Bangkok Reports

[QUOTE=Paul Kausch;1375958]2%! Yikes! Poor guy. I feel sorry for you. Just looked at my 2012 return on investments. I got over 10% from my mostly good ole USA megacap stocks![/QUOTE]Mr. Kausch confuses yield with return. The ASEA exchange traded fund pays a DIVIDEND that is currently equal to a little more than two percent of it's share price. Investment pros calls this the YIELD. That's not to be confused with the RETURN, which is the change in the share price over time. On the last trading day of 2011 ASEA closed at $14.37. On the last trading day of 2012 it closed at $17.04. That's a return of 18.6 percent last year. By way of comparison stocks in the United States (as measured by the Wilshire 5000 index) were up about 15 percent. Against that backdrop, Mr. Kausch is trailing the market, and by a lot. Given his lack of investing know-how, that's not surprising.

Bunky

[QUOTE=Western787; 1376323] (...) she must be either trafficked or self trafficked (...) [/QUOTE]"self trafficked"? What will they invent next? Pimping yourself? Stealing your own property?

[QUOTE=Mai Yao;1376178](...) They examined my mobile and found some pictures taken at a pool party in Angeles City. Fortunately, everybody was in bathing suits and no bare flesh was showing but they really honed in on how did I know the girls were over 18. What proof had I demanded? I was questioned for a long time and a US Marshell was called in. He also questioned me and took down all my passport details. After about 90 minutes of this BS, a supervisor determined that there was nothing specific to justify further questioning and I was allowed to pass out of customs. (...)[/QUOTE]My old professor of criminal law, who was also a Military Advocate General, always told us to answer EVERY question by the police with our name, date of birth and address. Everything else they have to find out themselves.

[QUOTE=Mai Yao;1376178]Last July, I went thru customs at LAX, travelling from Bangkok. I was carrying commercial merchandise and I was delayed in customs by a glitch in my paperwork. While I was waiting, they started questioning me pointedly about my stay in Thailand and visits to the Philippines.[/QUOTE]Ah! So the glitch in the paperwork was the real issue. Be honest, was this your fault? It is only natural for customs to start asking questions if your paperwork is not in order. We should always insure our immigration forms are filled in correctly, how many times have I stood in line only for several clowns who seemingly have the inability to fill in the necessary or nothing at all. Yes, they arrive at customs without even having filled in the the forms. Iceholes!

[QUOTE=Sammon; 1376288]I am sure this advice was given before.

Upload all the pictures whether it is naughty or nice to your email. You can recover it and store in your computer from your e mails. So in case anybody checks or questions there is nothing on your mobile device or camera.[/QUOTE]While it might save you the customs hassles now, this could backfire spectacularly. There is limited expectation of privacy for e-mail sitting on a server, so governments could eavesdrop on those to their heart's content without a warrant. And it can increasingly be done in automated ways, no need for a human in the loop except to review the flagged items. What you're basically doing is moving files from a place where they might be inspected, to a place where they will be inspected in an automated way, and where they remain forever outside your control. Moreover, those files are still on your SD cards/hard drive unless you did a secure overwrite (not just move/delete).

The fact that you're not doing anything illegal now, doesn't mean it won't become illegal later, and that you won't be retroactively prosecuted for it (or just harassed, if it remains legal).

[quote=wolvenvacht;1376353]"self trafficked"? what will they invent next? pimping yourself? stealing your own property?[/quote]yes, its a term now starting to be used by the "rescue industry" to convert all providers into victims, therefore turning all clients into potential aiders and and abettors of trafficking, and thus major felons. its also being used in regard to **** 18 providers, as it is here:

[url]http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8636125.[/url]

to me any client involving himself with under 18 providers is looking for trouble and should be ready to go to jail anyways.

the big problem with the term "self trafficked" is when they claim for example in regard to 18 year old and over providers, that while they may nominally appear to consent, since (in their view) everyone knows no rational woman would ever sell herself for money, then it has to be forced from the outside on them somehow, meaning she is still a victim, and her client by definition a trafficking perpetrator of some type. its a very condescending outlook seeing women as helpless dupes, but this is how the "rescue industry" is framing the debate.

this is the fig leaf they're using to try to shut down the entire sex industry, eventually including many strip clubs in the usa, as well as whatever else they can shut down in other countries. meanwhile rich guys having mistresses or similar arrangements will still be perfectly legal, as no laws will ever apply to them.

[quote=wolvenvacht;1376353]"self trafficked"? what will they invent next? pimping yourself? stealing your own property?[/quote]yes, its a term now starting to be used by the "rescue industry" to convert all providers into victims, therefore turning all clients into potential aiders and and abettors of trafficking, and thus major felons. its also being used in regard to **** 18 providers, as it is here:

[url]http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8636125.[/url]

to me any client involving himself with under 18 providers is looking for trouble and should be ready to go to jail anyways.

the big problem with the term "self trafficked" is when they claim for example in regard to 18 year old and over providers, that while they may nominally appear to consent, since (in their view) everyone knows no rational woman would ever sell herself for money, then it has to be forced from the outside on them somehow, meaning she is still a victim, and her client by definition a trafficking perpetrator of some type. its a very condescending outlook seeing women as helpless dupes, but this is how the "rescue industry" is framing the debate.

this is the fig leaf they're using to try to shut down the entire sex industry, eventually including many strip clubs in the usa, as well as whatever else they can shut down in other countries. meanwhile rich guys having mistresses or similar arrangements will still be perfectly legal, as no laws will ever apply to them.

[QUOTE=Crocodilexp;1376381](...) And it can increasingly be done in automated ways, no need for a human in the loop except to review the flagged items (...)[/QUOTE]I know of a company that has automated inspection of file attachments of e-mails of their employees and that once deleted some attachments because they contained "pornography". It turned out to be some technical reports with photos of cargo that happened to be "flesh colored".

I am so happy I love Isaan girls: thanks to their tanned skins their photos will escape this silly search mechanisms for pale skins. :)

Don't email your photos: place them on a server, by preference outside of your home-country, where you hold an account under an alias name. There are many of these storage locations and whilst I am sure none of these servers will stand a dedicated assault to inspect its contents, the sheer size of these storages will make it difficult to link it back to you. Delete the photos from the camera and overwrite them with other pictures: make sure the memory is totally full of photos.

Once at home, download from the storage site to a USB-drive and delete the stored files.

How paranoid can you get? Do you actually think they can do something to you just because you were in another country fucking somebody? Get a grip.

[QUOTE=Mr Enternational; 1211152]I took the trolley to Tijuana at 1:33pm today. When I crossed the border the place where I always change money said be back in 5 minutes. So I ate a taco for 15 pesos. I exchanged $55 at a rate of 12. 735 and got 700. 42 pesos. Now the best exchange rate I saw today was at the place right next to McDonald's when you get off the trolley. Their rate was 12. 919, so I will be using them from now on...

I almost made it to the border when I saw the churro man. Dammit all to hell. I must have gained 8 pounds today. I asked him how much and he said 13 pesos. I told him to give me 10 pesos worth then because that is all I had. He filled the bag up and I ate them on my way to the line. Since I have the Global Entry Card I was able to go to the Sentry line. Actually there wasn't really a line since I was the only one there. I just went ahead of the people who were actually waiting in the regular line. I handed the Immigration guy my card and he scanned it. This was the moment I had been planning for all day. He asked me what I was doing in Mexico. I told him,"NOTHING. JUST FUCKIN' THEM HOES." He didn't bat an eyelid. He just said,"Okay. Go on." The time was 6:59pm and I had 100 pesos left.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Bunky; 1376344]Mr. Kausch confuses yield with return. The ASEA exchange traded fund pays a DIVIDEND that is currently equal to a little more than two percent of it's share price. Investment pros calls this the YIELD. That's not to be confused with the RETURN, which is the change in the share price over time. On the last trading day of 2011 ASEA closed at $14. 37. On the last trading day of 2012 it closed at $17. 04. That's a return of 18. 6 percent last year. By way of comparison stocks in the United States (as measured by the Wilshire 5000 index) were up about 15 percent. Against that backdrop, Mr. Kausch is trailing the market, and by a lot. Given his lack of investing know-how, that's not surprising.

Bunky[/QUOTE]I fully understand the differences between yield (brokers in the USA now seem to prefer to call this income from the investment. I guess it is easier for the average person to understand) , capital gains (appreciation in value of the security) and total return on investment. Let me be more explicit. In 2012 my investments yielded 3. 5, the value of my investments appreciated about 7. 5. My ROI for the year was about 11. Of course in 2007 & 2008 the values took a beating, but my yields in absolute dollars hardly changed (so as a percentage of the value they actually went up).

[QUOTE=Wolvenvacht; 1376409]Don't email your photos: place them on a server, by preference outside of your home-country, where you hold an account under an alias name. There are many of these storage locations and whilst I am sure none of these servers will stand a dedicated assault to inspect its contents, the sheer size of these storages will make it difficult to link it back to you. Delete the photos from the camera and overwrite them with other pictures: make sure the memory is totally full of photos.

Once at home, download from the storage site to a USB-drive and delete the stored files.[/QUOTE]Those sound like reasonable steps, and it should be noted we're talking here (as I certainly am) in regard to age 18 and over perfectly legal photos, but ones that can possibly be misconstrued by over zealous border agents any way they might decide. The AC pool party questions prove that. As for Mr Enternational comments, he's got a point, however the focus on such a crossover he's alluding to is obviously drugs, with everything else secondary, plus he's talking 14 months ago.

As for the trafficking hype, here's a reference leading into last year's Superbowl.

[url]http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/01/25/super-bowl-sex-trafficking-hysteria-back-in-the-news/[/url]

[QUOTE=Western787; 1376295]Bangkok is one of the word's largest mongering destinations, and Mai Yao post is a valuable early warning of a growing and expanding soon to get worse emerging issue directly flowing from the latest "scourge" so called human "trafficking", domestic or elsewhere. Law enforcement and homeland security now has to justify all that training and seminar time focused on this area, so they will attempt to build a case no matter how flimsy the evidence.

Its now reached hysteria levels in the USA, and government agencies and "NGO's" and others testifying before Congress have been repeatedly allowed to make up phony self serving (research grant fund perpetuating) statistics out of thin air without any factual basis, and if you don't believe this, research the phony stats used for the World Cup Games held in South Africa a few years back, as well as in Superbowls in the USA in recent years, such events in each case purportedly were to be descended upon from the outside by vast hordes of "trafficked" providers, which in each case has never happened, in fact with not even tiny numbers of such providers showing up.[/QUOTE]You are certainly right. Still it is not of interest to people who come here and search information about Bangkok and to those mwho don't travel to the US. It could be taken to the general reports thread, yet would be lost there also. Best to open an own thread that those interested can easily find it.

Making my 4th annual visit to Pattaya in September, was starting to wonder if I might be missing out by not trying BKK. My initial thoughts are that BKK is probably more expensive and action kind of spread out. Since I'm accustomed to Walking Street, I obviously feel very comfortable with everything right there and a very guest friendly hotel. Is the quality of the girls appreciably better in BKK, or am I wise to stay with all that Pattaya has to offer? I also imagine that one has to travel to different locations? Cost of hotels are higher, etc?

[QUOTE=Mr Enternational;1376414]How paranoid can you get? Do you actually think they can do something to you just because you were in another country fucking somebody? Get a grip.[/QUOTE]Although I understand what some guys are saying and I's always smart to take precautions in all areas of life. Nobody is going to watch your back. That's your job. The smarter you are the more successful you will be. I'm not buying into this mass hysteria. Guy gets stopped because his paperwork is in order and gets his electronic devices searched. I'm not getting this. What is the probable cause? Because he was in Asia? Flimsy to say the least. And even if there are nude pictures on your PC it's the governments responsibility to prove guilt. Yeah I went to another country and screwed the heck out of the locals. I screw the heck out of 20 year old locals in the states. So what. The pictures aren't an issue. There's more than that available online.

There's more to the LAX hassle than we're being told. I know so many mongers and I've never heard of anyone getting hassled nor has there been any reporting on the boards until this. That I'm aware of. The amount of guys going to Asia for mongering purposes is huge. This would have been all over the news if it were an issue.

Next we'll be crying wolf about losing kidneys. Not that anyone would want my old ass kidneys.

[QUOTE=FruitNinja;1376137]But I am an American Citizen and I know my rights. My relationship with my girlfriend at the time was imaterial to anything he might be looking for and he has no right to pry into my personal life just because he's bored. Pull me aside for what? I WILL NOT be frightened or cower to a government I helped elect. The last time an innocent citizen got harassed at a major airport it was all over the news because he made sure it was news. They do not like trouble or want to be the customs officer responsible for negative publicity.[/QUOTE]Well not here to badger you or to flame you. Just going to try and set you straight. As a Customs Agent here in the states. I will let you / others know whats actually going on.

First off we can't legally search you without "probable cause" therefore we have a screening process which we ask questions about your trip looking for signs of hesitation, nervousness etc. If you just said "I went on vacation or business" you would of gone through the line no problems, but when you become combative and show telling signs of not telling the truth. You've just played into the "I'm HIDING SOMETHING ZONE". There is a saying "Just go along to get along"

You are a citizen of the USA and you say you know your rights, but ANY LE Agency has the "RIGHT" to ask you where you been and what you were doing. We aren't trying to pry into your private life we are just doing our job. Which is the screening process.

I hope you understand I am just trying to help you / others out so you won't have any further problems when coming through Customs.