steveromagnino

Payment to poor rice farmers of N and NE must be stop at all cost.

No reason why the rice farmers cannot sell rice themselves, when everyone in Thailand is eating rice.

Government should be giving help money to oil palm & rubber farmers in the South instead, as they are the one that are in need of help.

Because unlike rice, not everyone in Thailand is eating palm or rubber.

The farmers cannot sell the rice themselves because they no longer have it in their possession - they gave it to the pledging scheme, trusting that the government would pay them for it but the government did not.

So right now they have no rice and no money.

Patrick

Exactly. And the farmers have paid all their costs (seed, harvesting, fertiliser etc etc). They are the ones who are stuck here.

The farmers who did not sell it to the govt have been forced to sell it to the highest bidders, who are offering about 5,500b from memory; something like 30% lower than the market price simply because the farmers have basically no choice, so in fact the farmers are either stuck owed money by the govt who may never pay them, or if they still have some rice on hand, stuck selling at a loss on the open market which has been massively damaged by the price distortions of the pledging scheme so are being screwed.

Also, there are some questions as to whether the rice actually can even be returned (some sources inside the scheme believe that the same single sack of rice has been used more than once for pledging - it was transferred to someone else who then also pledged the same physical rice - which means that even were they to try to return the rice, there might be 2-3 owners of each ton of rice pledged - the real one plus a few fake ones created by sources close to the government - and it will be nearly impossible to determine who actually owns the rice without also revealing the corruption in the scheme).

This is why the price floor system of the Dems was so much healthier and sustainable.

Rice pledging was never a crop subsidy with a budget for subsidies as occurs elsewhere in the world, it is a monopsony with the govt buying all the rice at an inflated price with an aim to sell it at an inflated price which is obviously never going to happen.

So what happens is the govt have alledgedly done fake deals (where they sell 10,000 tons on paper but 'accidentally' deliver 25,000 tons thus ensuring the rice traders will pay the higher price per ton and it all looks ok on paper). the problem is that the budget constraint for funding the scheme is capped at a level too low to run the scheme longterm as it's like a Ponzi scheme as the few deals done are in reality for more rice than what the contract says, so the rice stockpile is slowly less and less than what it should be on paper. In addition, you have pledging of the rice more than once that actually doesn't exist at all. You have far rice pledged from Burma/Laos/Cambodia, and crop yields higher than planned. So any physical investigation will reveal the true losses - which is why the govt has been so strongly against anyone actually investigating the scheme.

So now it's run out of money, the govt could either be honest and admit that there are no real deals, or reveal the actual corruption in the scheme, to increase the budget to fund it - until now the government has mostly tried to lie its way out (that there are deals, that the scheme is solvent) but they cannot fake the actual money needed to pay out. So hence they have blamed it all on the protests.

90% of the country turned up to vote.

- EC chairman Supachai Somcharoen said about 13 million voters who could not exercise their right to vote made up about 25% of the entire electorate of almost 49 million eligible voters. (note this excludes the number who also chose NOT to vote which was at least a similar number IMHO)

- Bangkok Metropolitan Administration reported unofficial voter turnouts yesterday in Bangkok at 1.14 million people, or 26.18% of a total of 4.36 million eligible voters, compared to voter turnouts of 71.62% in the July 3, 2011 election.

- Voter turnouts nationwide even in the strongholds of Peua Thai were consistently lower than 2011, with a significant number of people electing not to vote - I heard percentages by changwat this morning being between 45 - 60% in the north and north east

- turnout in 2011 was 75% - to achieve 90% would require a major and massive publicity exercise virtually forcing people to vote....which has not happened

So rather than your claim of 90% turnout I would imagine something like 50% possibly lower is the more likely result.

If you add NO VOTE cast + selecting NO VOTE as a choice in the election, it would seem highly likely that PT have lost their popular mandate even running effectively unopposed (almost all the parties except Chuwit and BJT are already PT allies or so small as to be irrelevant (I do not agree with this approach to counting votes, but some will likely propose this)).

Any view on whether the Dems should have run in the election is now irrelevant. but it would seem impossible for this result to stand - the parties didn't even have manifestos or campaign prior to the election - many MPs even felt the result would be annulled before the election went ahead - is it any wonder that despite the rhetoric, that in a time when participation should be at an all time high (even in provinces with no effect from the protesters) that this is not the case and participation is actually pretty poor?

It is a bit rich to cite low turnout as a reason to discount the election when the yellow side has done everything it can to make voting dangerous, ranging from mild intimidation to opening up on pro-voters with pistols and assault weapons in Lak Si. Indeed the BBC made much the same point this morning. It is true that the claim of 90 per cent turnout is too high a figure, but the intentional neglect of context undermines Mr Magnino's credibility.

90% only is misquoted and misused by posters in this thread; the real turnout is lower across the country in all the provinces where numbers have been provided compared to 2011 election, and more like average 45-50% turnout, which I have specifically stated includes the effect of the actions of the protesters (13 million or 25% who were unable to vote). We now know the turnout nationwide to be around 46% (http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/ec-says-45-84-turn-vote/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ec-says-45-84-turn-vote). we already know voter turnouts were lower across the board from other data coming in including in areas totally unaffected by anything other than the tactical option to boycott the vote (we do not know the number of NO votes cast yet and will not do so until all by-elections are completed if they ever are.

How I could be more clear than this, I do not know.

Having had my own personal run ins with the red shirts, I can state from personal experience, that there are spineless scumbag thugs on both sides of the political divide.

What I can say, is that whereas in 2011 PT could arguably claim that of those who voted, which was the majority of the country, more than half voted for them (so thus they could claim a popular mandate widely considered to be more than 50% of voters support them usually of those who voted), it would seem that adding those who CHOSE not to vote (not those who were denied the right to vote) plus those who NO VOTED plus those who chose someone else, might be more than 50%, in which case support for PT would be less than 50%. If as a total of all voters (irrespective of whether they voted or not), it is most certainly less than 50%. We do not know this result yet because we do not know the numbers of "NO" votes.

The reason to discount this election are several, and most were known before the election, which is why I offer this as an explanation why the parties themselves did not bother really trying to promote, and also why there was a low election day turnout - within both these groups many are expecting the result not to stand:

1. It has not returned an acceptable result by the definition provided in the constitution - it does not matter why, it matters that the result is not delivering a minimum of 475 MPs so there will be another election (either by-elections or entire election, but seems likely the by-election approach will fail

2. It was known before the election this would likely be the case

3. Large numbers have been denied their democratic right to vote (just because someone lives in an area with no MPs, does not mean they necessarily would vote for one party or another, they have been denied the right to do so) on the same days as everyone else

4. The constitution does not make provision for situations like this, except to state that the EC can now call a new election but even then the wording is not so clear

5. With the election being called on multiple days, it would seem obvious that there is an impact on fairness of elections in seats not already decided if there are leaks of % votes for those yet to vote; e.g. Chalerm's statements on numbers of seats etc

6. Without a clear mandate from the ballot box, it is difficult to see how PT can stay in this tenuous position - in fact it is not so easy to see how any of this gets resolved - if the EC calls a new election, will PT accept it?

7. Ignoring all of the above, there has been virtually no policy statements of presentation so it is totally unclear what any party actually stands for

8. Certain candidates have been denied the opportunity to campaign or present what they stand for

I think the protesters should be prosecuted where they stopped people from voting, and as anyone who reads what I have written in the past, I am totally against amnesty for anyone - people who do the crime should be willing to face the consequences. That is why I was against the amnesty push by Yingluck's government, and why I still wait, optimistically, for a full investigation of 2006,2007, 2009, 2010, drugs war etc etc and all appropriate parties to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

What part of that, do you not understand, "(89%) of Thai registered voters chose to vote"yesterday!

The Yellows and their backers were trying to stop the election and told all of it supporters not to vote, in contrast the Yingluck government stated that people should support the Thai Democracy and vote.

"89% of eligible voters voted in the February 2 national election, 10.9% of voters chose not to vote or were blocked from voting"

RESULTS: The Suthep, Democrat party, lost the election as (1 out of 10) voters backed the demonstrators call to boycott the election!

In sharp contrast (9 out of 10) Thai voters backed PTP position to vote.

All I have read today is the pathetic post from posters trying to "save face" as the real Thai majority, burst their bubble and voted in over whelming numbers!

I would laugh to, but I chose not to add insult to injury!

It is poor form to belittle and insult others.

I think what you mean (based on what happened, not your own opinion).....

RESULTS: The anti government protesters affected the election as (5 out of every 10) voters either were not affected by or ignored the demonstrators call to boycott the election, this represents a drop from around 7.5 out of every 10 voters in the past who turned out to vote.

Of the (5 out of 10) Thai voters who backed PTP position to vote, we do not yet know what proportion out of those 5 out of 10 voted NO or did not vote for PTP, which was the other option offered by the protesters as a form of protest vote.

As I have previously posted (not that most things are referenced):

This is what we know for now:

- "Thai voters cast ballots across almost 90 percent of the country yesterday" ref Business Week

http://www.businessw...-to-hamper-vote

- this is by area representing potential to cast a vote NOT total number of voters

- " 49 million eligible voters for 375 constituencies" ref. Rueters

http://www.reuters.c...EA1100X20140202

(therefore your claim of 90% would mean approximately 44m people voted - which they didn't - closer estimate is )

- "Voting was disrupted in 18 percent or 69 of 375 constituencies nationwide, the Election Commission said, affecting 18 of 77 provinces, Reuters reported"

http://www.aljazeera...3752606651.html

(disrupted means just that)

- "In southern provinces, voter turnout was estimated at 20 to 30 per cent, much lower than previous elections.Voter turnout was a little over 40 per cent in Chai Nat, less than 50 per cent in Phichit, about 50 per cent in Ayutthaya, according to local election officials."

-- The Nation 2014-02-03

- turnout in Chiang Rai (stronghold of PT) voter turnout around 60% less than the last election turnout of 76% (ignoring the voters who chose to vote NO VOTE)

http://www.thairath.co.th/content/region/400797

- turnout in Buriram (stronghold of BJT) voter turnout around 50%

http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/400775

Furthermore....

- EC chairman Supachai Somcharoen said about 13 million voters who could not exercise their right to vote made up about 25% of the entire electorate of almost 49 million eligible voters. (note this excludes the number who also chose NOT to vote which was at least a similar number IMHO)

- Bangkok Metropolitan Administration reported unofficial voter turnouts yesterday in Bangkok at 1.14 million people, or 26.18% of a total of 4.36 million eligible voters, compared to voter turnouts of 71.62% in the July 3, 2011 election.

- Voter turnouts nationwide even in the strongholds of Peua Thai were consistently lower than 2011, with a significant number of people electing not to vote - I heard percentages by changwat this morning being between 45 - 60% in the north and north east

- updated: EC Commissioner estimates turnout at around 45% I think somewhere in this thread (I have not seen this reference, but would seem to be about right)

You say 90%. Reality is around half that at 45-50%, and again, that's not counting the people who used their vote to NO VOTE.

Yeah, I always thought that the 2010 burning of the old movie theatre was unrelated to the riots and in the interest of "land development".

All that land on the Siam Square side with the movie theatres from memory belongs to Chulalongkorn university, and is leased 30 years at a time.

Regarding land development, once the land has been developed into low value shop houses (cheap to build, ok profit potential in the past) on separate titles, it becomes extremely difficult for a new owner to join them back together again, because the market prices of each shop house is far higher than the value of the land, combined with the difficulty in convincing ALL the owners to agree (you can do without maybe the end ones, but any of the middle owners not selling or asking a crazy price makes the deal impossible to do).

So for now, developers focus on either plots requiring only a few joins or single large plots.

The few vacant plots around town often have a story as to why. Often they are owned by banks, or there are debts on them, or family feuds.

So the plots left over are the only ones that can be bid on easily.

Thank you Steveromagnino for being a sound voice of reason and using solid facts instead of the usual vitriolic rhetoric filled nonsense we usually see from a great many losers here. I salute you sir !

My pleasure :-)

As a reminder, most of Thailand's hydro power flows down out of the north and north east. Lose Issan and other PTP strongholds, and Bangkok and the central industrial estates dependent upon that electricity go dark. The region is also the major source of fresh water that replenishes the watersheds upon which much of the population in the central and Bangkok regions depend. Consider the implications of impeded access to cheap food, even if it was only for a few months. As much as some people wish to discount the PTP loyalist regions, they are needed for the survival and prosperity of Thailand.

The whole idea of creating 2 countries is idiotic proposed out of rehetoric and not common sense, it makes far more sense for the country to be united, and certainly it would likely be the North/Northeast that would be the 'loser' (it is not a zero sum game, both would lose, but N/NE would lose a lot more) if there was a major breakup of the country and they had to replicate all infrastructure. It is indeed likely true that the biggest impact would be access to a good workforce needed for the prosperity of the central zone (more Thais work in factories/services than in the fields now) - however power, food, water are all likely to see north/northeast coming out worse, and central coming out ahead of where we are now assuming we didn't have to carry them anymore - the N/NE would also suffer in terms of benefits from tourism, service, finance etc - while it is possible they would be better governed (seems highly unlikely given the quality of Thai regional politicians) and so grow quickly, it is worth bearing in mind we are talking about the less educated, less experienced, less financially secure populace. Rather - we would see what we see now - a huge number of them, often the more ambitious and hardworking, wanting to live in the Central area as they do now. That would leave behind the type of workforce we see in upcountry villages now - poor, unskilled, uneducated, without resources. Not the ideal start for building a country.

With regards to geriatrickid's comments...I'd add a little about power, water, food.

POWER

Regarding power, looking at 2012 data, we can see hydro is an important part of the supply curve but it is far from substantial.

http://www.eppo.go.th/info/5electricity_stat.htm

That's ignoring who would cover the costs of paying for the infrastructure in place now - note it was the central government not the region who created the dams and powerstations from the north and the northeast, it wasn't money necessarily coming from that region, and as I am sure you are aware, the trend would likely be that large factories and central industrial estates are able to purchase power in a relatively less regulated market with a centralised grid system were there to be 2 countries, simply because the north/northeast would be left mostly with only SMEs and residential, none of whom currently pay the true cost of the power - they are all cross subsidised by the industrial/commercial sector (there are reasons for this relating to load profile, metering/admin costs, network costs to serve all people) - as most deregulated markets have discovered - homeowners/SMEs in the north/northeast would immediately be hit with massive price increases on their power to keep the power producers and network operators afloat - the lignite power would disappear pretty quickly at a guess other than to handle peak power and hydro cannot supply power easily matching the load profile of the typical home 24 hours a day (it provides a great base load, not so good for peak load). The north would only be able to sell power to the central area at market price, simply because the central area could use IPPs and new power stations with different fuel stocks which is what has happened now anyhow; this would also do away with transmission losses with embedded generation.

2012 data - power mostly it comes from the IPPs and natural gas:

HYDRO 8,431.22 5%

FUEL OIL 1,299.96 1%

LIGNITE 18,802.01 11%

GAS 52,568.77 30%

IMPORTED 10,527.43 6%

SPP 15,134.22 9%

IPP 70,143.04 40%

TOTAL 176,973.14

Rather what would happen, in the impossible and idiotic scenario would be that the production area of Thailand (Bangkok/Central) would simply bypass and source from Laos etc or build more power stations in their areas.

FOOD

Food would be a non issue - food can always be bought on the open market - given rice yields in the central plain, it would seem likely. were the central zone have the ability to buy at open market, while the north/northeast kept rice pledging, it is likely rice prices would reduce in price in the central area through importation/local crops, while the north/northeast would again, be likely to either go hungry and/or bankrupt as they would not have the tax base to keep the scheme going while they would be unable to sell the rice (if the scheme was kept as it is now) to anyone since their price is double market price.

Diversity of production could be maintained through imports for both 'countries'

WATER

Watershed is controlled via country agreements, in this case, it would be useful to consider that while none are concrete, the likelihood would be some form of agreement; again it would be quite possible for the central area to have fewer water problems than the likely impoverished north/northeast who would not have access to the sea without keeping water ways full enough to use them.

Helsinki Rules (see also new Berlin Rules)

Rules on the Uses of the Water of International Rivers (ILA, Helsinki, 1966)

http://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/IntlDocs/Helsinki_Rules.htm

Helsinki Convention

Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UN-ECE, Helsinki, 1992)

http://www.unece.org/env/water/

UN Convention

Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN, New York, 1997)

http://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/IntlDocs/Watercourse_Conv.htm

SUMMARY

In this day and age with increasing reduction in borders, there is no justification or reason to consider breaking Thailand into multiple countries. I still feel that decentralising control and providing each region with their own government and control would then allow all regions to have the exact type of government they deserve.

I have a sneaking suspicion, this would also solve a lot of the current corruption problems, once local representatives became far more accountable.

I have put forward this idea several times in various blogs . Those who question where the financing will come from for northern social needs have a point , that Bangkok and Rayong seem to be the industrial centre . The workforce in general comes from the north and northeast and if they didn't come south ,

the current industries would lack manpower .

Factories are located in places where there are hubs and spokes (e.g. automotive), places to ship from, clear rule of law and close to power supply - in fact power and water are major reasons why factories choose Thailand. Khon Kaen , Udon Thani and Changmai are all quite far from the ships needed to move cars/etc and to receive raw materials - there have been multiple attempts to set up factories upcountry; it is not so easy for certain product types; some are well suited. Let the market decide (and they have).

For the major factories, it is not necessary to hire just Thais, and in fact many factories and labourer type jobs are increasingly passing up using only Thais and going with Combodians, Burmese, Vietnamese and Laotians. This is because you can rely on them not putting down their tools in May and then turning up again in October and because there are not enough workers to go around.

Now if the rice pledging scheme is wound up, then we will be able to get all those workers doing something useful for the country working and paying tax. I would imagine most of the taxi drivers and so forth who choose to come to factories etc Bangkok for more earnings etc - it's all based on logic and freedom of movement; once AEC kicks in then this trend will only increase. Again, another reason to stay as a single country.

Well to answer your question/comments:

1. members of the house of representatives are required to conduct themselves in certain ways; there is a possibility that in attempting to change the constitution (and also for various other things like cheating in votes etc) they have engaged in conduct which has consequences by attempting to change the mode provided in the 2007 Constitution using their majority in the house to force it through

Section 68. No person shall exercise the rights and liberties prescribed in the Constitution to ..... acquire the power to rule the country by any means which is not in accordance with the modes provided in this Constitution.

In the case where a person or a political party has committed the act under paragraph one, the person knowing of such act shall have the right to request the Prosecutor General to investigate its facts and submit a motion to the Constitutional Court for ordering cessation of such act without, however, prejudice to the institution of a criminal action against such person.

In the case where the Constitutional Court makes a decision compelling the political party to cease to commit the act under paragraph two, the Constitutional Court may order the dissolution of such political party.

2. the current protesters are, like the red shirts, almost like a two heads, one beast animal, although the gap between the protesters this time and the Dems is even wider; in my office, for instance, almost everyone attends the protests and donates and most strongly dislike the Shinawatra family (this company has direct dealings with the family and so is privy to more information than the average person); however less than 50% are Dem voters, they simply dislike the current administration (as do many of the 6m people who fund PT's popularist policies) - since the protesters are not a political party, then dissolution does not apply - this is incidentally why many Dem politicians resigned so they could not be accused of preaching while also being governed by house of representative codes of conduct - it is also how the red shirts operate - they can say whatever they want in their rallies (even that they will not listen to the courts, then say that's speaking as a red shirt, not as PT - both major parties play this game all the time

3. I am not sure whether I can speak to your statement what Suthep does or doesn't want "Suthep doesn't want any one man, one, vote election and will do his utmost to prevent one" - ignoring that no country has the one person one vote plan anyhow (there are various people without the right to vote) I believe this to be true under the current money politics system he and many others see no point in holding elections without first reform - he is not saying he wants a dicatatorship, rather he wants reform before election and he has stated a timeline on it of 18 months which is actually within the original 4 year term of PT. Note that PT agree in concept to the reform, in fact they campaigned in 2011 on that basis among other things; the difference is PT want to be the ones driving it; given the amnesty bill fiasco, the attempts to control the DSI to push charges against Suthep/Aphisit to make them agree to Thaksin's amnesty, etc there are many do not trust PT in the slightest that they are sincere in wanting any real reform and supported by the huge ragtag group of scumbags who are part of PT - incidentally many also feel the same way about Suthep!

The likely scenario that both the members of both PT and a few of the smaller parties who I spoke to believes will happen, and which explains the total lack of campaigning by ANY parties is that because the election will fail to deliver 95% result, the EC have the authority to call a new election, which they will do, and in the intervening time, the pressure will reduce. this ignores the possibility of a large number of NO votes in excess of some of the smaller party votes secured.

This is NOT a judicial coup, it is application of the constitution:

Clause 93 dictates when a house of representatives can be formed:

In the case where there occurs, during the general election, any cause resulting in the members of the House of Representatives elected from the election being ...not less than ninety-five per cent of the total number of members of the House of Representatives, such members is deemed to constitute the House of Representatives. In this case, the acquisition for the fulfillment of the total number of members of the House of Representatives shall be completed within one hundred and eighty days and the new coming members shall hold office for the remaining term of the House of Representatives.

- since it is not possible to reach this, then the house of representatives cannot be formed election will be nullified

It is possible for a new election to then be scheduled (direct quote of the constitution):

Clause 108. The King has the prerogative to dissolve the House of Representatives for a new election of members of the House....

The dissolution of the House of Representatives may be made only once under the same circumstance.

The EC also has the right to call a new election at any/all polling stations and this is the likely reason why there will be a new election (because large parts of the country are denied the chance to vote both in their constituency and also for the popular vote, far in excess of 5%, also because the state of emergency and other factors have contrived to deny certain parties the ability to campaign, etc etc) - it is murky whether you can apply this to all seats, but likely that this clause would be used to 'encourage' PT to accept a new election since until every constituency has the chance to vote, you cannot know what the result is:

Clause 236

(6) to order a new election or a new voting at a referendum to be held in any or all polling stations when there occurs convincing evidence that the election or the voting at a referendum in that or those polling stations has not proceeded in an honest and fair manner;

just adding to what you said,

1. pro downhillers go up to 100mph (not 70mph)

2. downhilling is not really a good judge of speed for MS as he isn't skilful enough to race downhill nor do you race downhill outside of a race course and certainly not on standard skis etc

I thought you might find it interesting to understand the difference between the type of riding I would imagine MS was doing and the limit of the sport (which is mind-blowingly fast). If you don't find that interesting then fair enough. :-)

Yeah skiers can get some serious speed, pro down hillers hit as much as 70mph. You may not know or remember but several US celebs have perished on ski slopes, it's a serious sport. Sonny Bono died when he impacted a tree as did one of the Kennedys..

He wasn't downhilling, he was likely just riding like most of us do at medium speed; early season and was extremely unlucky to fall (likely a tumbling fall so that means Gs with the body weight behind you) onto his head which landed on a rock. Happens. Sadly.

Downhill is a brutal, brutal sport, there is an excellent film about it called The Thin Line - which is about the line between crazy risk and winning - Schummacher is nowhere near the level of being able to race Downhill (it's a pretty specialist part of skiing), if he raced it would be in slalom of Giant slalom (GS) and from what I've seen he has club level technique - downhill they get up to close to 100mph - almost no protection other than the helmet - you fall and it frigging hurts.

trailer:

This is one of the greats of skiing, running the world's most famous downhill, Bode Miller in 2008, including riding the fence (briefly at 32sec)

By comparison this is Ted Liggity running GS: this is maybe a little quicker but not much than the speed of a fairly quick recreational skier (with a lot more technique enabling him to get around the gates so quickly - this would be closer to the speed (at most) that MS fell at) - often people nowadays will 'straightline' down runs all over the mountain; that's one reason that riding is so frigging dangerous now; you not only have to deal with your own stupidity, but also someone running you down from behind.

The captured gunman was reported to be a motorcycle taxi driver

No doubt.....he is a Yellow supporter in disguise:whistling:

No - he's just a guy trying to make a living who hasn't had any customers for a week. Obviously not one of Suthep's elite 'people' then - so he doesn't matter, along with thousands like him.

Obviously it is very sad someone has been shot, and no justification (oh I made slightly less money) is sufficient to justify opening fire with a weapon at a crowd of people if this is indeed what happened (and appears to have been the case). I really hope you are being sarcastic, although I don't really consider shooting someone to be a particularly funny matter - sometimes humour doesn't translate well online.

Anyhow, many of the motorcycle taxis are making hand over fist in the Lard Prao area, ask them. There are large numbers of people catching motorcycles who can get through where a car cannot. Unlike the red shirt protesters, a lot of these protesters (until recently) were spending money and using their services.

Having had a run in with red shirts when they used to have their 'offices' in Lard Prao 16/18 area, there are some pretty staunch people in this area, and many have switched sides but there are still diehards who are willing to do whatever they think is appropriate to force their view point on others.

Let's hope the moderates on both sides prevail, but that seems increasingly less likely, when both sides almost seem to want to fan the flames of indignation.

It looked like it could possibly be renegade former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, if you look carefully, you can also see the dead giveaway 'fendi bathrobe'. He's doing an Osama.

Seriously, ghosts freak me out, I have no explanation other than possibly a shadow from something near a light that resembled a person, e.g. a couple of lizards, or er, dunno.

Docno is well more familiar with ghosts than us, also, it is common that Asian ghosts just got out of the shower clothed, so are often very wet. and dripping. It's pretty inconsiderate, if you have carpet or laminate floors.

เอา มะพร้าว ห้าว ไป ขาย สวน

More along the lines of engaging in something pointless (selling sand to the Arabs that sort of thing).

going round and round in circles I cannot think offhand of an equivalent.

in property negotiation you are either a good negotiator or at the mercy of a good negotiator. People who find Thai developers to be illogical negotiators are probably not great at negotiation and are approaching the transaction with the wrong mindset - illogical means opportunity to find a weird compromise deal. Not taking a low ball price is not illogical obviously BTW.

The usual standard is each developer has their own agreement - in most cases for condos the structure is as you described, with a deposit, a sizeable amount on signing the contract about a month later, and then instalments during construction taking you up to 10-35% depending on the developer. And yes, the developer can use that cash unless you specifically ask (and they agree) to put into escrow which is not common here.

If you are not a resident here, and without a work permit etc, there are some obligations that are a little different when you transfer AFAIK, including the need to show that the cash paid came from abroad via what used to be called a TT3 form/FET form - to HELP you some developers will offer you the opportunity to pay everything in a single lump but usually they will also have some incentive for you to do this e.g. free XXXX or very slight discount. If you are paying up now, then the currency might encourage you to do this now depending on how you believe the THB will move. However, it is uncommon to make you go through with this all in one go just because you are a foreigner - however not unheard of. Obviously, some developers are dealing with a problem that foreigners go AWOL and they cannot easily get in touch with them to force them to pay up - this is a more substantial problem than with Thais, since there are more ways a developer can use to force/encourage an errant local buyer (Thai or person working here) to settle.

The issue of foreigner allocation is something that resort towns deal with and will often have better terms for the Thai quota that they cannot sell; likewise some developers that struggle to sell to Thais for certain developments e.g. Raimon Land at the River might be more strict because 'they can' (example only, I have no idea if they are) or looking in reverse, will offer incentives/discounts to try to get the Thai buyers up to 51% as required by law.

If the agent is CBRE or another big one, chances are the developer has their own ideas of how to deal with foreigners and the agent is just relaying it. If a smaller developer, then who knows. Try contacting the developer directly if they have a website using a different name to see if you can see if it is actual policy.

Needless to say, both sides are looking for a solution. If its under 20m the amount of negotiation room is relatively low unless it's close to completion or they are struggling to sell. Above that, anything is possible. All depends on how you want to negotiate. If you want, feel free to PM me and I can tell you a little more about the specific project and developer if I know them.

I have met countless westerners who have the exact same attitude (in reverse) about other ethnicities/nationalities when I grew up in the west. I have met even many westerners with Thai partners in Thailand/abroad who think the same as she does in reverse (everything Thai sucks, blah blah blah). Actually, on balance quite a lot in the latter category - it's pretty odd when they have kids and cannot even conceal how much they hate a fair chunk of the kids' makeup - no wonder so many look krueng end up as total screw ups.

As per the description of the person in Tennessee, usually the hatred is kept slightly concealed, to be revealed once the person has sized you up (either in some cases to annoy you, in other cases because they think you will agree).

As with most racists, she sounds like a bit of an idiot, and possibly mentally a little unhinged, and I would almost try to avoid her, except that she does provide amusement value as the Thai Archie Bunker - next time she starts ranting, perhaps asking her to stifle herself. As Simon43 said, a video recording would be really good, I love watching All in the Family.

Are they following the law?

This is an existing contract which now the EC is not honouring, not a new edict from a transitional government.

No it isn't. If it was an existing contract, then Section 181 doesn't apply and payment would be released already; the problem is the government failed to plan the funds prior to calling the election, and now wants to saddle someone else with paying for it: As it is not an emergency or necessity situation it is difficult to see how the EC could agree to it. If they had been honest about not selling any rice, this would have been easily discussed and pushed through in the house last year, but PT kept claiming they had sales of rice so the scheme was self funding.

Section 181

The outgoing Council of Ministers shall remain in office for carrying out duty until the newly appointed Council of Ministers takes office, but in case of vacation of office under section 180 (2) the Council of Ministers and a Minister is able to carry out any duty as necessary within the following conditions:

(1) refraining from the exercise of power which resulting in the appointment or transfer of government officials holding permanent positions or salaries or of officials of State agency, State enterprise or any enterprise in which the State is a major shareholders or resulting in leaving such persons from the performance of their duties or offices or replacing other persons to replace him except by prior approval of the Election Commission;

(2) refraining from doing an act which resulting in giving of approval to spend budget reserved for emergency or necessity situation except by prior approval of the Election Commission;

(3) refraining from doing an act which resulting in giving approval of work or project or which the forthcoming Council of Ministers may be bound;

(4) refraining from using resources or personnel of State to do an act which may affect the result of a general election, and refraining from the violation of any prohibitions under the rules prescribed by the Election Commission.

For the EC to agree to spend this money would immediately imply that it was no longer necessary to seek budgetary approval for anything you felt like via the terms of section 166 during a caretaker government, which makes little sense as the EC is not equipped to make a decision on something like this. They are there to run an election, and in an emergency, provide emergency relief sa needed. its not EC's fault that PT thought they could cover the cost of financing the rice scheme via a government bank BAAC (as TRT used to do with KTB) as the head of the bank is also the deputy minister of finance and everyone felt sales would cover off the loans made even though everyone told them it wouldn't work. Lying has not helped either, now we are in a situation where no one knows how much money is actually needed in total because no one knows where the scheme stands.

Section 166.

The expenditure estimates of the State shall be made in the form of an Act. If the Annual Appropriations Act for the following fiscal year is not enacted in time, the law on annual appropriations for the preceding fiscal year shall apply for the time being.

Section 167.

In an introduction of the annual appropriations bill, the bill shall be annexed with documents stating estimated incomes, obscure objectives, activities, plans or projects of each item of expenditures including monetary and financial status of the country through the overview of economic condition arising from spending and gathering of incomes, benefits and deficiencies resulting from any specific tax exemption, justification for binding of over-year obligations, State debts and its incurring and financial status of State enterprises of that year and the previous year.

If any expenditure is unable to be directly allocated to a government agency, State enterprise or other State agencies, it shall be allocated to the item of reserved expenditure and, in such case, justification and necessary of such allocation shall also be stated.

As the EC has does have the power to authorise these loans, they should do so for the benefit of the Thai nation as a whole.

I am not sure the EC does have that power.

As one of the people forced to pay for this scheme, many of us think the entire scheme should be declared insolvent, and the lies and corruption surrounding it completely exposed. It was PT's fault for calling a snap election without first resolving this issue which is an operational issue, nothing else. The reason why PT are pushing it onto EC is political, because they are trying to play the wounded matyr where 'everyone is against them'. Rather than admitting it's because the PM has attended 1 meeting as the head of the committee running the scheme; they have lied constantly about it; they have no real idea what is going on, and they refuse to take any responsibility for saddling us, the Thai taxpayers, with the bill. The bank oversight has been woeful, and they have run out of cash.

Why should the EC be complicit in acting beyond their authority in this house of cards - the wording of clause 181 is something like

there shall not be taken of any act resulting in the disbursement of reserved funds available for emergency or necessity, unless upon prior permission of the EC

- it's not an emergency (like a flood) or a necessity, it's government policy - on par with paying out first car tax benefits etc - this is definitely not an emergency, and it is not a necessity (like food, water, power) so it outside the control of the EC - it is part of the government process

- I don't think the funds were reserved anyhow

- it's a failure to budget that has caused this, join the rest of us stuck in queues for stuff that the government claims it would do and hasn't

Perhaps PT should read further in the same clause (which is why they want to release payment as it's an election bribe as blatant as the cheap tolls in the 2005 election heading north):

There shall not be any exploitation of state resources....for any act having impacts on an election