How much to pay?

[Jetsam]

I've been to Thailand for a vacation at least ten times.
Last time is already 2 years ago, now I'm thinking of visiting this beautiful country again.

BUT:

Last time the exchange rate to the Euro was 50 baht, now it's 38 baht that is a 24 percent devaluation.

Do you think the boys would understand if I pay them 760 baht for shorttime instead of the 1000 baht I gave them before. Surely they must know about the Economical Global crisis.
I don;t think Thai boys are greedy , are they?

If I pay them 800 baht, which I think I will do , they make even more money because it's an increase of 0.53 percent over the 1000 bath before devaluation.

[Thai Dyed]

I've been to Thailand for a vacation at least ten times.
Last time is already 2 years ago, now I'm thinking of visiting this beautiful country again.

BUT:

Last time the exchange rate to the Euro was 50 baht, now it's 38 baht that is a 24 percent devaluation.

Do you think the boys would understand if I pay them 760 baht for shorttime instead of the 1000 baht I gave them before. Surely they must know about the Economical Global crisis.
I don;t think Thai boys are greedy , are they?

If I pay them 800 baht, which I think I will do they make even more money

Maybe you can consider offering volunteer classes in economics and the global crisis as it applies to Thai money boys on Soi Twilight every evening before the bars get into full swing? Explain your concept carefully so they understand how if you give them 800 baht now, it is even more money than the former 1000 you gave two years ago. That's simple. You can write on your chalk board 1000 - 200 = 1040. Any fool can understand that, nay?

Let us know how your trip goes and how well the boy prostitutes accept your economic theories after you've had a chance to spring them on a few. Try the same at your hotel, the restaurants and the taxis you use as well. Just be firm and tell them there is a global economic crisis and you have to have a 24 percent discount to compensate for this nasty turn of events.

Hey, I am sure that over the years that the Euro rose dramatically against many other currencies that the Dutch gave hefty discounts to the poor beleaguered visitors from abroad. No? Pray tell!

If you wanna fuck them over (after fucking them or getting fucked) i suggest you just pay them in Euros full stop. I doubt giving them Economics 101 will help you save money..
you gave them 20 euros back then, you give them 20 euros now... and if they bitch tell 'em to keep them under their mattresses for a couple months till the Euro goes back up and then change..

They will get an idea of Monetary Economics 101 without all your numbers and calculus..

[Dboy]

Do you think the boys would understand if I pay them 760 baht for shorttime instead of the 1000 baht I gave them before. Surely they must know about the Economical Global crisis.

Dumb. Your exchange rate has nothing to do with local prices. I hope you don't have a job where you are in charge of anything important.

[DCbob]

Cheaper to beat your own meat.

[dorayme]

Times are hard here in Thailand for the boys. There are fewer customers and the cost of living has gone up.

Why give them less. That said, I think 500р╕┐ is enough for a short time encounter. I don't have many but those I ahve come back for more and prefer longer term arrangements.

[Jetsam]

Do you think the boys would understand if I pay them 760 baht for shorttime instead of the 1000 baht I gave them before. Surely they must know about the Economical Global crisis.

Dumb. Your exchange rate has nothing to do with local prices. I hope you don't have a job where you are in charge of anything important.


I clean toilets, so indeed nothing that is important for you.

It is because of the global financial crisis, and also because of political instability in Thailand, that business in the bars has fallen off drastically. Boys are desperate for customers. In good conscience, now is not the time to haggle or invoke a less favorable exchange rate. At least 500 short time, preferably 800-1000.

Should add a couple of hundred baht if you subject a boy to a mini-tutorial covering the financial crisis.

[giggsy]

Thailand is a RICH country. Very rich compared to Britain,Greece,Italy,Spain and Ireland at the moment.

The Down-Trodden Rural Poor of Thailand

It's not quite what you think

(By Robert Woodrow )

Here's what you need to know about the rural have-nots of Thailand. They are the richest poor people in the Third World. And they owe none of their affluence to Thaksin Shinawatra.

Fugitive former Prime Minster Thaksin, a billionaire wanted in connection with corruption and tax-evasion on a staggeringly egregious scale, has done a remarkable job of convincing the world that he is the champion of the rural poor in Thailand, and that such prosperity as the farmer enjoys is in some way due to him. Yet all of "his" programs have been in place for decades. His well-financed public-relations machine merely invented catchy new terms for them.

In Europe and North America, farmers tend to be affluent. A comparison is therefore not at all meaningful. But take a village carpenter in Thailand's northeast and compare him with a wood-worker in a small town in Iowa. To the American, the Thai seems impoverished, his house appalling basic, his expectations in life distressingly limited. But the Thai carpenter probably lives on family land rent-free, pays nothing to moderate the climate, produces his own vegetables, chickens, eggs and pork, and rides his own motor-cycle to his jobs. He's seen the American lifestyle on TV, and it's so far beyond the range of his experience, he doesn't feel deprived or envious.

Every village in Thailand was on the electricity grid long before Thaksin came on the scene, and virtually every village family has a refrigerator, electric rice-cooker, TV, radio and a couple of oscillating fans. Almost all rural households have a motorcycle, though it may be old and battered. In every village several families own pickup trucks. Animals are no longer used for farm work except in extremely remote corners of the kingdom. If farmers don't have a mini-tractor of their own, they rent or borrow one from a neighbor.

The "landless peasant" class exists, but is very small when compared with the Philippines, India and much of South America. The rich absentee farm landlord is almost unknown. Most farming families tend a small plot of land they own outright, mortgage-free (due to unscrupulous practices in the past, an outdated, paternalistic law prevents them putting up land as security with money-lenders, though they may borrow on anticipated harvests.) They sell a small cash crop through a co-operative. Their grown-up or adolescent children supplement the family income from jobs they hold in the cities.

Thailand, like the U.S., has a fallen-through-the-cracks underclass. While statistics*, as everywhere, have to be taken with a large measure of skepticism, officially 10% of the population is below the poverty line (12% in the U.S., 14% in Britain, 36% in Bangladesh). Of course, that means the poverty line for Thailand and no international comparisons are invoked. Poverty doesn't necessarily mean doing without TV or not being able to lean a beat-up old 100 c.c. Honda Dream by the door.

Unemployment in Thailand is 1.4% -- among the lowest in the world. Here it has to be cautioned that employment statistics are notoriously unreliable. Even in advanced countries, economists cannot agree whether to include the under-employed and those not actively seeking work. But unskilled work, if not well-paid, is not hard to find. My Bangkok apartment building has had a "security guard wanted" sign out for weeks.

During the dry season, many farmers supplement their income with construction work in the cities. But some prefer to do without extra luxuries and live the slow-paced, well-fed rural life. Two or three years ago, I found it impossible for several weeks to find a plumber to put in a new bathroom. Many "peasants" have become self-employed entrepreneurs and done well for themselves. Thaksin's policies had no discernible impact on the labor force.

There is no population pressure in Thailand, since each female, on average, gives birth to 1.6 children in her lifetime. That is well below replacement level, so the population will in time shrink unless immigration is vigorously promoted. Reduction in family size was achieved through education and the perceived economic benefits of smaller families, the same way it was reduced in Europe and Japan. This got started in the 1960s.

Wealth distribution in Thailand is no more extreme than in most industrialised countries. The poorest 10% of the people of Thailand own 2.6% of the nation's wealth. The richest 10% own 33.7%. In the U.S., the comparable figures are 2% and 30%, in the U.K. 2.1% and 28.5%. These statistics may not be wholly reliable, but distribution of wealth is unquestionably much more equitable than in China, India, Brazil or South Africa. Even isolated Thai villages, especially in the central plains, would seem very prosperous to rural Pakistanis and positively utopian to most Nigerians. Thaksin's much-vaunted "village revolving development funds" financing local enterprise had their antecedents in the 1970s.

All main roads in Thailand are paved (close to First-World standards), and most secondary roads are surfaced, as are a good many of the tracks that lead into remote villages, even in the poorer north and northeast parts of the country. It was like this when Thaksin was still a bankrupt ex-cop.

There are slums in Bangkok, but you have to go out of your way to find them. Since almost everyone is employed, squatters on state land in the cities often live there by choice because it is rent-free. You certainly do not have to go out of your way to see red-light districts. Incomes from the sex industry (obviously denied to those lacking looks and personally) exceed factory wages fivefold or more. The blind and maimed can apply for state aid, but street begging is often more lucrative. One sets one's own moral priorities.

There was care at government hospitals and health clinics long before Thaksin came along with his fancy $1 scheme. Treatment is not world-class but it is medical care nonetheless. People in need of operations get them for small fees, and if they have no money the charge is written off. No one is turned away from emergency rooms at government hospitals. Doctors who went through medical school on state scholarships owe as many years of modestly paid service in rural hospitals as they had in tuition.

Almost no Thais are unable read & write. Girls on average get 14 years of schooling and boys 13 years (note that girls are ahead). About 1.75 million post-secondary students (over 20% of their age group) are enrolled in universities (ranging from world-class to barely respectable), two-year colleges or vocational schools. Bright kids from poor families get government scholarships, so up-by-the-bootstraps success stories are so common as to be unremarkable. This high rate of upward social mobility goes back at least half a century.

Infant deaths per 1,000 live births in Thailand tallies 17, compared with 180 in Angola, 153 in Afghanistan and 6 in the U.S. Life-expectancy at birth is 73.1 years (78.1 in the U.S., 66.1 in Russia). HIV-positive people make up 1.4% of Thailand's population (0.6% in the U.S.)

With a population of 66 million, Thailand has 62 million registered cellphones and 7 million landlines. Service is as reliable as it is in Europe. One-fourth of the people regularly use the Internet. Thaksin's own company, which prospered prodigiously while he was prime minister, had one-third of the nation's mobile-phone customers. He sold the firm to an investment arm of the Singapore government (and paid no income tax).

Thailand routinely exports more than it imports. It is attractive for foreign direct investment. It therefore has enormous foreign reserves, and even though the country has few natural resources to sell abroad, its reserves, at $138 billion, are the 10th highest in the world. (Britain has $56 billion, Australia $45 billion). This means plenty of capital for employment-creating new manufacturing jobs, which entice rural folk seeking work in cities. The Thai currency is so strong that even recent political troubles have not budged it.

Contrary to a widespread perception, the country's main exports are not agricultural products, but cars & trucks, motorcycles & vehicle parts (made by foreign-owned subsidiary companies). Exported pick-up trucks, the biggest single-selling item, contain negligible imported parts. One Japanese manufacturer sources its world-wide production of one-ton pickups, including those sold in Japan, from its Thai factories. Machinery is another big export, as are components for computers and other electronic goods, textiles, garments & footwear, processed food and animal fodder. Way down the list of foreign-currency earners are rice, sugar and tourism.

Over the years the Thai government has routinely produced a trade surplus, a current-account surplus and (though not this year) a budget surplus.

Since 1960 (when Thaksin was 11) no "developing" country has exceeded Thailand in average annual per-capita GDP growth. The farmers are still poor by western standards, but they've had their share of this rising affluence, and they are better off than rural folk in any other nation on earth for which we reserve the term Third World.

[goji]

Jetsam, work a bit harder, take fewer off's or stay at home.

Euro depreciation is your problem, not that of Thai bar boys. At least Thailand has a real currency.

[Beachlover]

I've been to Thailand for a vacation at least ten times.
Last time is already 2 years ago, now I'm thinking of visiting this beautiful country again.

BUT:

Last time the exchange rate to the Euro was 50 baht, now it's 38 baht that is a 24 percent devaluation.

Do you think the boys would understand if I pay them 760 baht for shorttime instead of the 1000 baht I gave them before. Surely they must know about the Economical Global crisis.
I don;t think Thai boys are greedy , are they?


FFS... The depreciation of your home country's currency has NOTHING to do with them. No one gives a toss that your currency has depreciated. Tough shit. In the long run, Asian currencies will likely get higher relative to Western currencies... so get used to it.

Would you walk into a shop in Thailand and say, "look, my currency depreciated 24% so I hope you are not greedy and won't mind if I only pay you 80 baht instead of 100 baht for that shirt?"

Would you accept it if your boss told you, "look we have lowered our rental rates by 30% and will give you a 25% pay cut but in this way we are actually paying you more"?

If you want to pay them less, then pay them less... Don't try and explain that you are actually paying them more since your currency depreciated.


If I pay them 800 baht, which I think I will do , they make even more money because it's an increase of 0.53 percent over the 1000 bath before devaluation.

How the hell are they making even more money if you pay them 800 instead of 1,000? Are you taking the piss or just really really dumb?

They spend in baht. Not Euros. The value of baht over Euros means nothing to them.