old wanderer

maprao, on 2008-03-06 01:47:31, said:

My wife owns quite a few rai outside of Surin. The above prices are about right. However we also own 40 rai up in the mountains near Sara Buri. "She" bought this land with a Chanote, from an old lady that was just tired of arguing and negotiating for a discount, then finding the person only wanted a few rai. She finally told everybody not to bother her any more, and when she was gone, the children could handle the problem.

She had been asking 100k/rai. We have property at a resort that sets on 3 sides of this piece. Land at the resort sell for 1.5 million/rai.

After hearing about this for 3 years, I went and talked to the old lady. The only negotiating I did was to insist she pay all taxes and cost.

When my wife bought it, all our neighbors were more than shocked. Then many came and wanted to buy a rai or less, to make tennis courts, or expand their back yard that this land butts up too. When she told them 1 million/rai it was hilarious watching their reactions....

So the premise of no farm land is worth more than 20K/rai I believe is a bit flawed.

A few years ago, when my wife and I were visiting, I had about 1 million baht in my Thai bank accounts. In June 30 each year those of us that are USA citizens or residents, must report each foreign bank account we have if the aggregate  amount is greater than $10,000.

I do not like this law very much.

I withdrew the cash, went to China Town, went into one gold store and asked if they had 70 baht of 10 baht bars....they had 5 but if I could come back in 30 minutes they would have however many I wanted. (I think they just cast them in back). No body blinked an eye at a million baht sale...acted like they do it every day. Threw the notes in the counting machine, and handed me the gold bars. They wrote a little note in Chinese, that basically said they would buy back instantly those bars, no questions asked.

I brought the bars home, and traded 5 of them for 3 monster boxes of silver coins (500 oz each)

Took a very small hit because the bars were 23k vs 24k, but I do wish I had traded all 7 bars. (However the wife is happy when she takes them out to play with them.).

Bottom line, get out of currency and into precious metals. Right now I hold almost 90 % of my money in physical silver, 5% in gold, and 5% in cash.

flying, on 2011-07-20 01:05:58, said:

Gold moved in parallel with Silver. @ 1403 Hrs on Comax somebody sold 10 Billion dollars worth of silver in one minute. This caused a massive drop in the price naturally. But it is all smoke and mirrors. It was 10X the yearly output of all the silver mines in the USA, so it was not a hedge sell. As usually the banksters are again trying to manipulate the market.

Friday the China gold exchange will open, and I do expect some fireworks.

For me, I just purchased some more on the dip.

Several years ago, as I was getting ready to leave, I had a bit of money in my Thai bank account. I withdrew it and bought 5 10 baht gold bars in China town.

I found if you return to the same place you purchased these bars, the price with be a bit better than if you just walk into a random gold shop in China town.

Of course who want to sell?? I am quite happy just letting them sit in the safe, and every few months the wife likes to take them out and play....and ask "How much now??"

Could not have made a better investment, (unless I would have bought silver).

SIAMBULL, on 2011-06-24 08:17:40, said:

How true the statements below about the arrogance of many. Have we so soon forgotten "Sae Dang" ??

He believed himself to be untouchable during the protest. That all changed with a BANG.

It could just as easily happen to Thaskin. (I am surprised that it has not already hapened).