thumper101

Interesting that over the past 15 years the Shin lead governments have also pumped 1.5 trillion baht into populist rice schemes. Half of that was the yingluck government over the past 3 years. It is not only a staggering amount of money, it also highlights that the schemes were never designed to help the poor. For starters the 2.59 million of the poorest farmers didn't even qualify for the latest rice scheme.

This is why reform is needed. 1.5 trillion would have gone along way in solving the rice farmers problems had it been funneled into responsible long term programs that include educating farmers on sustainable farming techniques which is what the DRT are currently doing.

The only people that won't be happy under the new DRT initiatives will be the miller and warehouse owners.

A new day is dawning and the rice farmers will finally be able to stand on their own 2 feet. Using them as a political tool while abusing them is over.

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better though.

No matter what the Junta does, their hands are completely tied thanks to the last Thaksin led governemnt and their 15 million remaining tonnes of rice stock and an expected 20 million more tonnes to be reaped from September onwards.

That will be 34 million tonnes in the country of which 10 million will be domestically consumed leaving 24 million for export.

They will only probably be able to export about 8 tonnes next year, any more than that and the global price starts to fall again and will increase the problem. Then you have the WTO stepping in.

The ONLY way to bring back the industry and the good rice prices is to either destroy all the rice held in stock (which we can't afford to do) or force the rice farmers to grow something else for probably three years to get the export stocks back to zero.

The reason they like to grow rice is that it is one of the most non labour intensive crops to grow. But they are going to have to bite the bullet for a while.

Get out of growing rice guys.... the industry is fluked and you can thank Thaksin and Yingluck for that

The Junta needs to see where the 600 billion in 'supposed' costs have gone.. bank transfers and government cheques all lead somewhere and see how much was actually justified and recall the rest which probably amounts to a lot of graft and corruption... Got to get that money back.

But in the end.... help is limited on this one and a lesson has been learned that you get what you vote for.... Sadly, if Thaksin came back with a new party next year, promising amazing wealth for all the poor, they will vote him back in anyway.... so is there any point in helping them?

I mean, they sold out their industry for a couple of years of good money, much more than they deserved and that got them mainly into the debts they are in, because they were too stupid to understand that it couldn't last.

It was only last week there was a report in the press saying how they don't want 'low grade' tourists coming to the country.

They were even pointing the finger to the Chinese tourist who doesn't spend much money here.

26 million tourists in 2014 my ar-se...

The western tourists is what this very same department wants, and that is unlikely to increase with stories breaking about slavery etc.... Don't Thailand know that certain things like that in the western press is enough to make a westerner baulk at the idea of going there on holiday and feeding the slave trade?

The curfew being lifted won't have filtered down to the prospective tourist in the west... Most will probably think it is still in force seeing as the imposition of it came in the same headlining news as the coup and martial law, but the curfew would not have made any news in the west at all.

The state of martial law is what is going to be more off-putting to a western tourist, it conjures up images of soldiers roaming the streets with 'shoot to kill' orders.

I am assuming this report is instigated by TAT in some way and we all know the amount of BS they spawn on a regular basis.

attempting to murder someone for kicks is not funny.

When I see some of the gruesome pictures of deaths and victims of horrific accidents that endlessly seem to get distributed through social media, i wonder sometimes if Thai society is becoming dehumanized to the point they think this is acceptable.

When (if) they are caught, I hope all 5 are handed life sentences for this despicable crime. For murder was the intent here, and it may well end this way if the poor chap can't pull through.

This is worse than murdering someone because they have a motive... murdering totally indiscriminately for kicks, that is worse by far, and these are very dangerous individuals to be on the loose anywhere in Thai society let alone in a premium tourist resort.

The Junta is making no distinction between rich and poor, and the reforms WILL be including the judiciary.

Up to now the big corporates and their decision makers have been sheilded from prosecution by their wealth. That is going to be the best thing to come from reforms.

I think the imprisonment of Yingluck is going to be a major show-piece that you can't hide behind money and give backhanders any more.

I hope someone is keeping tabs on all these things that they say they are "going to do". Some kind of "end of term report" perhaps or, perish the thought, follow up articles by a non-obsequious press maybe?

Considering 'transparency' is their number one goal in being able to fight corruption. Then the fact that the press are only going to be reporting the 'facts' then I can't see how there will be a problem.

Unless of course you are taking to predicting possibilities of negative things 'maybe' occurring in the future as a basis for 'possible' problems.

Then I would say you have come to the point where you have nothing negaive to apply against the power seizure and have to speculate on possibilities.

Regardless of what the actual situation of the 'hirer' is.... They should be removing squatters in a legal way, and for his failure to abide by the law, he should be put in prison for a very long time to reflect.

The armed mob should be given even more prison time, because offering deadly services with deadly weapons makes these people highly dangerous individuals and should be removed from society for as long as possible.

It shows best how it works some fat cats make all the profit while the small sellers who do the work get almost nothing.

The small sellers get nothing ?

I thought they charged a premium on the tickets.

Yes.. but how high is that premium after all the middlemen took their cut. That is the big question, how i read it is that 50% is allocated to big sellers + 30% to governors who would also resell (i guess) who in turn divide it up again. One can only imagine how many links are in between that all take their cut without doing the work.

The solution would be to only sell to the small sellers. It would be more work of course but hen the prices could be set at 80bt.

Just need to cut out the governors and distribute to a central district office... so GLO only needs to get the tickets to about 800 districts across Thailand.

The vendors then have to go to the district office to pick up their tickets, but will get them at a much cheaper price. The district office should be an existing government office and that office should NOT be making any profit.... governments are NOT profit making entities.

Excuse me while I vomit in my mouth

No one has looked as smug as this bloke in the last six months

Its a punchable face. If you are a gambling man get down to the bookmakers and get a price on Akanat being in Septembers interim government. Whatever price you get snatch the bookies hand off. Check out Porntips reward for nightly appearances at Sutheps garden parties.

I would rather see him in the government than any of the last lot of crooks that you tried to defend so much in their robbing of a trillion baht from the country in under 3 years.

Oh and what about YOUR glorious Yingluck and her 'publicized' merit making?..... Oh yeah... in true traditional Shin style, making merit for her own birthday, in contrast to someone making merit for those who died at the hands of her supporters.

Spot the difference?????

Well, if you pack people into a military truck so they suffocate from the stuffing, then let deputy dogs shoot people, then proclaim that illegal workers are a plague (mostly a yellow issue since reds are poor farmers and generally, generally do not hire foreign workers)...

Then you have the current situation. This exodus stopped very quickly...and who benefits?

Not the reds. It's entirely fair, of course.

Despite some very flagrant non-actions like education and immigration reform and the illegal worker issue, I think Kuhn General Prayuth O-cha is doing an excellent job. I, and many other people, merely see that reform and anti-corruption is quite selective....

Oh, well, who cares about Myanmar slaves and all that and this as long as Thaksin has no power..........it's for the good of the country that some corruption is allowed to continue as long as it does not benefit those sand-dwelling ear medicine guzzling shopping spree loving Shins. After all, one set of sinners is WAY better than those other sinners.

Who cares if many people are dying and being exploited by yellow factions? They are a better option, simply because they urinate champagne....

Yeah.....right.

Man... You have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

This has nothing to do with red or yellow.

Stop criticizing The Junta... they have been in power for one month and you expect everything to be completely overhauled and fixed in that time when they haven't even started reforms yet????

Get out of your silly daydream and wake up to reality. What they have achieved up to now has been quite amazing.

As for you red and yellow lust for divisiveness.

You hint that all the powerful employers and businessmen are yellow elites while the reds are just poor farmers who employ no foreign labour?.... you want to get into the fields in the north and northeast, you will see that the actual bulk of migrant labour are Burmese working on the farms, at a rate of about 3 Burmese to 1 Thai. Getting 150 baht a day and the most appalling living conditions and many small children too.

Those are the true facts.... That is the higher scale of the migrant worker misery. Not the Cambodians who mostly work on the construction sites and in factories... Those have much better pay and conditions.

In closing.... It is the all powerful yellows that bring all the wealth and prosperity to Thailand, and it is the 'poor' reds who suck that wealth back out of the system.

A trillion baht embezzled under the last 'RED' government (a third of Thailand's entire wealth), and do you really believe that money is still in Thailand?????????

Obviously the bank employees that are involved in this transfer are easily singled out seeing as they have to sign it off.

So it is bloody obvious who has been paid to allow this transfer without anti money laundering checks.

So why are they asking casual questions and not just raiding the bank branch and arresting those who made the transfer?

Interview them all separately..... It only takes one to crack and spill the beans to save their own ass 'in a deal'.

Arresting one citizen from Myanmar for human trafficking should elevate Thailand back to tier 2 on the US TIP list.

No.

It shows that they are now clamping down...

The police under the Junta's watchful eye can no longer risk taking bribes to turn a blind eye to this, then have no alternative other than to have to strictly enforce the law and purge these cancers from Thai society.

I wouldn't like to be a copper who gets caught allowing child labour to continue on the basis of being paid to look the other way.

Sadly, once the Junta steps down, I fear it will all come back again.

These reforms really need to target the police and hand down huge prison sentences for corruption.... not stupid 'transfers'. Hard prison time and have ALL assets stripped.

'Teams will head to the US'

Sorry, but this is just crap.

There is no point sending teams on a nice little 'all expenses paid' mission to try to convince US importers to continue to import Thai products and that their country's response is not true.

The importers are ONLY interested in products that customers on the high street are going to be happy to consume. It is the consumer who is going to make the final decision on this matter.... not the importers or the supermarkets.

What they really should be doing is assemble a crack team of undercover 'non-thai' assessment officers who pose as migrant workers and go and actually work in these industries such as fishing boats, fruit packing factories, large scale farms etc.... Do 2 weeks work and make a report based on their findings.

Let the nation's employers and 'anyone' who uses migrant labour know that anyone who they employ could be a potential undercover assessment officer.

Same with these 'so called agents'... the traffickers themselves, have people from migrating countries posing as migrant workers and come in via these 'middle men' and even through the state employment service to monitor the situation first hand.

That would have much more of a positive impact on the problem, than jetting off to New York on a taxpayer funded holiday barking up the wrong tree. All they are doing is stoking the fire by trying to convince American importers that the US are wrong. Probably just end up pissing people off over there.

Sadly, they are being seriously misinformed by people deluded by the notion that outside investment in Thailand will be improved just because they have extra train tracks... The shytrain extension will bring in no further investment, only improve the situation for Thais wanting to get to the areas that will be penetrated, and duelling will also only slightly improve the train system domestically.

The transport secretary only wants this for all the graft it can produce....

I can see a couple of trillion bill for these.... If I know Thailand.

Because it seems to me that every project that they undertake here almost always costs several times more than it does in the west.

Why is that I wonder?????

Pre-coup They would have pocketed the cash and let everyone go about their business.

What a difference a month makes.

Stupid, stupid little people.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

I hope they all get blown to bits.

If they want to fight in the middle east, then let them stay there.

I bet if they were ever called up to fight for Queen and Country, they would refuse, so there is no place for them in the UK.

Looks like a 1980s Greenham Common dyke.

Only thing different is that she is not chained to a fence.

Where we live the police provide security for a cockfighting den that stages events every month and one of the serving officers in the police station even runs a small casino.

Rotten to the core.

Entirely agree that gambling should be legalised.

Legalise gambling and overnight you will have gang wars between gambling barons who want the entire market for themselves.

Another rat jumps ship.....

I think he knows that PTP is on the verge of being dissolved anyway. Just like TRT and PPP..... Thaksin just can't keep a puppet party rooted for more than a few years at a time.

Once this interim government are in place in September and the senate are sitting again, I would imagine that a certain 308 banning orders will be issued and a dissolution order forthcoming.

Wonder how the senate will look after this... when the senate was dissolved, does that mean all senators are now released from their seats?..... If yes, then it may need new senate elections and appointees.

Even with an interim government, there still needs to be an upper house.