Eric Loh

There will be more developers missing on payments. Even before Evergrande's debt troubles, property firms were struggling to earn enough to make interest payments on their debts. In June, Reuters reported the aggregate interest coverage ratio of 21 big Chinese real estates developers listed in Hongkong fell to 0.94; a decade worst. China property market is real hot and becoming a bubble that worried the government. Government is pushing property firms to cut excessive borrowing and land buying. The crackdown hit these firms hard and limited their ability to re-finance maturing debt. Allowing defaults is a clear statement from the government that the want to deflate the housing bubble and they willing to let major developers failed.

Hyperbole much. The pandemic has resulted in more racist attitudes all over the world. This forum itself see much of this phenomenon. Singapore is no exception recently with isolated racism; not massive that you insinuate. Singapore government has zero tolerance on racism which is the background of this new racism law. Even those isolated and small racist incidents will not be tolerated by the Singapore government. Singapore is seen by most as a country that has good racial equality. Since 1849, Chinese became the majority race in Singapore. Don’t get off rail and make this a propaganda topic.

Singaporean influences are from their colonial master. The education system and civil service were British and influenced much of Singaporeans.

No mainland Chinese will support a war between their own Chinese people. It will be extremely unpopular war and will be political suicide for the President. Taiwan is split between China friendly citizens and those who want total secession. In a recent July poll, there seem to be a growing support from the public in Taiwan as they see the CPC's governance capability. If KMT win the next election, relationship with China will again be reversed.

I don't take him seriously too. His handling of the 1997 financial crisis and fire sale of distressed assets left much to desire. Evergrande debt default will not be systemic crisis nor has contagion events that will spread globally like the Lehman crisis. As IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath commented that China has the tools and policy space to prevent this turning into a systemic crisis. The foreign exposure in offshore bonds is only 19B USD. Evergrande is not anything like the Lehman crisis which played a major role in global financial fallout in 2008. Evergrande owned assets that they can sell to get some cash flow. Lehman had only financial assets with massive leverage positions. The China government did the right thing by not bailing out Evergrande and thereby forcing them to liquidate their assets including large tracts of land that they owned. Land is owned mostly by the government and they can stabilize land price and even buy back the land. Unfinished development projects will likely to be taken over by other developers. There is also an rumour that the government may take over and develope state owned housing like in Singapore. There are still lots on the plate for Evergrande to navigate out of this massive debt problem but Korn's advise is simply not justifiable. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/22/heres-why-the-evergrande-crisis-is-not-chinas-lehman-moment.html

Using prophylactic treatment like Chaindrite or borax is not effective. Brushing or spraying simply don't give you sufficient penetration into the wood. At most you get 2 mm penetration and that is from dipping for long duration. Termites will eat the wood core and you only notice when the wood crumble and expose the damage. You really need hard wood or pressure treated door frame. Eliminating the source and the nest with soil treatment is a good advise.

That's only one aspect to the need for vaccination. The other aspect is that the unvaccinated may host the virus that can change in unexpected ways. There will still be additional evolutionary mutations that can shape the evolutionary direction of this virus.

Read that most who went to that controversial covid corner are dead or seriously ill. Intelligent doubtful but dead very much so. Your choice wiseman.

Well then let’s get the facts from Fox , Newsmax, OANN and from Dr Simone Gold. ????

Sure not all countries love the 250 billion euros a year that the Chinese tourists spend a year around the world. And America think the 34 Billion USD spend each year by Chinese tourists are chop suey. Get real.

China zero tolerance travel lockdown is not sustainable. Created problems for their inbound 144 million and 155 million outbound tourists. As when China relaxed the travel restrictions, it will be good for the world recovery.

This is indeed a game changer development in the fight against covid. Vaccine hesitant folks most likely to take a pill than a jab. Heard Pfizer also developing similar anti viral pill. I am sure other big pharmaceuticals are also in their various stages of such development. Will help push price down. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-starts-dosing-patients-oral-covid-19-drug-trial-2021-09-01/

Just too many for him to digest. Meanwhile Prawit, Thammanat, Narumon and 40 MPs visited Korat signaling the rift in the party is real and drifting to a major fracturing and Prayut is losing control.

In a recent field trip to Ayutthaya, crowds came out and showed him the 3 fingers salute and the single middle finger. ????

Word for word description of global tourism. https://www.globaltourismforum.org/blog/2020/03/19/the-tourism-sector-in-a-coma-because-of-the-coronavirus/

Western tourists has stagnated or in case of the Australians declined over last 3-4 years. Not finished but rather less appealing to the western tourists except for the Russians.

I totally agree with you with every thing you posted and that the recovery will be long and painful. However the economic meltdown is not as devastating as the 1997 Tom Yum Kung financial crisis and Thailand recovered and didn't crumbled. In 1997, Thailand exhausted all the foreign reserves to defend the Baht. This time the foreign reserves are barely touched. The Baht dropped 56 B per USD in 1997 compare to current Baht which is holding up relatively well. SET is still trading well too which indicated confidence with investors. In 1997, foreign and domestic investors fled the market and SET lost 75% of its value. Thailand had to borrowed almost USD20 B from IMF with tough conditions and bank runs were comman. Debt to GDP rose to 167%. Still Thailand economy didn't crumbled and recovered after 4 years with Baht recovered to 29B and IMF loans fully paid. Guess it's down to a competent government which is missing in this government. I think we can concur with that.

One solution to rivers overflowing adopted by South Korea was the "River Basin" plan. In Seoul, The Han River has almost 90 sq. kilometer of basin which absorbed large volume of river water during raining season and recreation spaces during dry season. I think Thalland does have some small scale planning for basins but clearly insufficient.

Such a plan was actually thought off 18 years ago. https://www.scmp.com/article/436397/satellite-city-ease-bangkok-blues

Thanks for the clarification on genomic surveillance. That's quite different from covid testing as alleged.

Are you making this up. Perhaps providing a link that state that UK’s color listing is based on genome sequencing of the virus will prove your ability to not make things up or making conspiratory claim.

We can safely say that all covid data are a mess not just in Thailand. Nevertheless the available data is still useful to understand the needs and target the interventions.

Really the prerogative of UK to place any countries in their color listing. Not sure about irresponsible behavior being the criteria. Take for instance, Malaysia had more infections and deaths and yet placed under amber. Surely irresponsible behavior resulted in Malaysia higher numbers than Thailand but yet Malaysia is amber. In any case, Thailand don’t seem to be much bother with no outcry from the foreign ministry. I am sure UK will relax the traveler requirement when better sense prevailed.

Ideally where nations worked together in a spirit of pure-hearted scientific inquiry, it will be in the best interest for China to cooperate into the origins of the coronavirus. Perhaps when the pandemic is fully prevented and less interest in politicising and promoting conspiratorial claims, we can see cooperation. I really hope that investigation will be done in the interest of science.

The WHO mission leader Peter Ben Embarek and team member Marion Koopmans also praised China’s cooperation during the 4 week investigation. Follows by saying that it’s “extremely unlikely” that SARS-CoV-2 originated in the Chinese lab and the team would not investigate that hypothesis further. That’s the fact too.