that number looks to be a bit rich… 5MM works out to be about USD142,000 .. if we assume a MW has a working lifespan of say 20 years.. simple straight* math says that’s 7,100 pa or about 591 monthly .. translated into baht (at 1USD=36THB) 21,700 and assuming a straight 20 work days per moth. that’s around 1,063 daily .. Given the current minimum daily wage right now sits a touch over 350 per day, 5MM (again, on a fixed or constant dollar value and using basic math) seems to be rather inflated as far as compensation for >lost economic value< only of the deceased. but again this is speaking ONLY to the value of the deceased future earned income loss and not emotional value to the survivors nor claims of a punitive nature. (not taking into account time value of money not assumed rates of inflation)

Yes. they can.. I don’t say this to be callous but the reality is — that both the economic and social reality - so long as the “numbers” work out to be cheaper for migrant labour to be use versus domestic labour AND there is no material social price to be paid for this kind of tragedy - you bet it will continue If you start by holding on-site construction management *criminally liable*, and levying sizable fines - THEN you’ll see change take place..

I’ve said many times in similar threads.. You start with education (some may legitimately not know XYZ is against the law), step 2 is light enforcement (ie basic fines), step 3 is “the hammer” - you seize, confiscate forfeit to the “state” the vehicles and auction it off with proceeds to the state, of repeat offenders same for repeat offenders of illegal clubs, gambling venues and drunk drivers .. you seize and forfeit any assets used in the commission or derived from the crime in question. Once you start seizing and auctioning off tuk tuks of repeat offenders I’m sure you’ll see some meaningful change.

absolutely agreed. Coming out of C19 the rebound in demand was far faster than anyone would have thought.. and that came on the heels of carriers doing sweeping manpower reductions and aircraft storage - as C19 began to really bite - and the resumption of service meant unwinding furloughed crew and aircraft — both of which take substantial time to complete … so there was a pretty big capacity shortage initially .. so the carriers had to deploy where the demand was the greatest .. and the reality was that Asia - as a whole - was far slower to fully reopen than other parts. Thailand has long been a high volume, but low margin destination and with nominal onward connection traffic .. so it would make sense that it might be one of the last / later destinations that BA would look to either open or restart.

to a large extent i agree. Thai immigration law is written nationally and not provincially .. so what the law is in province A is the same as B and so on.. That said, I DO think that in totality it’s wise to allow some level of discretion or flexibility to allow each office, officer and case to be adjudicated based on the most relevant matters …. While i can certainly see a strong upside for saying “no discretion” and strict and literal adherence to national law, I DO think that leaving some minor wiggle room to allow for special circumstances to exist is wise.: because you’re bound to run not unique case that unfortunately fall outside of the literally law, and without allowing for discretion, might otherwise be a denial. But.. of course the tricky part is how does one police that discretion so that it’s bot abuses or taken too far.

I do think that they should have the same basic right - that is to the presumption of innocence and not be sacked until their guilt is proven.. that said, what often concerns me here is that given how centralized governmental entities are, I think it’s hard - very hard - for a true, unbiased, independent investigation to be done.. even from a public perception basis alone, you can’t really have entity A investigate allegations of malfeasance within entity A.. and even if you call on entity B, given their rather close ties to all the other entities, I’d question if there’s sufficient independence for them to report back what they’ve found without fear or favor.

I agree…. to me, this is where “tipping” kind of got “lost in translation” if you will. The US, in many cases, uses tips as a part of the staff basic/minimum wage — ie they’re paid less (under the otherwise legal minimum) per hour with the expectation that tips, when added to the basic wage, then totals equal to or above the mandated minimum wage. where as in other parts of the world, staff are paid full wage by the employer and tips remain a wholly supplemental component. I also agree that what also gets a bit muddy is the whole “tipping for what?” question. Its fair, to me, to ask if tipping is appropriate if you received the basics - nothing great or in your opinion, above basic - but you did get what you paid for - no more, no less.. is a tip to be expected or given.. fair question. i also agree that, socially speaking, the question of what/where/when is an acceptable or appropriate time to give or even accept a tip, is something that’s less then clear as well. I do think that many of your classic tipping scenarios (ie your table wait staff etc) are well established .. but where is that line drawn? fair question again.

That’s what I was thinking too .. my guess is that as in-seat power is becoming more the norm, that in the not too far future there may be an outright ban on these kinds of power banks be that in checked baggage (as it is now for many carriers) but also in cabin.. True, in-seat power tends to be much more common on larger aircraft (ie more long haul sectors) and less common on short haul fleet types.. but I do think that we might also see it becoming the standard across all fleet types.. and when/if it does become the norm, THEN i could see an outright ban on outside power banks being implemented.

I don’t think it’s that exactly.. Given the pervasiveness of “face” here; this kind of activity is hard to do.. no one wants to be the the guy to report to their boss on someone else’s failures… so I think he’s kind of got no other viable choice but to come in person and see .. What I somewhat worry about is IF the hammer starts to fall on the senior staff for failing to meet standards, that the senior staff then in turn take that out on junior staff - who in turn might then take it out on the passengers.. kind of how “bad news” tends to flow downhill.

Here’s my take.. I don’t really like so-called dual pricing.. but I acknowledge that it exists in some areas of the thai economy and isn’t an expressly prohibited practice under law - and also exists in other countries as well. I also acknowledge that the increase from 120 to 200 is, as a percentage, quite steep.. however, I must also acknowledge that even at 200, it is, on a relative basis, still cheap when compared to haircuts in other more “western” countries.. and yes, it’s also fair to recognize that prices don’t exist in a vacuum in that wages also play into the level of prices. However, for me, one thing I’ve long remembered is that nothing grows out slower than a bad hair cut… so.. in my mind, since I don’t get a cut all that often (for me it’s once every other week) IF you like the quality of his/her cut and you’re happy with it, it just might be worthwhile to stay with him/her, pay the B80 difference — and consider that like insurance against a bad cut had you risked it and gone somewhere new.. Just my take on it

I’m of two minds.. I agree that legitimate “whistle blowing” is a good thing as it can often uncover misdeeds that otherwise wouldn’t be uncovered or take much longer to discover and potentially cause much more harm.. and legitimate whistle blowing should continue to be legally protected… On the other hand, I am ALSO of the mindset that deliberate disclose of legitimate state secrets - and yes, I do believe that state entities can and do have legitimate secrets that deserve legal protection- should be a crime and punished severely. So, I guess where is the line between the two - when does otherwise legitimate whistleblowing become espionage or disclosure of protected state secrets?

Covers content Not interested Inappropriate Seen too often ADBRO is the full service ad network for high impact contextual advertising with direct access to the exclusive in-image inventories across major local publishers. We provide free creative adaptation into rich media, interactive and playable ads formats. Campaigns in our channel are delivered under guaranteed prices for actions with programmatic & managed delivery. We provide contextually segmented in-target audiences for over 60 industries with a full range of brand safety solutions. ADBRO operates across SE Asia, including Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia. To test our channel for your advertising campaigns or consider partnership programs for publishers, please contact us at www.adbro.me I am not the biggest fan of this course of action. I DO think it’s fair for TGs “PR” or Media Unit to tell their side of the story and to get their version of the narrative out there.. but.. when you go the legal route -especially when the opposing side is an individual customer, to me, that makes you look some what like a bully or being “heavy handed” so to speak. In my head, given the amount of social media content that out there each day and the speed to which it comes and goes.. IF I were TG, I might be tempted to make one “corrective” statement - then leave it alone.. the odds that any one post will actually go “viral” is very very small… and the “shelf life” of any such post is quite small. Bangkok Covers content Not interested Inappropriate Seen too often ADBRO is the full service ad network for high impact contextual advertising with direct access to the exclusive in-image inventories across major local publishers. We provide free creative adaptation into rich media, interactive and playable ads formats. Campaigns in our channel are delivered under guaranteed prices for actions with programmatic & managed delivery. We provide contextually segmented in-target audiences for over 60 industries with a full range of brand safety solutions. ADBRO operates across SE Asia, including Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia. To test our channel for your advertising campaigns or consider partnership programs for publishers, please contact us at www.adbro.me Bangkok

I wholly agree.. I also don’t think we will ever really see any “easing” so to speak.. KYC and related laws and BoT regulations I suspect will only increase .. who knows how it when, but I don’t see an easing coming. Given that for most banks the requirements for keeping the account open are very very simple and usually fee-free as well, if it were me, I’d make the reasonable effort to keep them open if possible.

Agreed. They don’t have enough “market” in the US via LAX (or SFO/SEA if they were to even go that way) to really sustain themselves - especially when one notes ALL the other one-stop options that currently exist, such as TPE/HKG/ICN/NRT/HND/SIN/PEK/PVG and i’m sure a few others. TG is much better off flying with their strengths; that being long-haul Euro traffic, intra-Asia and regional flying, plus the domestic market.

Those BKK-LAX/JFK non-stops were a good idea.. but largely fell victim to timing .. once fuel skyrocketed, that A340-500 quad-jet just become impossible to operate profitably on those kinds of “long, thin” routes.. The other issue is that as I’ve noted earlier US-TH traffic is skewed to the leisure end of the spectrum.. making any kind of ultra long haul US-TH non-stop very difficult to operate without consistently filling the premium end of the cabin. once TG went back to the single-stop routing (be that via JP or KR) on the 777s, they then ran smack dab into some of the most competitive and seat-saturated (lots of available seats) markets, with more than a handful of both Asian carriers flying this same US west coast JP/KR market, as well as US carriers too.. making it hard for them to compete and gain any real marketshare. MH tried the same thing; KUL-NRT-LAX and they too couldn’t make it work long-term either. They could fill that -400 easily.. but they filled it largely only in Y and with few true paid C/J seats.. I think that one big “strike” against TG is something that’s out of their direct control. Unlike SIN, BKK/DMK really has little true international connection traffic.. domestic, sure.. but as is common, domestic has to operated by a Thai carrier, and most every domestic route is covered equally or more by a LCC.. So anyone choosing to fly TG, is pretty much locked into terminating in TH. SQ by comparison, carries much more connection traffic beyond SIN.. and the north asian carriers like OZ/KE or JL/NH carry a massive amount - taking a lot of pricing pressure off their US-JP/KR sales quotas… all to the detriment of TG when it comes to flying to/from the US.

The problem for US origin is somewhat two-fold. While BKK has traditionally been a high demand market, and flights will “fill”, the issue largely is that the demand for US-TH seats falls disproportionately into the economy cabin and far less into premium cabins.. and for nearly all carriers, it’s their premium cabins that drive their revenue- disproportionately so .. not economy. That’s also why you see many carriers who operate 777s and other larger wide-bodies, configure them into 2 (or more) “layouts” one being a “high premium” with larger C/J cabins, a modest PE cabin and therefore smaller traditional Y.. the other is the “high-density”, which may have a much smaller C/J, may lack a PE, but has a much larger Y cabin. That’s what tend to see coming here — whereas flights to SIN might see the high premium, reflecting a much larger demand for paid premium seats. The second issue for US carriers is that right now, they can deploy their long haul fleet to European markets where demand is much firmer, premium seat demand still strong, as opposed to markets in Asia like BKK.

To me there’s a few ways you could go. Clearly a straight cash handout is the most desired, but the government looses their ability to target where those funds go So.. they could give vouchers that can only be redeemed against X, Y or Z purchases and can’t be banked/saved (as saving doesn’t drive immediate economic activity) nor used by anyone else (ie non-transferable) if the worry is that only a handful of larger corporations will benefit, then implement redemption caps both in aggregate as well as geographic. So a large entity can accept them but only up to X value, after that other smaller entities would be beneficiaries. to help multiple industries, you could also make X% of a person's total voucher value redeemable for Y type goods and another percentage redeemable for Z type goods

I think it’s fair to acknowledge that as the worlds most visited city, invariably there will be some who just plain don’t know … others will be lack of compliance… Either way, I think it’s fair play for the authorities to post relevant signage saying what is and what isn’t ok. True, you can’t really post EVERYthing that’s not allowed - you can take that past the nth degree, but I think a reasonable list of prohibited actions is necessary.. and then i’d be ok with the authorities taking punitive/enforcement action; as proper notice was given in advance

Agreed.. I’ve said many times.. rules or laws without reasonably consistent enforcement and with consistently applied material penalties, become only mere suggestions .. and when it comes to most traffic and motor vehicle issues, I’ll say that they’re effectively suggestions … really not laws in the most true sense. if you knowingly block an emergency vehicle and fail to use all reasonable measures to “yield” then I’m an advocate for the state to seize said vehicle for X number of days with storage fees and fixed penalties applied.. on any subsequent conviction, I’d support the court ordering the convict to forfeit said vehicle to the state, as it would then to be clear the convicts unwillingness to comply with law and that their non-compliance puts the public at risk.

I suspect this is one of those cases where the “system” will just drag out long enough such that the major players are now either deceased or too ill for the process to continue and/or the case effects gets forgotten by the public so that no action is really needed any longer and it can quietly and administratively “delayed” indefinitely.