seminomadic

Strange after a full page nobody's mentioned that most students copy their homework from friends.

The act of copying, though, is in itself a manifestation of what was said in an earlier post about kids learning to get socially as close to the feeding trough as possible.

Obviously he is a Bangkokian speaking about Bangkok as most of the farmers and the rest of Thailand is still on the poverty level. "Middle Income Trap"? You should be so lucky.

Given how exceedingly greedy many of the poor I've encountered in the rest of Thailand and how corrupt and hyperconsumerist the culture is at large, it's really too hard to be sympathetic to this plight.

Now all I need is a magnifying glass & perhaps I can read the chart

Itchy ears,

When I first heard that song it was through a distorted sound system and I thought she was singing about an itchy arse.

I'm impressed that people are actually watching it. I know what will happen musically when I press that button and it is not a risk I'm willing to take.

I should've known to turn my speaker all the way down before playing the vid but now I'm regretting it.

Set the whole 10,000,000B aflame in one big pile up north. It starves the air of oxygen so that the clearing fires can't be started by locals.

Nobody can argue that this approach will not be at least AS effective as the current strategy.

I don't see all that much 'derogatory' towards the transgender grouping in this brief vdo; slightly humorous perhaps,and at best.

On the subject of "transgender" have you seen this amazing vdo-clip:

Certainly blew me away !

Worth a look & listen.

Attention oppressed ladyboys: How is the contrived deceitfulness in this singer's performance any different from the deceitfulness you decry in the BTS ad?

About the 4th or 5th paragraph as I'm reading I start hearing that Benny Hill song in my head.

Re: the taxi in the photo I'd enjoy promptly telling the guy to fnck off when he rolls his window down to ask where I'm going since you know he's going to say no to anyone going further than 2 blocks away

Why on earth can't they just have one pricing system for the whole network like in all other major cities around the globe?

And while they're at it, please include the underground and the Airport Link City Line as well.

The whole local train system in Bangkok is developing into such a mess, it's unbelievable.

Not so unbelievable when you understand Conway's Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law

-- communication between groups for the sake of the quality and effectiveness of the final product is not important in this culture.

P!ss on the faceless masses, even if they are your end-users. Look out for #1 and have the appearance of being boss at all times.

Same old stupidity.... "Ask the children".... Hopeless with your typical incompetent Thai official as is the case here.

It's simple: the reform policies come from meetings with two camps. You have the teachers, admins & education academics on one side who provide the input vis a vis how the students learn and suggestions based on the latest research.

In the other camp, you survey the employers, who outline what skills they need to have to be useful in a breathtakingly fast-changing employment field. The resulting policies and curricula MUST be a convergence of these two sources.

Even more pressing and not surprisingly absent from his comments, the TEACHERS MUST BE TRAINED further, not just told to "change the way they teach". You invest in TRAINING them. Changing the curricula is playing a shell game with the problem where the mark is Thailand itself.

Frogs in coconut shells.

This is called the "New Economic Way" or N.E.W. for short. In Thai you could call it the Niew Klang policy (นิ้วกลาง). It uses the principles of Buy High, Sell Low and claim you will make a profit, while knowing that the long term result will be losses and inflation with only a select group, unnamed in the policy) to benefit.

It ignores the laws of supply and demand. It is another case of government manipulation of markets, that is allegedly for the purpose of benefiting a specific group (rice farmers) without any consideration or care for the impact on everyone else (except those who will gain the most and those are not the farmers), including the target group (rice farmers). It mis-allocates resources that have alternate uses, and does not consider the long term impacts on all groups.

seminomadic : This is nothing more than a the government declaration of war on the laws of economics. It is true that rice farmers have gotten short term price increases for their crops, but like just about every government policy, almost no one looks past that immediate benefit. The consequences we are seeing now were not only predictable but were predicted.

When a country unilaterally tries to force up prices on world markets, all it takes is an increase of supply from other countries (India, Vietnam) to change the price signals to the markets. The prices signals go from "low supply, high demand, higher prices" to "high supply, lower demand, lower prices". Simply put, why should any rice importer in any other country pay a higher price, if it can get a lower price and knows it?

Since we have seen here that the pledging scheme has caused higher rice prices in Thailand; and since we know that rice farmers are not the only poor people in Thailand, doesn't the increased price of rice mean that the pledging scheme is hurting other poor people? Doesn't it make everyone living in Thailand a bit poorer because they have to pay more for rice, and thus have less money for other things? And it affects you even if you don’t eat rice.

In terms of the rice stocks in warehouses, we are starting to see some of the impacts now. The rice may or may not rot before it can be sold, but isn't the point that if it does not rot and can be sold, it will cause an increase of supply next year? An increase in supply without an increase in demand means prices should fall, and the government is saying it wants to extend the pledging scheme to next year, which will mean that rice exporters will have the same problem next year, only worse, because Thailand's credibility will be lower. The government wants to pay farmers high prices next year and if the exporters are losing money now, they might stop exporting. Then what happens? As the old adage goes, doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.

In fact when government policies cause prices to increase in the local market, it is called inflation. Inflation is a tax. So by manipulating the price of rice, the government has in fact levied a tax on all the people without passing any new tax laws. See the benefit? Eureka! A new (stealth) tax!! And it's free!! Yea Yea! (sarcasm).

Another way to say this is that governments love to screw all the poor in the long term by helping its favorite poor group in the short run.

Thanks! Very clear & informed.

Sad to see the price being paid by the Thai people for the benefit of a bail jumping convicted criminal,and his followers, namely his family and their brown nosing acolytes.

I'm not sure I understand this all as being TS's fault. Rice farmers were farming rice before TS-era (ie 2001). They got more money under Thaksin and were glad. They want to make more money just like we all do. They like and re-vote-in this scheme where they get more money for doing what they've done their whole lives.

From the POV of, "well, it was inflated so rice peeps started living beyond their means, and that's unsustainable" or "it incentivizes unsustainable capital re-investment", ok, I agree that's not good but that's not TS's fault they do that with their money, but ultimately, he's still spreading some measure of increased wealth around to *working* have-nots.

My question is: is it fair to say he's ruining the rice industry because he gave more money to people for X number of years to do what they've always done? Unsustainable, it seems, yes, but ruinous (at the risk of appearing to put words in anyone's mouth, not my intention).... well ... I'd like to understand why it's considered so bad.

Disclaimer: I don't like the Shinawatras. I'm asking because I'd earnestly like to understand how the rice-pledging scheme is not simply unsustainable rather than anything worse.

Hahaha "in their respective vaginas."

Coconuts should also finish more sentences in their reportage with "as it were", "per se" and "actually"....... type these days is, after all, free... as it were.

If the government has been fully aware of the human trafficing situation in Thailand why haven't they done anything about it, not just this government but all that were in office before hand?

If somebody robs your apartment and you report it at the local precinct, why don't the police investigate it?

... and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Thanks, coconuts.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but generally Thai people are very racist... from what i understand it stems from the culture of "Poor people work in the fields/sun, so the darker your skin the poorer you are"

Correct. Old news though. A well known Thai saying even amongst the Thai kids goes "Black Skin, Black Heart". Underneath the famous Thai smile they are an exceptionally racist society, sad but true.

RIGHT. Some believe that the darker you are, the worse you smell, too.

Furthermore, the more likely you are to have nasty crusty dreadlocks or cornrows.

Thanks to Admin for this post & thanks to PAWS for getting on Thaivisa and giving us an update. More if you can, please.

I never knew there was any discipline to begin with.

Kuhn Gohmer. -- I'm sure after your 6 year absence from USA all those delightful 30+ year-old California girls are glad to have you back.

Yes, American women have the best and most sexy, alluring attitudes. I loved the constant attempts at emasculation by the majority of the baby boomer generation and onwards.

JL, love the avatar. But for your signature, what about something else... like.. "She's my sister AND my daughter"

.... or maybe "Forget it, Jeab... it's Yaowarat"

I saw some parts on TV, it looks quite funny.

Westerners who hoped to blackmail the Thai government by "you go our way or we leave" may start packing to free their rooms for Chinese tourists

Yump I see Westerners trying to blackmail the Thai government all the time.

Guess that little gig is up now, innit Jergen?

You really get to laugh in there faces now!

Yes you do. Amazing post, dude.

It's just another way of perpetuating the rigid hierarchy of Thai society. This is, unfortunately, why Thailand (and to an even greater extent, India) are underachieving in the sciences: technology doesn't flourish in environments where communication is limited by social factors.

http://en.wikipedia....onway's_law

Conway's law is an adage named after computerprogrammerMelvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1968. It states that "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations".

Great insight, great post.

Haven't we enough ex-military & ex-police in power at the moment? I'd love to see someone like Mr Condom stand for governor. Someone who has a record of helping all Thais.

I like the sentiment a lot but Sereepisuth is a one of a kind. He has a record of going after the corrupt with no regard for his own well-being. He'll go after anyone no matter how powerful they are.

Seeing that kind of bravado possibly being rewarded with a higher position makes me feel good.

Just introduce a vehicle testing scheme, as in the UK, you have to have your car/motorbike tested annually (after the first 3 years have expired)

the criteria includes all mechanical & safety aspects of the car including electrics etc.. but most important is the exhaust test, if that falls below regulation figures you will not pass & get a certificate.. if you do not have the certificate to prove it is roadworthy it becomes illegal to be on the road, also you cannot tax or insure your car either as this certificate must be shown at the time of purchasing these documents.

In a country where the clinic doctor simply checks my breathing with a stethoscope to give me a clean bill of health as being syphilis- gonorrhea- and HIV-free for my medical certificate just before collecting my 400THB, I think this is a poorly-thought-through solution for Thailand.