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steveromagnino
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Posts posted by steveromagnino
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This is what Thailand needs it brings them out of the one-horse economy. The Thai people need some secure factory jobs and since they love tech they should do very well.
You do know there are more people working in factories than in the fields for almost 10 years now?
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My missus is red to the core as are most Issan folk. Not because they are stupid, ill educated and unthinking morons ...no...because they despise everything that the Bangkok wealthy and Amart stand for. I think it was in the late 50's that the Issan dialect was banned from schools... so English is actually their 3rd language.
So to all you posters who say that Thaksin just 'bought' the votes .. you are being stupid beyond belief.
Out of interest, which province?
Almost all Isaan provinces have continued to elect the same scumbags, year in year out for 20+ years, since they got the right to vote post 1992. The party name changes, the promises change, but the family name of who they vote for does not. To actually choose a candidate would require confidence that your vote was cast and could not be seen by someone else (unlikely in rural Thailand), a solid understanding of what you are voting for (or against) - impossible in today's environment, an actual valid choice - difficult when all parties are basically offering much the same thing (popularism) so you go with the one you like the most and the one you know, even if that's the bloke/woman who has skimmed most of the money that should have gone to schools, roads, infrastructure and rooks you on money loans, lottery, retail and rice milling in the area.
The only difference, is now they vote for part of a whole, (PT) rather than an isolated godfather/clan. You will note the language: Thaksin "gave" them 30b healthcare; an airport; OTOP; village funds etc; there is a fundamental struggle to understand (and I know this from doing research for a political party) in both rural and urban Thailand, when a government gives something, who is actually paying for it and what it is actually costing.
If ANYONE should be accused of being an amartaya, it should be the very clans that each province/zone the Isaan people keep choosing, year in year out, to elect. Those godfather clans are for the most part, the ones directly responsible for ensuring that the people in their area are kept in their place, far more than this idiotic claim that it is some faceless powerful people in Bangkok. When the garlic farmers were screwed with the China FTA, when all of Thai rice farmers will eventually suffer massively when the country runs out of money to keep paying them to produce rotting landfill, when the chicken flu crisis kicked in wiping out the industry.....who suffered and who won? Oh most certainly the farmers suffered. But who didn't? The large associated companies with a direct connection to the government. Whose relationships work on both sides of the house. And the various godfathers, who make their money on the government infrastructure projects which should really be a benefit to all Thais, not just them.
As for buying his way to victory, it is clear that Thaksin bought his way to victory multiple times, he didn't need to focus on paying for the end vote. He instead bought the right candidates, using transfer fees. They delivered victories where he needed them. That's all a matter of public record and not really up for debate. He's doing it again for the next election.
You can read about exactly how Thaksin won in 2001 on a platform of "Think new do new", but in fact the politicians representing Isaan it is hard to imagine a more innappropriate name; relative to Bangkok TRT clearly placed their faith in just buying candidates either from other parties or from local politics - this one in English - you can check out some of the work of Duncan McCargo, the bits that aren't banned here as well as Baker et al:
Looking at 2005, it is clear that TRT increased its vote mostly by buying up politicians from other parties; i.e. the MOST prostitute like candidates were how they increased their share of the total vote to get the landslide victory (from the same source):
"One way to locate the sources of TRTs success in the 2005 election is to look at its new MPs. If we take a close look at the new TRT MPs for Isan we find that the majority of them were former MPs from other political parties. 41 of them came from those political parties that merged with TRT after the 2001 general election: NAP (16), CPP (14) and Seri Tham party (11). Five defected from CTP and one from the Democrats. Only 8 were newcomers and all of these were local politicians or relatives of MPs. The number of the TRT MPs increased mainly because it sucked MPs from other parties. Since both these new MPs and the re-elected TRT MPs were all old-style politicians, their success surely would have been based, in part, on money power and the political patronage they had nurtured for years."
How many times do we see the red shirts speaking out against this rampant raping and pillaging which is ongoing in EVERY Isaan province on a daily basis by their representatives? not many. if any.
Fat chance, those instigators of the corruption are the very people the red shirts are choosing at the polls!
Perhaps you should discuss this point with your wife; I will guess she is from the same roots as my family (poor illiterate rice farmers). Our difference is I believe that politicians are elected to serve us, not to 'give us stuff'.
Each person in a democracy is allowed to keep voting in the same morons and no doubt they will given the sorry state of Thai politics at the moment.
I don't personally place any real faith in a Chinese monopolist walking around in a Fendi robe with poor people as proof he knows how to connect to the poor, or worse still, her sister who has zero credentials to run a country who is backed up by the icecream gang and a guy who flaunted the law hiding his son to escape a murder charge - in fact its hard to think of people more suited to the title 'amartaya' than this lot.
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I recall someone wrote a similar post about Mingkwan a couple of years back after he was in the running to be PT leader, criticizing his work at Toyota and Channel 9. I guess it was you. Fair enough, you don't rate the guy. Ever heard anything about possible links to Newin as a reason he was dumped as a PT ministerial candidate? Sure, only in his fantasies was he going to be PM, but he'd have at least have expected to be part of the minsterial merry go round.
I also don't really get the last line. Mingkwan wouldn't be at home with 'nak leng' like Yingluck, Kittirat, Chaturon, Chadchart, Dr Pansak, Suranand and the gang? dam_n, makes you wonder how Jakrapob made out as UDD leader with the likes of Nattawud and Jatuporn. He must've been frightened to death up there, standing next to those tough guys. And let's not mention Kwanchai! Wonder how Mingkwan supposedly lead a faction of 10 - 20 MPs before the last election - more than Chalerm? How could someone like him have influence over those guys? I'm bewildered and at a loss. Could you set me straight?
Mingkwan is not an upcountry strongman type. He is not an orator. He is IMHO not exceptionally smart. He is a hardworking civil servant type who gets instructions, gets an organisation to follow through and does all the non glamourous stuff needed to run an organisation. So like Korn, Somkid or similar - fine as a cabinet MP, hopeless as a party leader despite his aspirations in the past.
The upcountry people like either their local fiefdom leader (e.g. Suwat, Wattana, Sanoh, et al) or a firebrand orator strongman type (e.g. Chalerm, Jatuporn, etc). They don't respond so well to expertise and a good resume.
Now bear in mind Jakrapop was a former news man, so had the credentials of a semi neutral chap when he switched sides for the pay off (alledgedly not that much around 50m baht), and is a good speaker and presenter in both English and Thai. He never had aspirations beyond leading a media organisation (in his case he worked in the PM's office and took control of Channel 11 via the Public Relations Dept of Thailand) and so he was a good fit for Peua Thai/PPP since his payout was control of something few others wanted nor could so easily do. He also on paper appeared qualified, since he was a former news man. And then there was the benefit in overseeing the cost of rebranding from Ch 11 to B or NBT (I cannot recall which came first) which was, let's guess, 30-40% of the cost of a rebranding campaign about 300m baht or around 100m baht. At a total guess. Plus the ability to hire and fire all his mates. Were it not for his big mouth and ego plus rubbing up Thaksin the wrong way (some people inside believe Thaksin was the one who stuck it to him) then he'd still be around pretending to be a neutral news man.
Mingkwan got the commerce ministry (which he was a PR and performance bit of a disaster in), and yes, he sort of has his faction, but it isn't really his faction, it's more that he is allied with faction leaders and is maybe a more acceptable face of that group.
Chalerm has 'other power' not only as a total yesman in some ways to Thaksin, but also as a speaker, as a protector of the PM and knowing a lot of secrets on both sides of the house; were it not for his son's behaviour, Chalerm would have already likely made it to PM by now. To even be able to come back from the cliff shows how resilient he is.
The main handicap Chalerm and Mingkwan had were their egos and job expectations are far beyond their capabilities. In this respect, they fit very well with the rest of parliament :_)
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Is Mingkhwan the first rat off the sinking ship?
Perhaps he will join the Khunying and the other PT behind the scenes officials controlling Thai media and news reporting i.e. Channel 9, Channel 11/NBT, etc and all the digital variants controlled directly by the government, along with the ones controlled by govt affiliates Ch 3, 5, 7, or he is lining up a post as a civil servant to manage 'cashflow', some might guess back to the party (or the people wanting to party in Dubai).
From his background, some say back in the day he was charged with ensuring that Toyota and its Thai supply chain owners got the government policy needed and that TOR and government policy was always tilted just enough that coincidentally his company had a natural and unsumountable advantage in 'open bids', he was the one who took Channel 9 from being a reasonably decent TV station, into an entertainment brainless c&*p channel with news that is so biased one wonders whether the reporters on the network should also receive a presenter's fee for endorsing government policy.
He's not really cut out for politics, surrounded by the more manly 'nak leng' types of PT anyhow.
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A well thought out and reasoned post for a change. Saved me the trouble of saying the same thing. Far too many people get up on their hind legs on this forum only to blurt out their complete ignorance of economics.This thread comes straight out of the Fox News school of economics.
You need to understand the basics of the broken window (used to teach economics 101) to understand why the rice pledging scheme longterm is a very, very poor idea.
19th-century political economist Frederic Bastiat "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen." (This was, of course, translated from the French "Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas.") Bastiat's reasoning goes as follows:
A good shopkeeper's careless son breaks a pane of glass - onlookers say "it is ok, after all what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"
Suppose it cost 1000b to repair the damage, so brings 1000b to the glazier's trade who performs his task, receives his 1000b, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."
It is not seen that our shopkeeper has spent 1000b upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his 1000b in some way, which this accident has prevented.
In this parable, the thirty people telling the shopkeeper that the broken window is a good thing because it keeps the glazier employed are the equivalent of the journalists and politicians who say that natural disasters are actually an economic boon. Bastiat's point, on the other hand, is that the economic activity generated for the gl Perhaps he would have hired new staff, increased his production, or something else that genuinely results in an economic boon.
The glazier is only half of the picture, and it's therefore a mistake to look at the benefit to the glazier in isolation. Instead, a proper analysis considers both the fact that the glazier's business is helped and the fact that the money used to pay the glazier is then not available for some other business activity.
Bastiat's point, in a way, is about opportunity cost- unless resources are idle, they must be shifted away from one activity in order to be shifted toward another. Shifting, in the case of rice pledging, to get people to effectively be paid to merely stack and unstack wooden bricks 8 hours a day for no benefit to man nor beast, serves little benefit longterm to the Thai economy. Growing rice to throw away is even worse, because the liability of storage costs and financing makes it a truly expensive exercise.
Having resolved that, the only issue becomes how to help a business through the swings and arrows of outrageous fortune, helping through the bad times, rather than a permanent arrangement. Obviously the current government has no specific policy for farmers in general, just rice farmers. Certainly not garlic, palm oil, etc.
In fact the current TRT/PPP/PT government are one of several reasons why Thailand has lost so much of its diversity in other crops since they were the ones who signed the FTA with China enabling us to be overrun with low grade/pesticide ridden garlic etc, where Thailand dropped all its tariffs, only for the same to not be reciprocated at the other end, resulting in the trade deficit doubling within a year from $450m USD to around $910m in just 12 months, as the northern garlic farmers were first decimated when the FTA they were not allowed to participate in was introduced with resultant massive smuggling of garlic (some estimates are that 10% of the garlic from China is legally imported and 90% is smuggled); then again in 2008 with the China garlic oversupply, and again where (as a common ingredient in Thai cooking) there is a reduction in local farmer supply to the Thai markets but the global price has subsequently increased due to reduction in production in China - some estimate by over 500%, resulting in inflation (which is also a problem caused by rice pledging the rice price is ramping up across the entire kingdom, making rice farmers/millers/politicians rich at the expense of the majority of people who eat it).
Also, garlic farmers have been encouraged to switch to other crops (none of which are pledged either) so in effect, their broken window has remained broken, while the rice farmers are getting extra surplus windows for future breakage; that is the inherent nature of corrupt crony politics with no logical foundation in economic theory or fairness.
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Thank you for your input. I never knew that some States had criminal libel laws. According to the attorney at the FCCT, the 99% conviction rate was after the case was accepted by the prosecutor. But even then, a settlement out of court was encouraged. Wish you could have made the meeting.
I don't really buy the 99% conviction rate completely, maybe 99% after the case was accepted by the prosecutor and also after both sides refused to settle perhaps.
In Dec 2012 the Abhisit case against Jatuporn was dismissed.
In July 2013 the Rosana case against Surapong was dismissed.
In August the Abhisit case against Jatuporn was dismissed.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Court-rejects-Abhisits-suit-against-Jatuporn-30196946.html
In August the Thaksin case against Sondhi Limthongkul and television show host Sarocha Porn-udomsak was dismissed.
In August the PAD case against Jatuporn was rejected.
Just today we had the case of Senator Rosana against Jatuporn dismissed, regarding the claim of trying to switch jurisdiction of the legal case for PAD.
Now that's just a few that come to mind; I know that there are likely more; so against this list of 6+ cases in the last 12 months that were dismissed or rejected, are there really 600 cases that were found the other way? I don't think so.
More likely the 99% is a figure of speech.
These days, I don't so often attend FCCT functions, this one I would have liked to hear. Many speakers are interesting, but a fair few I have been shocked at the poor standards of speaker/presentation and reasoning skills. The choice of people has included some who I consider to be media hacks at best (and total media prostitutes at worst) masquerading as news people, and the audience seemed to actually be engaged with them.
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If this is lifted from Thai, the reason why is because Thai language makes a distinction (for lesbians) between the roles of the slightly more 'masculine' and slightly more 'feminine' player in the pair (not applicable in all cases).
A "Tom" is a lesbian choosing to adopt the role of the more masculine part of the relationship, meaning they approximate the role of the man in a male/female relationship.
A "Dee" is a lesbian choosing to adopt the role of the more feminine part of the relationship, meaning they approximate the role of the woman in a male/female relationship.
There is no rude meaning to either phrase as far as I know, and this is a normal name used by the people themselves as well as general public, without any rudeness meant.
However, when translated into English, this same typical language usuage ceases to be relevant. So I an see where the "Butch Lesbian" line came from ("Tom") but obviously it doesn't work in English.
Like translating the written media word for a ladyboy "Sao Prapaet 2" would not work in English "2nd type of woman" either.
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As noted in Thailand's criminal libel/slandeer code, the showing of 'damage' is 'negligible' and that is the point that was stressed at the FCCT. Once a decision is made to prosecute under the criminal libel provisions, there is a conviction rate of 99%. As for the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case, it creates such a high burden of proof on the plaintiff, it is 'nearly' impossible to meet. And there are no criminal libel/slander statutes in the US. It is a civil procedure that seeks compensation for tangible damages. Thank you for your input.
Thanks for this, very educational.
Do you mean a 99% conviction rate following agreement of the public prosecutor to pursue the case and following agreement of no agreement to settlement, or do you mean, 99% of all actions taken relating to libel law?
If it's based on the public prosecutor pursuing the case (ayakarn in Thai) then obviously they only pursue cases that they will likely win, they will choose not to follow cases that are marginal or that they would not win. So all the more marginal cases require that the plaintiff take legal action themselves (which from my understanding can be both civil and criminal), which is far from a 99% conviction rate (at a guess) and far more likely to go to settlement (the whole point of suing the person).
Perhaps also would be worthwhile to look at the damages awarded, relative to western legal system if we are going to look at things in detail.
For those wondering about how to attack such an action against you, the usual way for the defendant is to go through the police statement (the step to filing the charge at the beginning where the plaintiff runs through the facts and lays out what happened) and find any sort of a mistake, then press a case of 'giving a false statement' because it is the person who lays out the facts of what happened and signs off it being a true and fair record of what occured.
This is the leverage to get a settlement as is, from what I understand, usually the case.
In USA is it not quite true that several (minority number of) states have criminal defamation laws? e.g. Florida CH. 836 - so in fact it is true to say at a Federal level no criminal statute exists, but state by state and highly restricted in its application e.g. from Florida would clearly indicate it is a criminal offense (depending on the state and district) for banks and financial institutions.
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Why should anyone listen to the ramblings of a 2 baht wannabe mia noi? I'd sooner listen to the duck noodle lady Sent from my Nexus 4 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app
The duck noodle lady probably has morals, a sense of decency and a much better class of friends and associates.
If the duck noodle lady can make Larb Baet or Gaeng Baet maybe she can work for Chalerm (ok this I admit now has nothing to do with the original post)
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Every chance they get - pick a story, bring up something you don't like about Thaksin/PTP/UDD whatever it's relevance and post away. And all the usual suspects fighting over each other to get their like in first - even those who evangelise about remaining on topic, you know who you are, rubi.
So you think calling into question the neutrality of the spokesperson who made these statements is irrelevant, when there is skant evidence to this point of time (at least that we are aware of) that threats were made against the child in question?
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Nice to see Lt Sunisa landing on her feet, with this government spokesperson lark.
Did u notice by any chance this article is about Suthep and Yingluk?
Did u notice by any chance this article reflects the words of Lt Sunisa, a government deputy spokesperson whose claim to that post is worth questioning, and the content of her comments related to Suthep and PM Yingluck reference her as the source in subheading, because in fact at no point is it clear that Yingluck has ever said these words, nor is it clear if Suthep ever engaged in intimidation?
BTW this is straight out of the Shin playbook - cry foul when caught, because if you ignore long enough you win as people forget e.g.
- I don't remember (Thaksin asset declaration)& It was a honest mistake (asset declaration)
- I didn't create fraudulent documents (Khunying Pojamarn when caught forging documents relating to tax evasion using a Khingying title backdated to a point when she was not yet a Khunying)
- Everyone should stop pointing fingers at my son (when Oak was caught cheating at Ram U smuggling in cheat sheets)
- (tears) - numerous current PM
- etc (insert 108 1009 examples of idiotic childish inability to take responsibility for their actions)
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This thread comes straight out of the Fox News school of economics. It may well be the case that the rice pledging scheme hasnt turned out well, but one gets the sense that there arent many Keynesians posting on TVF. A lot of Western governments pump money into depressed regions, as well as maintaining demand in a period of economic recession through measures such as quantitative easing, selective infrastructure investments and yes, subsidies. For many who live in the European Union that is not such a strange concept; it is the impact on the macro economy that counts rather than break-even on a particular project. Of course, many will say that PTs electoral strength is in the North and NE, but while they are thus taking care of their own constituency, this is the very constituency that had been marginalised and stigmatised until things started to change after 2000. That is when the genie got out of the bottle and these people realised their votes could be cast for a party that would improve their lives. And economic growth in the NE is presently very encouraging, something that is a major boost for the whole Thai economy. It may be that the IMF was right when it suggested recently that the emphasis should shift from the shaky rice pledging scheme to other mechanisms to support low-income rural families, but I imagine many small government advocates on TVF would oppose this approach for the same reason. It is not as though the Democratic Party would not introduce policies favouring certain business and corporate interests. That is electoral politics. Such policies are most definitely not the same as vote buying, which as anybody outside the Bangkok bubble knows affects all sides.
If you want to promote Keynesian economics, it is about adjusting monetary policy and investment in infrastructure, not just priming the pump investment willy nilly on any idiotic idea. Giving me 1 trillion baht to invest in memberships at every nightclub in Thailand is not really an example of Keynesian economic theory. Rice pledgeing is effectively burning through our water resources for zero benefit.
Sure, deficit spending in a recession is a logical way to smooth out expansion, contraction....but this is a policy of throwing money FOREVER by implementing a policy where people are paid to do something worthless (grow rice, mill it, store it, throw it away) as we have now with rice pledging. bear in mind this is not a policy which is sustainable or logical on any measure other than securing votes. We would be better off to pay the rice farmers to do nothing, and have them go work in a factory or something else, it is not a way to solve unemployement because Thailand does not have an unemployment problem, quite the reverse!
Actually, if you look at corporate interests, PT is actually a business party (which leverages the vote winning power of crumbs to the masses), and that's why the biggest gainers from PT being elected are the richest people in Thailand who together own most of the businesses; the drop in tax from 30% to 20% was what, until recently, lead to the huge upwards spiral in share prices. The reason for all these PM visits to other countries, has nothing to do with the rural poor. It is all about securing FTAs and business agreements to support the big families who back PT. e.g. Thai Summit in the automotive industry. Or the rail system to Hua HIn...benefiting Thaksin ally and regional godfather (in the negative sense)
I have heard this old chestnut that PT/TRT were the first to deliver benefits to the poor in Isaan. So let's list out some examples.
- schools NO
- healthcare ARGUABLE
- access to financing NO (hasn't changed from the old days of loan sharks and godfathers with a hand on the shoulder)
- roads NO
- electricity NO
- access to internet/mobile/telephones NO
- marketing and promotion expertise NO (one tambon one product was a con and DEP anyhow had more successful policies that worked already before OTOP came around)
So I think to summarise what we really mean when we say that more money is going upcountry is this. More money is going to the regional godfathers, much more, to build whatever they feel will enrich them; that's how PT gets them to be part of the PT enterprise. This has some flow on effect for the people in the area (new roads, etc) albeit at a cost of 1.5 - 3X the cost of what it should have been due to skim. We have short term policy aimed to directly securing votes - diesel subsidies, tablets, rice pledging - none of which actually long term increase competitiveness of the province or the people in that province, but it makes them better off today.
Comparing crop pledging to price guarantee floor, the price guarantee floor price to avoid people operating at a loss is a far more logical and fairer result for the country.
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Nice to see Lt Sunisa landing on her feet, with this government spokesperson lark.
I think this is the same woman who claimed she paid her own expenses to write a book about Thaksin (while employed and being paid as an Army Lieutenant) called "Thaksin Where Are You" which alongside a transcript of former singer Arisaman speaking at a red shirt rally is perhaps the single easiest way to replicate what a steaming pile of diaorhea would look like in paper form.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/08/01/politics/politics_30043291.php
Nice work if you can get it, that's for sure. Almost as good as a former minister and Khunying who has alledgedly had her hand in the till the last 18 months for government PR and media departments while pretending to be focused on creating a life about Buddhism, and all the rest of the scumbags who hang around with the erstwhile Dubai based fugitive convict.
No, we would definitely not want to encourage nepotism, this administration is all about putting the right person in the right job on merit....it's never based on vindictive punishment for past actions, and massive rewards for being a spineless suck up.
Would make a wonderful classified ad though:
"Wanted. Spineless individuals with presentable face, no brain and a desire to profiteer from their countrymen/women for leading jobs in corrupt administration. Must be able to calculate 40%. Willing to travel to Dubai, Hong Kong or Montenegro a plus. Discretion and ability to tell lies with a straight face considered important. No fatties. Send resume and recent photo to Notapom Patmadog"
As the woman in the coffee house in Harry Met Sally said, "I'll have what she's having."
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Around Horseshoe Point, Pattaya, they have horse trails and horses as the Srifuangfoong family are big time horse enthusiasts. I presume But do not know for sure that around Khao Yai would have some horses for hire. Maybe Bonanza or somewhere.
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What's that in front of them in the photo?
Is it a coffin?
Official style table with table cloth. Very typical Thai style for 'garn muang' type stuff.
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Another interpretation is that these people wish to express their support for the incumbent government and contest for office under the PTP banner.
Despite all the claims that Suthep and others make about the "people" wanting to overthrow the elected government, it seems that there are just as many, if not more, who wish to help the PTP win the next election. As support grows, it could turn into a blow out with the Democrat part reduced to a rump representing only Bangkok and the south with its influential muslim voting blocs.
It would not be in Thailand's best interests for there to be a super majority PTP electoral win. Hopefully, the Democrats can get their act together, and distance themselves from the coup proponents and Suthep and mount a campaign that will get them seats.
I agree - the Dems need to step up big time, and even if they don't win if they increase their seats, they show a shift in opinion, not just in Thailand but worldwide.
However, that's why Thaksin is buying up these additional seats.
the reasons IMHO why candidates who control their constituency would consider/switch parties, I would say the main reason is simply because PT has appeared to be the leader of the current government coalition (not surprising since they are the largest party in it) but also because they have used a lot of government budget to help their image to win elections (all those billboards featuring Yingluck and various other affiliates are mostly paid for by government agencies). In addition, running under PT means having the power of Thaksin's money, which dwarfs any other party, especially the smaller parties who have struggled for fund raising in this era of large TRT/PPP/PT influence on the makeup of parliament.
Why they are willing to be PT MPs
1. In return for giving up any neutrality and ability to ask for anything publically and being forced to vote on party lines, the deal is that they get specific cabinet seats/budget provided they deliver the votes in their constituency. Other things are negotiable such as police oversight in their area or enforcement/lack of enforcement of regulations etc that might affect their businesses. In effect, they are basically like a prostitute, selling their 'body' (1 vote in parliament).
2. They are also downright scared of standing against a PT candidate who might be able to benefit from point 1 - meaning 'if you are lost at sea, better in the raft pi$$ing out, than in the water, getting covered in someone else's pi$$'. Particularly with the banned politicians returning. Most of the civil service I know (and a fair few of the politicians) admittedly a minority of all the people out there, but I can only comment on personal observations and discussions, are terrified of Thaksin; when the coup came they thought he was done. When Pojaman got the photo talking to Prem and with all the political intereference, there is a clear signal "We do not care who you are, we can get to you, so either be with us, or we will crush you". The vindictiveness and personal purges in 2007 and again in 2011 were proof of this. By comparison, no one is scared of the Dems
3. BJT faction switching to PT has been a while coming, some of these smaller parties really failed to deliver, and their leaders are probably tapped out financially and so the candidate makes more money going with PT (this is all about the benjamins, if they were a Thai rapper called MC Curry and his fly girly girls with gumby gold, this is what they might say) - you must be in govt to skim after all
Rest assured this is not about sending any sort of signal of support related to policy or moral stand...this is mostly a business decision. Elections are expensive. The payout is a government post to skim, and in the last 2 years, the skim for the upcountry robber barons has been (alledgedly) huge via rice pledging, flood investment, tablets and now the big payout if this idiotic rail system ever gets done. No one need rock the boat, as long as they have an absolute majority, there's almost no checks and balances. PT are already working really hard to neutralise the senate, they have infiltrated the police, armed services, the civil service. So it's only a few places left that can ask the basic question "why are we paying for this thing, is it the right strategy, is it a fair price"
Because for sure the PT lackies aren't asking that, the only thing they are asking is "where's my money"
My guess the real reason PT is running around offering cash to candidates to switch parties is that they cannot afford to win less votes than last time and they know they are going to lose seats, so this is their way to publically (to the rest of the world) appear to show they still have the same or more support than last time by winning the same or more seats, even though their popularity has decreased - they do it by absorbing smaller parties. It's a bait and switch.
The Dems need to step it up, and none of this no vote idiocy, they need to just step and win some seats like they won Don Muang. With guys like Chalerm, Nattawut and Kittirat, who have no skill set, we, as a country, are doomed.
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Okay I took as all those from Issan are rice farmers. Where I live everyone in the family goes out to the rice fields to help not just a single person per farm but the whole family even the youngest children. Issan being 20,000,000 people and rice is not only grown in Issan. So my number was high but 6,000,000 is too low. Maybe 6,000,000 farms but there are more farmers than farms.
Actually, for your information more Thai workers are working in the service/manufacturing sector than agriculture, for around about 5 years now. but anyhow, looking at the issues of your analysis you have:
1. mistaken Isaan is 21-22m not 30m (since corrected)
2. You have counted every single child/retiree as a rice farmer including people age 1 and 90
3. You have assumed that every single Isaan farmer is a rice farmer and ignored sugar farmers, rubber tappers, cassava, pineapple, fruits, tobacco, etc as well as pig, dairy, beef, chicken farmers
4. You have ignored the people living in the cities who have zero connection to the farming industry and do not 'go out into the rice fields' but are working as teachers, business people, waiters, cooks, students, prostitutes, etc etc
5. You have ignored the massive number of Isaan workers who are not involved in any form of agriculture, but in fact do something productive for Thailand in manufacturing/service industry/transport
2011 Thai labour survey by numbers with approx. 39m total who are able to work (i.e. excluding children, seniors, monks, longterm unemployed, handicapped):
Manufacturing 13.6%
Wholesale and Retail Trade 15.5%
Transport, Storage and communication 2.6%
Agricuture 38.2%
Construction and Mining 6.1%
Other services 24.0%
Using this statistic, you could ascertain that around 38.2% of the total workforce of 39m is in agriculture i.e. approx. 16m total, and of 16m in agriculture, we can ascertain that as high as 50% and as low as 40% are rice farmers, so around 6-7m TOTAL.
http://web.nso.go.th/en/survey/data_survey/560205_LFS+Table_Dec55_Eng.pdf
now your personal observations may contradict this - if you have other data, let's discuss but leave out the 'in my village' since it is probably not statistically relevant.
What you are suggesting is that the approx. 32m workers outside of the rice industry, should willingly give up their own entitlements to education, roads, infrastructure, healthcare, lower taxes....so that 7m rice farmers can grow a crop which can then be left to rot. There is only so much money to be spent....if we spend 400b baht a year on rice pledging, that's money that could have paid for something else. A nice new aircraft carrier perhaps, buying Liverpool football team and renaming them the Liverpoo, or perhaps a decent education system and reduced taxes which would actually empower and create genuine sustainable competitive advantage for Thailand. A truly novel idea, so novel that you could write a, er, novel about it and call it something like "Competitive Advantage of Nations" and pay someone 1m dollars to come and talk to Thailand about it, except they only talk about Thailand for 2 hours to the media, and the rest of the time they can tell you how to cash out of your monopoly telecoms business most profitably. For instance.
While you may feel this is a reasonable burden for the 31m majority to support a sizeable 7m minority (and in fact the reality it is more like 6m tax payers mostly from Bangkok who pay most of this cost to support the rice farmers), some of us here in Bangkok who pay 1m - 2m in income tax per year (30%+ of our personal incomes) feel that our money should be better spent. Some of us have the education to comment on this based on understanding of economics and drivers for economic growth. Some of us just prefer to pontificate and pretend we know what we are talking about by writing lots of words and actually knowing nothing, I like to count myself in this category.
While some of us do not claim a right to say how government money should be spent, it would seem illogical and foolhardy to encourage rice farmers to do a non sustainable business when at some point the budget will be exhausted and we will be unable to keep subsidising them to do something so worthless to the world - wasting precious water and resources just to have the rice stored and rotting. Instead, it would be better to have a price floor, so they would not be growing rice at a loss, guaranteed, and that would be fairer since the benefit would be based on 'insurance concept' and would not be nonsensical for the country to have such a policy since the aim of such a policy is to protect against a 'bad year' rather than ongoing subsidies which are just passed on to the rest of us with higher taxes and rice prices. In fact the country used to have this policy in 2010/11, but naturally like most good ideas, it was replaced with a really, really stupid idea which ONLY applies to rice farmers - if you farm another crop you are out of luck.
Some of us have substantial problems with the idea that encouraging more and more people to grow low grade rice longterm will be very bad for the country's rice industry competitiveness, and this feeling is shared by the rice traders and almost every industry expert. Some of us feel that encouraging people to stop growing other crops and only growing rice due to the economic market distortion will create a stockpile of rice so large that Thailand's only hope will be to employ expensive consultants of a Milo Minderblinder nature, who can sell off rotten rice as a variety of products, all for the good of the 'syndicate' that we are all part of, at least when it comes to paying for the costs. Some of us feel, with the bottom of our hearts, that rice farming is a tough career choice with low pay....but it is still a LOT easier than many other career choices because much of the year is spent not actually working....why should the majority of us who work 6 days a week have to carry these rice farmers only, and yet not support any other crops? Why should we be supporting them through this distortion in the market at all?
With starving people in the world, the whole policy becomes even more abhorrent.
I say this, coming from an illiterate family of rice farmers 2 generations ago - social mobility begins with the right signals in the market place. We know traditional small scale rice farming is a dying industry - the people who are young are going to do other things (mostly manufacturing and service industry) - that's a fact and trying to prolong the slow death using these subsidies is merely creating a bigger cliff for the families involved to fall off eventually...when the government runs out of money (supposedly already happening) because they failed to ever plan on how to run such a dodgy scheme in the first place.
The reality that most of the subsidies are not reaching the rice farmers in the form of higher profits anyhow, suggests the scheme was a dog with fleas to begin with.
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The point of the OP is that the Dems are considering boycotting the election. So either they don't want to be in power, don't think there'll be elections, or they don't believe that boycotting the elections will stop them from returning to power by some other means eventually.
Considering they have boycotted elections in the past, lost elections, and still ultimately found themselves running the show, suggests they believe they could do it again - either by appointment, via the courts, or through some new election process.
Is that a bad thing? It depends on your view on democracy. My opinion is that the Dems are are probably a better, more trustworthy and qualified unit to run the county. How they get there is a different story.
it is however true that there are numerous irregularities in the way elections are conducted. Surely these should be addressed, rather than being answered "that's only the party that hasn't won an election in 20 years complaining because they can't compete."
Personally I am in favour of rolling forward with Feb 2, with international oversight at an unprecedented level and all parties agreeing to certain codes of conduct, with substantial punishments for transgressions. I am not, however, particularly hopeful that this would be possible, because as the incumbent, why should PT give up their natural advantages; in fact they are already vacuuming up the minor party candidates as fast as they can to ensure the same situation since 2001 elections continues.
There are issues such as:
- voters in constituencies being named and shamed for not voting for a specific party,completely removing their right to privacy and free choice
- vote buying and intimidation to vote specific ways
- inability of some candidates in some constituencies to campaign pre election
- misrepresentation of policy and ongoing misrepresentation of who will conduct policy including references to people of poor moral fibre who have no place in Thai politics
- use of illegal materials by certain candidates and parties in order to misrepresent their opposition
- the questionable use of government advertising budget and government media to promote specific individuals calling into question the role of government vs. party funding for party promotion
- the role of watchdogs and independent bodies and whether they are independent (or not)
- the role of the 4th estate and questions of neutrality
- lack of oversight in fiscal responsibility (e.g. rice pledging which should never have been allowed to be conducted in the way it has developed) and lack of punishment for corruption (genuine punishment should be treason, punishable by death)
A developed democracy ensures that the will of the minority is not simply overrun by the power of the majority.
Decisions should be made for the good of the country, not just for specific individuals who control the vote. This willingness to engage in absolutism, where every check and balance can be removed solely based on a popularity contest results in policy makers and leaders being willing to circumvent the law as there is no consequence; the continuing decay in free media, the ongoing increase in corruption, a trade off of longterm failure at a country level for short term vote winning and short term corruption, are all things that should be resolved by adjusting the democratic process, not eliminating it.
At the end of it, it's vital that the strength of the current government's political machine has a genuine opposition who can stand up to them, because if we are stuck with those idiots in parliament now, we are doomed. They are either for the most part corrupt, inept, or outright thugs. And yet without a choice (in certain provinces it isn't a choice at all who to vote for) we will be stuck with these losers for an eternity. As for the banned 111, almost all of them also deserve the simple description of 'those who can't be honest, become Thai politicians*"
* or civil servants
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I suppose Khun Suthep can just march through the airport, and no immigration officer will notice.
You mean like a convicted fugitive former PM who swans around the world, and apparently can issue orders via phone ins, but is in no way running the country even though his party ran on the message 'Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai Does', he chooses the cabinet, and he regularly communicates directly with elected officials during their official business time, including those whose official duty requires them to enforce the law to go and catch him?
Or do you mean more like Arisaman type characters who back in 2010 requests his followers to come to Bangkok with a litre of petrol, to burn the city of their countrymen/women to the ground (which some did indeed subsequently try to do) - to huge applause and who currently enjoys trying to continue his singing career, held back slightly by the fact that he is tone deaf, and is so stupid he believes Thai students are only joining the rallies because they are taught by stupid teachers (maybe he wishes we all got to attend redshirt university 555555)?
Welcome to Thailand, hub of rhetoric and hot air.
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Relevant criminal code is under Chapter 3 Sections 326 up to 333 of the Thai Criminal Code. There are two kinds of defamation:
1) Simple defamation (Section 326) Whoever imputes anything, to the other person before a third person, in a manner likely to impair the reputation of such other person or to expose such other person to be hated or scorned.
2) Libel (Section 328) If the offense of defamation is committed by means of document publication, drawing, painting, cinematography, film, picture or letters made visible by any means, or any other recording instruments, recording picture or letters, or by broadcasting or spreading picture, or by propagation by any other means.
Civil defamation is defined under the Thai Civil and Commercial Code as follows:
Section 423. A person who, contrary to the truth, asserts or circulates as a fact that which injurious to the reputation or the credit of another or his earnings or prosperity in any other manner, shall compensate the other for any damage arising therefrom, even if he does not know of its untruth, provided he ought to know it.
Also related are the lese majeste and computer crimes legislation.
Regarding USA the rights to freedom of speech are indeed still curtailed by some of the similar restraints to England, so no, it is not entirely accurate to say you can 'say whatever you want about American politicians' the test is something along the lines of patently false and known to be patently false except when patently ridiculous. ref. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan; Hustler Magazine v. Falwell et al.
The test in British law is as Wolf explains, the phrase is presumed to be false until shown to be true placing the onus on the defendent; however damages must pass the test of malice or negligence. So you do get the crazy McLibel type cases (McDonald's Corporation v Steel & Morris) where the defendents had to defend themselves against the might of McDonalds....and interestingly in the end McDonalds lost, depending how you look at it.
The process is usually to try to pursue criminal AND civil if possible, otherwise, only civil since the threshold is lower for civil and you can pay laywers to do it rather than relying on the criminal justice system. Also civil is the only way to get paid and enforce a big incentive to shut the person up.
The usual mechanic in Thailand is to use the cost and time of the court process itself as the threat; as was the case when Thaksin got Shin Corp to sue Supinya Klangnarong in 2003 for 500m baht; then again 10 billion baht civil case against the Thai-language newspaper Matichon; then again 500 million baht civil suit against Sondhi Limthongkul, journalist Sarocha Pornudomsak, and Thai Day Dot Com PCL; then again (insert all the other cases here). Each one ties up loads of time and you just outspend the other party until they shut up, apologise or you just make them 'go missing'*.
In the first case, Shin felt wronged that Supinya had stated she noted a spike in Shins profits coinciding with Thaksins rise to power, based on research and data compiled from several public discourses concerning questions of conflict of interest in the Thaksin administration, research by other well-respected academics on state telecommunication concessions and interwined political and economic interests, and from Shins own website and reports - even though in fact you would struggle to find any evidence of suffering.
http://cpj.org/2005/10/in-thailand-media-activist-testifies-about-climate.php
* I doubt that any activist or lawyer has ever gone missing relating to something they said relating to government policy of that time, and in saying this, I am merely offering a personal hypothetical opinion of a way a hypothetical government might choose to solve a problematic lawyer or activist who could not be silenced in another fashion.
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There's a great place near to City Viva on Narathiwas Road inbound before you reach the Sathorn/Narathiwas intersection. Its a huge tire warehouse place between Anantara and City Viva/Empire Tower.
Price varies a bit it is certainly possible to find a cheaper tire than 4000b per tire, but likewise possible to spend more also; go to a place like this one and all the prices are marked right on the stacks of tires.
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The only thing I completely question is the crime. The stage is made of metal and metal plate floorboards. I may be mistaken, but I reviewed a few dozen pictures and I see nothing flammable but the curtains in the front of the stage -- and how can a Cambodian crew set fire to the curtains, since it is well lit (no pun intended) and attended all day and night?
What were the Cambodians going to light the stage with, an arc welder?.
I presume this is not too literal in terms of literally targeting the stage.
An arson attempt would be targeted against the technology, ie. the sound system, video link system, lighting rig etc. A nice fire created for all that stuff and would effectively shut down a broadcast and create a load of smoke and panic.
Not directly targeting the metal scaffolding of the stage itself.
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From memory, the Captiva is right at the end of its life with a replacement expected within the next 12 months if not the next 6, so it is an older model up against newer models of CRV and new other models coming in soon. So Depreciation tends to get a little worse towards the end.
The Subaru is 1.35m from memory, and sells and looks pretty good although it is a bit smaller than the C®Aptiva and CRV; the new Juke and Ecosport are smaller again and both sub 1m baht - any of those would have light steering no doubt.
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I would say on the analysis that Mayweather is (much as I hate to say this on a personal level) in a different class from any other boxer around this weight including Pacquiao.
He is the complete package. he does not lose concentration, he does not make a mistake more than once, he reads and then responds. He is not the most exciting boxer to watch for a non boxer, but for a study of the sweet science he is amazing at what he does. His style means he ages more slowly; similar to Bernard Hopkins...but better.
Styles make fights; in the case of Pacquiao, Mayweather likes a guy coming onto him, but he seemed to struggle a little against some other lefties, including Zab Judah, at least early on until he got a read on them then it was all over. Against a smaller man, I can see he would do what he did to Mosley; he'd be leaning all over him, pushing that elbow into his face, grinding him down; giving him very few opportunities, and gradually just building up a lead then leading the other fighter to accept a loss or open up like Hatton and then that's it.
We can look at Vargas, Mosley, Marguerito, Peterson, or in the heavier weights Toney, Holyfield; there are doubts about JMM; steroids and EPO usage are quite common now in proboxing especially in countries with no controls on them (Thailand Mexico, Philipines); and the testing regime of the fight commissions is inadequate to catch a user anyhow.
You can certainly understand that it is highly unusual a boxer could pack on so much muscle (Pacquiao carries basically no fat) in a fairly short period of time; not that it is impossible, just that almost no one else has done it as an adult. To look like that at his age is pretty incredible, and most of these pro boxers in the lightweight - middle weight range train ALL the time, so it's not his work ethic alone; it's either genetics + doping, or frigging amazing genetics alone. Either way, if you were Mayweather would you want to do anything other than show up knowing it was a level playing field?
Have a look back at the physiques of champs 15 years ago, the effects of whatever they are doing differently (not the training bit, the diet, the supplements, and then some in many proven cases) and it is clear that the crazy cuts and physicality of today's fighters is something a step beyond the Sugar Ray Leonard era.
I can't see the problem with the doping testing - it's there to keep honest people honest. I hope to god Pacquiao is clean and believe he probably is, but many said that about Armstrong. And Mosley. And Countless others.
I suspect a huge part of it is the Arum effect, holding his fighter since it's a (from memory) goldenboy/TMM/showtime deal with Mayweather, and Pacquiao is on HBO/Arum/top rank and Arum, I really think if there was a deal going to happen, either side is just as much to blame for stopping it, but the media circus around it is simply crazy.
With Mosley dropping off the radar now and probably looking to retire, and both Pacquiao and Mayweather only around another 2 years/4 fights at the most, I'd say the next superstar won't be Broner, it might be a guy called Adonis Stevenson; that dude is a frigging southpaw BEAST except has one of the dirtiest histories preboxing. Once the Russians check out of heavyweight division, who knows maybe something will fire up there.
Anything to escape MMA. Yuck!
Tearful Yingluck vows to fight on
in Thailand News
Posted
A 25 year old can have a bachelors and a masters degree, both in public administration with zero work experience. Education is obviously useful, but not the most important aspect of knowing how to control and lead a country. Her working life, her CV reads as a proxy of her family, where she was placed in AIS then SC Asset, mostly to execute someone else's desires and vision who could not be there (first because he was PM, and then because he was overseas).
It is certainly questionable whether another suitable candidate could have been found in 2011 that would have been more successful in getting votes, and more willing to just fly around the world avoiding her duties as a parliamentarian, that's a nice aspect of having someone who has a relatively small ego and zero experience to know what her duties actually are.
her assets are best listed as:
- Shinawatra surname and brother
- nice to look at
- ok on paper
- sufficiently malleable and soft to be acceptable to many who might not accept a more hardline approach, while giving huge hope to lobbiests and factions who all think (probably correctly) that it's easier to beat a softie than a toughie
- a woman and newcomer totally inexperienced (making any attack on her seem mean spirited)
Bear in mind she was elected having never said anything of substance.
Even though I and many others find her public presentation skills generally quite poor in both languages, she has improved markedly and now can stick to a script well, although it's quite clear she really doesn't actually know much about what is going on, how could she given that she doesn't make the decisions nor is she even attending parliament sessions anyhow.
It is somewhat annoying to know that all her advisors are probably paid handsomely, to tell her how to say things most other parliamentarians would have little problem saying themselves. Also it must be just as annoying for her to not be able to really run things herself, she was after all, swept into power not due to her own brain power, but rather her brother's; "Thaksin Kit, Peua Thai Tum" and you could add "Yingluck Bin" - however I don't really think she actually wants to do this job anyhow.
I never place much faith on qualifications alone, but rather work experience and proven success as a proof point, something she completely lacked coming into power.
Were she more experienced and powerful, perhaps things would be far worse, maybe they would be better - impossible to know. Certainly Samak (with a load more experience, a smarter guy, a more educated guy) proved quite a handful for Thaksin to control so Thaksin sold him down the river (from around April 2008 from memory) and eventually PPP were the ones who kicked him out and chose Thaksin's brother in law Somchai to replace him as party leader/PM rather than fighting for him regarding the cooking show and the defamation case and the firetrucks purchase case (all of which did not preclude him from continuing; and in fact this selection of Somchai was what led to the Newin faction breaking away and destroying Thaksin's empire for a while). Somchai was ineffectual but also hardly around long enough to do anything.
Having said all of that, if we accept she's hardly been any good, what choice do PT have?
If not her, we get Somchai (again), Yaowapa, Surapong as candidates - all also Thaksin 'clones' but without the appeals of Yingluck. Outside chance for Chalerm, Chaturon, very outside for Sanoh (who Thaksin doesn't trust but has to keep even though Sanoh exposed exactly how Thaksin works because THaksin needed the Wang Nam Yen faction votes, plus he's 80), very outside for a weak coalition partner simply so everyone can live with another hopeless ineffective politician who can get along with both sides of the house simply through being inept and friendly - i.e. a Chavalit, Banharn type character.