heyyu

i havn"t been on this forum for a long time i have just read Zacks post and i have to say it i call bull----- , i spend half my time now in thailand and am on a similar forum there and surprise surprise i read the same complaints as I'm reading on poms in oz made by expats there, driving well they have a point there as it has the highest death toll in the world, but the rest is same ,same.The old catch cry was the shops are no good no tescos,houses are poor quality no double glazing,posties don't deliver on the weekends and the rest, well surprise your living in a different country things are different.There is tescos in thailand and its no better than the local shops" big c" ect, when i lived in london in one of those victorian houses i don't remember double glazing or insulation i just remember being cold.everybody is different so have a winge but make sure its a truthful account and not stuff plucked from mid air and a romantic view of what maybe never was.

australia and uk don't have reciprocal health care britain refused to sign the agreement.apologise I'm wrong

not easy there are certain nations that western governments make jump through hoops,phillipines and thailand are two of, as on percentage some of their countrymen have ruined it for the majority.

cooktown is on cape york famous for where capt cook repaired the endeavour after running aground on the reef. it was a fair size in the late 1800's but is rather small now. the endeavour river is the main thing in town and this is crocodile territory. it has been some years since i was there last but i did not mind then you had to do your shopping in cairns as no supermarkets were available and the road to cairns was not sealed so a 4 wheel drive was a must.treat it as an adventure and time will fly.

a little history on bribie,when i was younger my father a pom and mad fisherman loved the place,in those days the only way to get there was by boat from brisbane 'the cooper' on which my uncle was a stoker,or by sand track from the old gympie rd then barge accross the passage.bribie was mainly a fishing villiage,the only road being along the waterfront and a dead straight stretch across the island to the surf side and the pub. in those days it was not unusual to see mobs of kangaroos and emus along the front and also a donkey left there by american troops from ww2.it was an idyllic spot and today is still for a lot of people. some wildlife can still be seen up more towards the northern end these days as population has driven them away from populated areas.

try driving in bangkok

i agree they are huge gamblers but they also have an eye to the future not just a couple of years down the track,that is probably why the chinese government is buying huge tracts of oz land to secure their food supply. as you live in inner city perth you either have a huge mortgage or have had enough to pay cash. i also lived through the 18 percent interest rate period but i managed as most australians did,no large abandonment of homes,no banks going broke we just tightened our belts and got on with it

i can only reply from my own experience of the thai system which i have used without private medical insurance,for as i later found was a minor problem but i had all tests and was only charged 20 aud, so i can't see it being any worse treatment for thais at 1 aud no false teeth in thailand the all have screw ins as decreed by the king

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And lose a kidney whilst under anaesthetic? as a person who lives part time in thailand i can attest to the fact that you won't lose a kidney or any thing else they are very professional and clean ,you could eat your dinner off the floor. thailand may be a third world country but their healthcare is pretty good. they also pay a copayment 30 baht about a dollar

[i imagine many on this forum have never lived in Australia during a recession] i have a couple in my 50 years in the building industry here and we just kept on working,a hiccup,as to the mining industry collapsing it will not stop ,it will slow but its not going to stop. i can't see these companies investing billions of dollars in mining if they think it will just stop dead. as for real estate the chinese are investing big in australian property and paying cash why, i doubt they would be doing that if they foresee a huge crash.they are a very canny race of people

That when they're young they're basically interchangeable interchangeable with what 'my dog'

‘I was having a look at that 42-odd years of complete history on budgets, in those 42 years, roughly half of those years we've had a surplus, roughly half we've had a deficit and when we compare ourselves to many of the G7 countries, our fiscal position is outstanding. I don't think there is any other way to describe it. For example, our level of net debt is 10 per cent of GDP. In countries like the US, Germany, UK, it's about 80 percent to 90 per cent of GDP, so it's about eight or nine times larger. In today's Australian dollar terms that's about $1.5 trillion difference, which is a huge amount of money.Pretty sure Howard and Costello delivered a lot more than 2 surplusses too.,i apologise if i got my facts a little wrong but the burden of this budget is still on the wrong part of the population

True, very true, Flag. You make your own way in this world; it's the best way. A laugh, innit Flag?? Been retired longer than some of these working Laborites who are whingeing...:laugh: Cheers, Bobj. i'll bet you never knocked back a pay rise fought for you by a labour union because it was done for you by so called labourites

well if you percentage it to your home budget you will be able to work that out for your self,furthermore some on here are saying how good they are at budgeting,if you have kids and one falls under the age whereby he or she becomes redundant ,does your budget stretch to supporting them for 6 months,if your on a pension to start with i'd say no,even if not being on a pension it will be difficult for a lot. may be some who sprout how well of they are on pension have no kids or never had any.

well my take is that abbot has been lying to us on the state of the economy,our debt is 12 percent of gdp one of the best in the world,we have a triple aaa rating 1 of only 13 countries in the world.politicians can claim their super when they leave parliament average age 49 overall,unemployment is 5-6 percent also in the top percentage of the world,we have a one and a half trillion dollar economy,so the so called billion dollar a month interest bill is negligible.this budget is supposed to get the economy into surplus which has only happened twice in the last fifty years.my point is the people hit by this budget are the ones least able to afford it and could and should have been done a lot better than it was,and of all the ho ha about our previous prime minister breaking promises at which abbot went on and on about,whose the hypocrite now. sorry if this is a bit disjointed but i'm pi---ed of with lying politicians