On Mon, 2 May 2022 22:15:40 -0700 (PDT), "russellseaton1@yahoo.com"
<ritzannaseaton@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Monday, May 2, 2022 at 12:29:15 AM UTC-5, John B. wrote:
>> On Sun, 1 May 2022 23:20:44 -0400, Frank Krygowski
>> <frkr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> >On 5/1/2022 9:42 PM, John B. wrote:
>> >> On Sun, 01 May 2022 19:26:09 -0500, AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> On 5/1/2022 7:12 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
>> >>>> On 5/1/2022 7:10 PM, John B. wrote:
>> >>>>> On Sun, 01 May 2022 10:58:50 -0500, AMuzi
>> >>>>> <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>> On 4/30/2022 11:32 PM, russell...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> >>>>>>> On Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 6:29:26 PM UTC-5, John B.
>> >>>>>>> wrote:
>> >>>>>>>> Cycling is very dangerious
>> >>>>>>>> https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2302558/wife-friend-arrested-for-plotting-to-kill-danish-husband-for-b10m-insurance-payout?#ins_sr=eyJwcm9kdWN0SWQiOiIyMzAyNTU4In0=
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> --
>> >>>>>>>> Cheers,
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> John B.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> I had to look up the Thailand Bhat to US Dollar
>> >>>>>>> conversion ratio to see if this made any sense or not.
>> >>>>>>> Insurance payout was for 10 million Bhat. Equals
>> >>>>>>> $292,000. So I concluded it made sense to kill someone
>> >>>>>>> for that amount of money. I was worried that the 10
>> >>>>>>> million Bhat would equate to something like $292 or some
>> >>>>>>> nonsensical number. And then wonder about the stupidity
>> >>>>>>> of people around the world. But murdering someone for
>> >>>>>>> $292,000 at least meets some kind of rationality.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> Here in USA you can have someone murdered for a lot less
>> >>>>>> than that (and pocket the difference). Also, one might live
>> >>>>>> well for a long while on that kind of money in Thailand
>> >>>>>> where average household income is around $3500~$4000 per
>> >>>>>> annum.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> I believe that your numbers are somewhat outdated as
>> >>>>> currently minimum
>> >>>>> salary is 300 baht/daily, or $3,229 per annum, and it is very
>> >>>>> difficult to get anyone for that price now.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Statista has it that average monthly income, per
>> >>>>> household, is in the
>> >>>>> region of $1,200/monthly in Bangkok ranging to as low as
>> >>>>> $590/monthly
>> >>>>> in the extreme north of the country.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> From my own experience I wood say that the Statista
>> >>>>> number are at
>> >>>>> least indicative.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> (I would note that when we first married, 50 years ago, my
>> >>>>> wife could
>> >>>>> eat for a cost of 1 baht - $0.05 per day - $18.25/annum :-)
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I've done a bit of wondering about appropriate ways of
>> >>>> comparing salaries and living styles between countries. ISTM
>> >>>> that simple currency conversions don't do the job. Some
>> >>>> countries seem to be much less expensive, others much more
>> >>>> expensive than the currency conversion would indicate.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> One of our first overseas vacations was to Ireland, back in
>> >>>> the days of travelers' checks. We were to be there nearly a
>> >>>> month, touring by bikes. I wanted no money worries, so I
>> >>>> took considerably more in traveler's checks than our travel
>> >>>> agent recommended. Within a few days, I realized that we had
>> >>>> to seriously economize or we'd run out of money.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> OTOH, when we traveled to about six European countries in
>> >>>> the early 2000s, it seemed to me that Poland was
>> >>>> astonishingly cheap. By my estimate, my converted dollars
>> >>>> purchased about three times what they would have in the U.S.
>> >>>> And we were staying in quite nice B&Bs, hotels, etc.
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Yes, that's right. Besides which style matters.
>> >>>
>> >>> In Japan I stay at ryokans and 'business hotels'. Breakfast
>> >>> 'toast set' (toast with tea) roughly $1 if you walk a block
>> >>>from the train station.
>> >>>
>> >>> My business partner at the time stayed at the New Otani Hotel:
>> >>> https://www.guestreservations.com/hotel-new-otani-osaka/booking?msclkid=6a6e5549dc47131af2a43726f809d62a
>> >>>
>> >>> at a bajillion dollars per night and had coffee bacon and
>> >>> eggs from room service at something like $90. Every damned
>> >>> morning. Ouch.
>> >>
>> >> Years ago I was in Tokyo with my, then, girlfriend and as we had been
>> >> walking and it was hot, stopped in a small restaurant more to sit down
>> >> and rest than anything else. I, showing off, ordered a cup of tea, in
>> >> Japanese, my girl friend, probably to show off, ordered a cup of
>> >> coffee, in English, I don't remember the prices but I might have paid
>> >> 10 yen for my tea and she paid 100 yen for her coffee.
>> >>
>> >> When we left she was muttering about how the restaurant had "cheated"
>> >> her and I told her, "Act like a Gaigin you pay like a Gaigin (:-)
>> >
>> >Another layer of complexity regarding this issue: Sometimes I've come
>> >across articles describing the horrible poverty in certain countries, in
>> >terms like "the average salary is only $XXX.XX per year." But many
>> >cultures simply don't need American-sized salaries. The residents may be
>> >quite happy without cars, mortgages, huge flat screen TVs, medical
>> >insurance (or expensive medical costs), shopping malls, etc.
>> >
>> >Our expensive "western" lifestyle is not the only possible lifestyle. In
>> >many ways, it's also not the best.
>> It is more complex then that. Along with huge salaries you have huge
>> costs in the U.S. probably largely because of the huge salaries.
>> While, in Thailand we certainly have lower salaries but also lower
>> costs.
>> https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php
>> seems to compare the U.S. (index 100) cost of living with other
>> countries. Thailand, for example has an index of 40.6 which indicates
>> that the costs here are about 60% lower then in the U.S.
>> But, of course, at the same time salaries far lower.
>>
>> But, I'm not sure about your "expensive Western Style". Is it so
>> different? I live in a rather large housing development. Roughly 1
>> square kilometer and I can't think of a single house that isn't
>> sporting a TV antenna or at least one car in the yard.
>
>John, here in America we park our cars on asphalt or concrete surfaces. Not on the grass yard. As for antennas, that is kind of old school now. Coaxial cable or fiber optic cable for purchased cable TV. Or best of all, get TV through the internet connection. Antennas are going away.
>

Well, the word "yard" has a number of meanings and among them is " the
enclosed land around a house or other building". And here at least it
is not uncommon to see a concrete or "black top" parking area
incorporated into the yard. Our place has two, one in the front of the
house for friends and visitors and one in the rear between the
servants quarters and the rear of the house for tradesmen, deliveries,
etc.

As for T.V. Antennas are still very common here. Why would one want to
pay for what is free by piping it in via the Internet?

>
>
>>
>> A distant relative of my wife usually visits us at New Years time. Get
>> out in the country, national park, elephants, stay with relatives :-)
>
>Elephants!!!!! Only exotic animal we have in the USA is buffaloes. And they aren't really that exotic. I used to live near a park that had half dozen or so buffaloes in a field.

Well, wrong again as I see in the news a little girl was attacked by
coyotes In Huntington Beach, CA.
https://apnews.com/article/california-animals-coyotes-department-of-fish-and-wildlife-e7fb1bf582b9b766fe27cec890d6af67
Aren't coyotes considered exotic?

But perhaps you live in the wrong part of the U.S. for exotic
creatures. There were 7,035 moose-vehicle collisions in the state of
Maine from 2003 to 2017. And There were 23 fatal black bear attacks
in the US between 2000–2016.

Perhaps you just need to get out and about more.

>
>
>
>
>>
>> Anyway, during their last visit it seems his oldest son is out of
>> collage and has a job as a salesman at a large Toyota dealer in
>> Bangkok and I asked the lad what percentage of his customers paid cash
>> for their car and he said that from 75 - 80 percent of the cars he
>> sold were for cash.
>>
>> Another indication. At the major department stores here I think you
>> would be hard pressed to find a TV on display that was less the 36".
>> All "flat screen" of course.
>
>Local Walmart has several pods of TVs in one of the aisles. First pod has 75" TVs. Expensive ones. $650-750 for a TV. Next pod has 65" TVs. Few hundred cheaper. Next pod has 55" TVs. Cheaper. Last pod has the puny 45" TVs. Few dollars for them. Back wall of the store has about 50 TVs on the shelves. Every size imaginable. I'm guessing Walmart sells a lot of TVs.

Walmart must cater, at least in part, to poor folks as here we have
Lotus and Big C, "sell everything super stores" and neither display
anything smaller then 36"

(If you are British, Lotus used to be Tesco-Lotus a joint venture
between Tesco and a Thai company, now bought out by the Thai company)

>> In one survey, reported by Statista, some 60.17% of the 10,295
>> questioned stated that they owned a car.
>
>Not sure what the car ownership rate for the whole USA is. But it is very dependent on where you live. If you surveyed New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, you might end up with less than 50% car ownership. Maybe much less. Whereas if you surveyed people in Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Idaho, you might get 99% car ownership.

https://www.valuepenguin.com/auto-insurance/car-ownership-statistics
D.C. - 65% with car
Total U.S. auto registration (2015) 263,610,219
U.S. population (2015) 320,878,312
82%
--
Cheers,

John B.