Eric Loh

I* do not think relative experience or qualifications have hade any bearing on most of the appointments of personel over the past decade, so it can probably not get any worse. About the only way to improve is get rid of the bottom feeders that have been robbing the country blind.

You can't get rid of them. They come off the conveyor line by the dozens each year. In any crowd, just shout for "general" and a dozens faces will turn.

"there is a problem of notifying them about the charges against them because they are living in China."

That's what chinese do - live in China!

Yes, China is so farrrr away and Thailand has no communication technology, mail service or embassy that can notify the chinese of their charges.

There is an extradiction treaty between Thailand and China. USE IT. Charge the chinese suspects, issue arrest warrants and request extradiction. The chinese government afterall is very big now on stopping corruption in their government. I'm sure they will be anxious to assist Thailand.

Does pose a judiciary dilemma whether you can convict anyone when the accomplices of the case are not found and formally charged. This becoming a judiciary farce.

Another General. Another failure.

Thailand will suffer the consequences of this massive foreign investment drop for years after the junta relinquish power. Ditto another coup failure.

Much thanks to the Thais.

I wonder if the loans have ever been paid back to the Ag Bank for the rice scheme, or whether the Ag Bank is still calling the rotten rice good collateral on its books.

This is so similar to the rice scheme. The government bought the rice believing they could control the market and drive the price up. But the world price kept falling and losses mounted until the rice just sat and rotted.

Yingluck is on trial for negligence for almost this same thing. Are these boys going to join in a cell next to hers?

There is a dissimilarity between the rice scheme and this rubber handout. Rice scheme you sell. Rubber scheme you force the state enterprises to use the rubber. And where the state enterprises gets the money? From the tax payers. The inflated rubber price that the enterprises buy will just added to the eventual price. Whether it is mattresses for the military or gloves for the hospital, it add to operation costs and again tax payers. It is a zero sum game.

You forgot the most interesting aspect of dissimilarity. THat's the 500++ billion Baht lost on a 'self-financing' rice scheme whereas this is costing probably 3.5 billion Baht with 100,00 tonnes of rubber stored. Also you seem a bit awkward in your 'rice you sell, rubber you force', especially with still 13m tonnes of rice in warehouses.

So, 100,000 tonnes of rubber to be temporarily stored. As I asked before, anyone who knows the detoriation rate of natural (probably uncured) rubber sheets?

The same elements that deteriorate rice and rubber, Rubi. Heat, humidity, insects, rottens etc.

You postively sure that the farmers will be satisfy with 100,00 tons procurement by the government and a slight price differentiation? Watch this space next few days.

The 13 tons rice will be sold. That's the job of the government and rice price has stabilized. Not rubber which he government bought for processing and sold to state enterprises. Obviously the increase raw material price will be passed on to the state enterprises funded by tax payers money.

I wonder if the loans have ever been paid back to the Ag Bank for the rice scheme, or whether the Ag Bank is still calling the rotten rice good collateral on its books.

This is so similar to the rice scheme. The government bought the rice believing they could control the market and drive the price up. But the world price kept falling and losses mounted until the rice just sat and rotted.

Yingluck is on trial for negligence for almost this same thing. Are these boys going to join in a cell next to hers?

At least they put a cap on 100,000 ton of rubber, that's only 2,5% of the expected production compared to Yinglucks rice scheme that bought as much rice they could (even imported rice from Myanmar and Laos!) and payed over 50% over market price! You can also see that the rubber price has fallen 37% sins June last year and is at the lowest point in 6 years and is expected to be falling and the government said a price slightly over market price.

I estimate that they would spend 5 Billion Baht or less to buy the rubber and they expect to either sell it or use it, compare that to the loss for the rice scheme under Yingluck that is estimated to be over 500 Billion Baht.

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You my friend is a optimist. You really think that buying 100,00 tons will appease the farmers when the annual output is 4.7 million tons? You think the farmers will accept a slightly over market price which now at Bt32 per kilogram when production cost is Bt64? Just listen to what Khun Soonthorn, chief coordinator of the south rubber farmers said that the price has to be Bt60 and give the government a time limit to solve this problem. Khun "I will not be intimidated" has relented and watch him relent more to the farmers demands.

Not a thoughtful suggestion. He should place more emphasis on R&D to expand rubber use. More importantly, he should seek cooperation from the tripartite arrangement with Indonesia and Malaysia on pricing and supply. 3 of them accounts for about 80-85% of world rubber production. He should just stick to being a soldier and let proper qualified politicians govern.

"Tripartite arrangement with Indonesia and Malaysia on pricing and demand"

Already tried and FAILED:

2014-11-25

"Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Amnuay Patisae promised to launch a national rubber reform program and seek cooperation from neighboring countries to increase the global rubber price.

He made the promise while receiving a complaint from growers opposing the Rubber of Thailand Bill on setting up a Rubber Organization of Thailand to manage the resource, the rubber development fund, define the powers of the Rubber Board of Thailand, and set fees for rubber export.

Mr Amnuay said the reform would cover rubber growing, operators, latex processing, rubber exports and joint rubber marketing efforts with neighboring countries.

The minister said Thailand agreed with Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to increase the natural rubber price to Bt60 per kilogram in 18 months."

The unforseen problem was the continued crash in oil prices in late 2015 that reduced the need for natural rubber.

You got it right and I agree that oil price crash is a problem but not the main problem. To understand the problem, it had to go back to the breakdown of the International Natural Rubber Association back in the late 90s. Soon after the 3 major natural rubber growing countries of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia formed the Tripartite Natural Rubber Asociation. Many talks followed after this formation to control the supply of natural government vis pricing. Talks never succeeded and Thailand went on an uncontrolled expansion of rubber plantation while Malaysia and Indonesia decrease and maintain respectively. It has now manifested into a problem due to excessive supply and demand that has not increased proportionately. Large blame on the previous governments poor understanding of the industry and farmers greed.

Not a thoughtful suggestion. He should place more emphasis on R&D to expand rubber use. More importantly, he should seek cooperation from the tripartite arrangement with Indonesia and Malaysia on pricing and supply. 3 of them accounts for about 80-85% of world rubber production. He should just stick to being a soldier and let proper qualified politicians govern.

Could you expand on the concept of "proper qualified politicians" please. Should be highly amusing.

You find the concept of proper elected politicians amusing?

Now Eric, try not to be musteline. The words you used were "proper qualified politicians" and I wait expectantly for you to start giving examples from the PTP All-Stars.

Really not hard to see that the current lot of ministers are not in the same class as previous government except for Somkid from an incumbent past PTP related party. Worse, these present lot not even true representative of the people. Maybe that's why they find no motivation to work as they need not seek re-election.

Not a thoughtful suggestion. He should place more emphasis on R&D to expand rubber use. More importantly, he should seek cooperation from the tripartite arrangement with Indonesia and Malaysia on pricing and supply. 3 of them accounts for about 80-85% of world rubber production. He should just stick to being a soldier and let proper qualified politicians govern.

Could you expand on the concept of "proper qualified politicians" please. Should be highly amusing.

You find the concept of proper elected politicians amusing?

Not a thoughtful suggestion. He should place more emphasis on R&D to expand rubber use. More importantly, he should seek cooperation from the tripartite arrangement with Indonesia and Malaysia on pricing and supply. 3 of them accounts for about 80-85% of world rubber production. He should just stick to being a soldier and let proper qualified politicians govern.

Last I read farm income was about 10% of GDP - roughly the same as tourism.?

The more important statistic is the 64% population is in some form of agricultural produces from rubber, rice to fisheries. All these sectors are being hit hard and lots of unemployed and poverty stricken farmers. When the pain hits bottom and nothing to lose, this can manifest into something that can lead to dire consequences and violence. IMHO, the Junta will blink first and will bow to farmer demands albeit some compromises which will trigger other farming sectors to also press their demands. He crave for the job, now he deal with it. Karma is a bitch.

And yet other industries import labour from surrounding countries.Do you see a solution to the problem there? Probably not.

BTW as a youth it was impressed on me that primary industry ALWAYS offers the lowest wages, even lower than the military.

Like I said, he craved the power and he inherited the resposibilities that goes with the job; not mine to provide solutions. Anyway, it's also the failings of the Dem MPs for not helping their constituencies to attract more investments for down stream rubber processing.

People in uniforms don't depend on their wages to survive and be wealthy. Thought you knew that.

Last I read farm income was about 10% of GDP - roughly the same as tourism.?

The more important statistic is the 64% population is in some form of agricultural produces from rubber, rice to fisheries. All these sectors are being hit hard and lots of unemployed and poverty stricken farmers. When the pain hits bottom and nothing to lose, this can manifest into something that can lead to dire consequences and violence. IMHO, the Junta will blink first and will bow to farmer demands albeit some compromises which will trigger other farming sectors to also press their demands. He crave for the job, now he deal with it. Karma is a bitch.

Should have photos of the DPM mingling with the crowd who came with flowers.

Don't need a economic genius to answer the question. Agricultural produces are at its lowest ebb and that's 64% of the population translated to lots of loss in domestic spending and revenues. That affect export too and couple with declining China growth, EU stagnation and still questionable USA recovery, the outlook for export and investment are dim. Tourism will help but only single digit contribution to GDP. That is the problem with junta government in that no investors will dare take risk when they consider policy risk and uncertainty. We lost good trade partners and our aviation, fishery are still on knife edge on sanctions. I am bracing for my business to encounter big challenges this year after a drop in revenue and profit last year. I hope I make it through this year. Sucks big time.

We know the real mission and we can't discuss, period.

There are posters here that can see the shit in precious governments but can't see the same shit in the junta government. Corruption, cronyism, purging, silencing of the press, amnesty granting... List is endless and similar. The coup doesn't contribute to anything nor improvement and instead widen the divide. They say give them time. Was there time given to the democratically elected government to straighten their unpopular acts that drew protests and uproar in Parliment. Is it better now with arbitrary dispensation of law, gaged on protests and a voiceless Parliment.

Well knock me down with a feather, this is very impressive figures if they are accurate. Singapore with 15M tourists earned about 600B and Malaysia with about the same tourist numbers earned about 250B. In fact, this is too good to be true numbers even if our tourist arrivals more than double these peer countries. Massive massaging.

Is there an escape clause like the '07 charter referendum by which if it fail, the junta can select any charter of their choosing or stay in power to write another one.

If the current Military Government doesn't hand back power in a reasonable period as promised - then they deserve (and will get) lots of criticism from the pragmatic people and Govts of the world. The rest of the world is being pragmatic and reasonable - they are giving them the opportunity to get it right and hand it back to the people. I happen to agree with that view, and I do not carry any baggage about what form of Govt is right and wrong for the people of Thailand at this time - and it is their country not mine and I dont have the right to be sanctimonious about it.

Was the solution to allow things to play out and see what happened when a corrupt government refused to back down and was hell bent on staying the course they had planned. Maybe - but that didn't happen and I am glad it didn't - IMO things would have been a lot worse than a few freedoms being put on hold. Remember - Thaksin went and saw the King and resigned the next day - there was a reason for that. And the miltary stepped in some time later and took over - there was a good reason for that too (IMO).

Corruption was never the reason for the coup. Thailand history has many documented corruption cases of past governments. No coup was staged. Even the big Sor Por Kor land reform corruption during Dem government or the bloodshed in 2010 and a dysfunctional government. No coup. Expand your mind. There are reasons far beyond corruption..

Fixing the price got the rice scheme into trouble. Leave pricing to market force.

Reconciliation and reform were the reasons stated for the coup. Now the coup leader is saying reconciliation is voluntary and we are no nearer to any meaningful reform. So what the hell was the coup staged for?

Shouldn't the cases be investigated by the corruption agencies first before any punishment. Why this arbitrary decision in one person's hand to decide. This can easily turn out to be some kind of purge or revenge by jealous colleagues.

This certainly flies against the theory that the PTP and reds desperately want Abhisit to stay with the Dems because that ensures they will never win an election.

As stated before they are intimidated by his intellect, commitment to moving the nation forward and highly tuned debating skills which literally shut down any chance of the Reds or PTP going one on one with him on live TV as he would cut them down and they know it.

Farmers just need policies to help them not highly tuned debating. Reach out to them and you win the election.

Farmers just need (sustainable) policies to help them not highly tuned debating.

I changed your post slightly to bring it into reality.

Reach out to them and you win the election. Which no one has actually done yet. Farmers need better financial and agricultural education. They need a year on year sustainable method of attaining the necessary products (fertilizer etc) at cost or near cost pricing. Finally they need to know that the products farmed are going to sustain a MINIMUM price were they can earn money. Other countries do it without actually taking buying the products outright.

I like the additional sustainable word. The bare facts are that most subsidy schemes worldwide are budgeted for lost and key driver is to support the mass poor. Farming in almost all developing countries and even some developed countries are subsidized one form or the other. I will be honest to say that the previous rice scheme was OTT and unmanageable. Farmers are also old and not attracting the younger generation and will be difficult to be educated. I don't see that changing and really up to the government to implement policies that can attract the younger & eager to learn new generation farmers. Taiwan showed the world it can be done and they re-vitalized farming. Part of the Taiwan revolution was to have a side income besides farming and the Taiwanese did that with agri-tourism and alternative crops. Lots any government can do to help the farming industry and lots can be improved with a better infrastructure and ecosystem.

This certainly flies against the theory that the PTP and reds desperately want Abhisit to stay with the Dems because that ensures they will never win an election.

As stated before they are intimidated by his intellect, commitment to moving the nation forward and highly tuned debating skills which literally shut down any chance of the Reds or PTP going one on one with him on live TV as he would cut them down and they know it.

Farmers just need policies to help them not highly tuned debating. Reach out to them and you win the election.