AM I PARANOID?

[PAINTER01]

AM I PARANOID OR WHAT?
Clamp down on non Thai company's, visa clamp down's Tesco expansion plans halted now a coup, am I missing something. Or am I just a boy from the sticks

[DawnHRD]

Naah, you're not paranoid. This is LOS! Interesting times, huh?

[Burger]

Am I right in assuming that all the recent statements/new regulations that the government has announced, were made by Thaksin's government ??

If so, that may mean any new government that comes in could overturn them ??
Ofcourse, they could made stricter new regulations too.

Burger

[Guess]

That is exactly the question I have been asking myself. I believe now that with the breakdown of the normal government hirearchical structure for the last few months there have been a few individuals in high places that have taken things into their own hands without risk of retribution. Some rulings though like the repetetive 30 days has been in the pipeline since before Thaksin was elected for his secord term. I repsonded yesterday to a cutting from a newspaper that was supposed to be a statement on visa and it showed up as obviously being put together very quicky just to put Farangs (and other immigrants) at ease until the Thaksin affair was concluded. I guess that now we will see what is real and what is not.

According to TATs long term policy a certain amount of ferang have to live in Thailand to support the tourist industry. Tourists will simply not put up with two weeks of squat toliets, rice with every meal and no locallly spoken English. To support the tourist you need the expats like myself who needs somewhere to live in a standard he is used to (or will put up with at least) and occasionally a bowl of cornflakes or an English breakfast. So Bar, restaurant, Guest house, hotel owners, builders, estate agents and tour operators should not have any fears and visas for those people whould be made easier. What they are stating they are doing is keeping out the bad boys. They think by stopping the repetitive 30days that will reduce the problem. What they have missed is that the bad boy can go to Penang (or his home country) and get a one year non-immigrant O visa and renew it every year.

My guess is there will be a massive shakedown but it will be a long way down the "to do" list. Although tourism is a very important source of income to Thailand they will wait until things start to go pear shaped before doing enything. The events of yesterday must have done some damage to this year's high season already. But like the Tsunami things get forgotten quickly. Don't foget all you read in the papers today will be wrapping up fish and chips tomorrow.

The short answer is I think that many new visa rulings will come about at some point soon but i doubt if they will make it this year.

[Norseman]

I guess you're right Burger.
The new chief want to overturn the Thaksin laws and implement new laws.
They want to do this later, after negotiations with other parts of the society.

I hope this means that the new visa regulations and the other clamp downs will be suspended.

[johnnyk]

My guess is that falang stuff other than investment by multi-nationals is quite far down their list. Falangs, who for the most part associate in falang circles and talk in circles, tend to overestimate their importance in the grand scheme.

I think they are more concerned with issues like massive gov't corruption, cronyism and nepotism, perversion of the electoral process, freedom of the press, concentration of power, the South and so forth.

In the end this concern may simply boil down to WE are IN and THEY are OUT.

[Guess]

Very true Johnnyk but the most important things for any civilised country to focus on is security (both internal and external) and economy. Tourism is a sifnificant part of the economy and deservse somes attention. The visa thing is all part of the whole tourism scenario as I have explained before.