bkk_mike

rod2011, on 2012-05-19 04:56:19, said:

There's a kid in the mother-in-law's village whose parent's were drug-addicts, never registered the child's birth, and are now dead.

The kid was staying with his aunt, but as the child had no birth certificate, couldn't go to school as apparently the birth certificate or house book is required to register the child, and the birth certificate is required to put the child on the house book, etc.
I did ask my wife why they couldn't register the kid now, but she seemed to think it wasn't possible because the parents were both dead. (I was only there for a couple of day's so have no idea whether it got sorted out).

I personally think that the baht will fall and the pound will rise back to maybe 60, but it'll take a couple of years, and the end of QE and low interest rates in the UK to do it.

i.e. The baht will struggle this year because of a hangover of issues after the flooding last year. (I don't know how much Thailand's exports will recover on the hard disk and car components side of things.) Add in that the government appears to be in line to run a deficit, rather than the recent surpluses, and the last few years of baht strength appears to be coming to an end.

Sterling on the other hand got hammered in 2008, but when it starts to look like it will recover (t's technically in a double-dip recession now). i.e. The pound is probably going nowhere until the markets think it's looking better and that QE is behind us and that interest rates are likely to rise. (If only because the way the Bank of England decided to do QE, where they've printed money to buy bonds, they need to sell the bonds back into the market once they see it's done, and then effectively burn the money they printed by removing that money from the money supply.)

Recovery will, in this anti-QE that will follow it, result in a sterling rise. - but this is probably 2-3 years away. However, how quickly the markets will price that in will depend on when they think that the recovery will happen. (and how much they trust the BofE to follow through on the sale of the bonds and retiring of the subsequent cash).

Moruya, on 2012-05-17 11:53:39, said:

Only needs the shares to be traded in the US.
Some of the biggest fines to date are on foreign companies (Siemens and British Aerospace are examples).

But yes, I work for a US company and the compliance regarding dealing with government employees or pseudo government entities (i.e. things like TAT, CAT, TOT, etc.) is a lot more excessive following the passing of the FCPA...

Isn't the basic problem still that there's basically an embargo on US financial services.

That means no visa, mastercard, american express...

I'm out in Klong Samwa. Would there be something like a minimum order to get it delivered that far? (or am I simply too far out?)