Connect with us

News

American Expat Says He’s Living in Paradise on $2,500 a Month

American Expat Says He's Living in Paradise on $2,500 a Month

American expat Pete Bowen landed in Thailand in 2009 with a suitcase and a guitar, looking for a spot to retire. He knew no one in the country. Nearly 12 years later, the retired expat says his life in a beach town on the western side of Thailand’s Phuket Island is “living in paradise.”

Bowen, now 70 years old, admits his decision to sell his house and all his belongings in just three months, after being laid off from his job in the Bay Area in 2009, was somewhat impulsive. “My adult children had left, and I wasn’t in a relationship,” he says. He also figured his job prospects weren’t very good, so there was no reason to stay in the U.S. “I decided to throw the dice.”

He’d been to Thailand before and knew he wanted to live by the beach, not in a big city like Bangkok. But even as he headed to Phuket, he kept his options open. Would Cambodia work? What about Vietnam? The Philippines? Malaysia? He visited other spots, he says, but he kept coming back to Thailand.

People were friendlier — he keeps mentioning the smiles he’d get — and he appreciated the country’s “live and let live” attitude.” And of course there’s the weather — temperatures in the 80s in February, T-shirts and shorts every day.  It took six months to decide that Kamala Beach, a two-traffic-light town, was the right spot.

“Once here, living at the beach, I got to know people fairly quickly,” said Bowen, who wrote a book about retiring in Thailand early in his Phuket life and now posts videos. “That’s what kept me coming back. And it was fun. Just fun.”

Life in Kamala Beach Phuket

Kamala Beach has a small but closely knit expat community, he says. The native English speakers tend to be Australian or English, not American. Thais generally know a little English. He met his Thai wife, Oorathai, better known as Puy, while she was having a cup of coffee. They’ve been married for eight years.

“We go out a couple nights a week and always run into friends,” he says. “I know all the bar and restaurant owners. We’ll have dinners with a dozen friends every few weeks. It would be tough to leave this close community at this point.”

Bowen was last in the U.S. three years ago and says he uses Skype and Zoom to keep up with family. After he married, he couldn’t get a U.S. visa for his wife to meet family, and they’ve only been able to meet her on Zoom. Now, he says, he and wife generally spend three months during Thailand’s rainy season traveling in Europe (COVID times being an exception).

And when they want to travel in Asia, Phuket’s status as a tourism mecca means there’s no shortage of flights for less than $100.

Phuket isn’t for everyone

“One of the hardest things is just how far away from the U.S. Thailand is,” he says. “It takes 24 hours of flying to get home. People who want to see the grand-kids are going to be out of luck. It’s just not for everyone.”

That combined with many Americans’ slim vacation days also means visitors are infrequent. Among Bowen’s family, only his daughter has visited.

Bowen also notes that while Phuket is great for single men, it may be less appealing for others.

“I don’t see many retired couples or single women retire here,” he says. “For couples honestly, there are many beautiful young single women who would love to meet a foreign man. Couples should have a strong relationship to last here.”

His advice? Test your dream retirement spot for a few months before committing to it.

What does it costs to live in Phuket?

Bowen says his monthly budget of $2,500 is covered by his Social Security check of $1,800 plus investment income.

He rents a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house for $580 a month; a one-bedroom house or apartment can easily be found for $400 a month, he says. Other parts of Thailand that are great places to live are even cheaper, and life can be cheaper yet in other parts of Southeast Asia, he notes.

Until recently, foreigners with longer non-immigrant visas weren’t required to have health insurance. That has changed. Bowen spends $1,800 a year for what he describes as a bare-bones policy that will cover about $15,000 in expenses, or what he says is enough to cover a major health problem at a public hospital. A doctor’s visit costs $10, but pharmacists can handle many problems.

He has opted out of Medicare and no longer pays premiums.

Bowen spends $20 a month for high-speed internet plus $15 a month for an unlimited cellphone plan. He relies on football and basketball internet packages for his U.S. sports fix.

As for food, beef is expensive but seafood is reasonable. “Going out to eat is ridiculously inexpensive,” he adds.

What else is pricey?

Wine, he says — “it’s $15 for anything decent.”

New cars are another one. He owns a car — a 10-year-old Mazda 2 with only 15,000 miles — but says he uses a motor scooter around town. He warns that driving in Thailand is dangerous and death rates from crashes are high.

The bottom line for Bowen is there’s no going back to the U.S.

Kamala Beach, he says “ is gorgeous — it really is one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

If you want to move to Thailand …

The government requires that you have income of 65,000 baht deposited in a Thai bank every month; that’s less than $2,200 at early 2021 exchange rates). Alternatively you can keep 800,000 baht (more than $26,000) in a local bank account.

Bowen says he arrived without a visa and now has to let Thailand’s immigration office know every 90 days, either online or in person, that he is still there. Those who find that frustrating can hire an agent to handle it, as some of his friends do.

Source: Market Watch

News

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

Continue Reading

News

2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

Continue Reading

News

The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

SEE ALSO:

Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

Continue Reading

Trending