plachon

Two words Polo....... Consenting Adults.

So if a person offered your Mother a Million dollars to burn her with lit cigarettes, and she accepted cos she could never envisage getting that type of money by any other means, and she needed the money for her security.............you would see no harm in it, and you would think that the rich man offering the money was OK, cos your Mother had agreed cos she was financially vunerable, and you would have a beer with him and talk about old times?

You would be the first on my deportation list, and blacklisted forever.

Next time you hand over money for sex, think about if it was your own daughter in that same position, and how you would feel towards the man paying her, you people have no shame , you will all burn in the fires of H.ell

You get outta bed the wrong side - AGAIN?!

Go to a thread elsewhere if it brings out the ###### fires in you Polo, and chill out for chrissakes before you split a hemorrohoid dude.

the planned collapse of the world economy to bring a new order from chaos, the intentional dumbing-down of American education, and many other issues that are bothering you in your gut, but that you can't put your finger on.

Hope of the Wicked is about the greatest deception in modern history.  Read Hope of the Wicked and you will know for sure it is not only possible, it is already being done.

Trip, I was well into the blurb up to the point where it said the bit about the "intentional dumbing -down of American education" and then it lost me entirely. How can something as base and crass as this oxymoronic statement be "dumbed down" any further Georgie-Porgie (Yale Grad) Bush is living proof of this contradiction in terms. As Bronski Beat once sang :" The only way is up............." when it cums to skooling in Amerika.

Now, wot woz the Fred about? Ah, I remember - good boox. Just finished an exellent travelogue by a New York Times journo called "The River's Tale" by Edward Gargan. (Ok, I concede, there are a few Statesiders who managed to get their 3 R's together, before Tutsi gets on my case for slight exaggerration!). This book covers a year in the life of the author traveling down the Mekong from near its source in Tibet to the Vietnamese Delta. Insightful stuff.

Now dipping into a book I've had on my shelves for the best part of a year, but haven't got round to reading cover to cover, called "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. It maps and explains the progress and fate of societies since prehistoric times in a totally coherent fashion. He argues that the reason that Europeans managed to conquer most of the planet, as opposed to some other regional group of people (like Papua New Guineans, for example), has everything to do with geography, environment and ecology, and nothing to do with some inherent biological or racial superiority, as many members of this forum would like to believe. Read it and judge for yourselves. alternatively, a good synopsis can be found at http://dannyreviews.com/h/Guns_Germs_Steel.html

Good thread which perenially comes around. Keep 'em coming bookworms.................

This story has been a long time in the making, but it looks like he's finally come close to pulling off a deal (not signed and sealed yet according to an article in today's Guardian). Liverpool are obviously strapped for abit of brass, and there's this geezer with wads of notes rattling on Anfield's turnstiles who wants in no matter how much it costs, so why turn away the lad. Haven't seen this much persistence since Billy the Fish tried to get trialled, but you remember how that one turned out? Big Vern didn't tolerate fools gladly and old Dave Moore's no different methinks. Could get a bit interesting in the Director's (CEO's? ) Box next season. More laffs than the Royle Family lads. Pity 'em Everton players when they wipe the Reds off the pitch.

SHOPGURL;Are you men talking about girls or pets here?????

Well deary,we talking about GIRLS,,Why would you drop out 5 kilo of tongue to impress a pet?

So it doesn't starve? Had a dog once that loved a big chunk of tongue. Ox that is

So let me get it straight, KevinN...? Shoot to kill first, and ask questions later?

If you really, truly believe in what you just wrote, you would have made a great soldier in Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany.

Of course the soldiers had to shoot, I am not questioning that. Of course *some* of these young people had to die in the heat of the moment - but the way it was handled suggested the soldiers shot to kill, and then the pictures were doctored to make it seem more justified.

Your acceptance of this, coming from a so called "enlightened" society, scare me a lot more than radical Islam, which manipulates on poor, uneducated youth. You're old enough to know better.

Meatball, please don't be too hard on our Kev. He's one of the Forum's institutions, guaranteed to come out with well considered, moderate, liberal comments on diverse subjects and needs all the understanding he can get. See his comments above for affirmation of his southern US (Texas?) solutions to the southern Thai problems. He'd feel right at home in China, where they have more executions (often for non-violent crimes) than the rest of the world put together. But note, they usually go through the motions of a trial first!

Interesting post and website link Bina. Which kibbutz do you live on? I was there in 1987 and visited several, but didn't come across any organic ones.

Your concerns about the importance of trees in paddy lands are well founded and I'm very saddened about the steady loss of native trees I see each year. Some of them are the only one of their kind for miles and once they're gone, there's no way they can be replaced by natural seed fall. Conversely, eucalyptus is now spreading like a weed across the countryside, invading natural forests, degraded land, etc. due to its hardy nature and prodigious self seeding ability. And of couse, it's nightmare to get rid of once established due to its deep root system.

The main reason that native trees are disappearing is that as labour becomes more scarce and expensive, so the remaining farmers are turning to machinery more. It's a negative feedback loop, where more machinery means less need for labour, and thus remaining labour in village is less needed, more out-migration, fewer (and older) hands available and hence, more tractors, combine harvesters, threshers, etc. are appearing in classic industrial revolution style. All these machines and trees don't get on, so the farmer just chops them down, often for no more than a bit of firewood or charcoal in return. Big raintrees 40 / 50 years old i've seen sold to a dealer for a mere 600 baht! The dealers then no doubt, profit from the farmer's ignorance and sell the wood at a tidy profit elsewhere.

As a result the whole paddy field ecosystem is breaking down to a simplified version with less biodiversity and less resilience to "shocks"- like pests. Result: more chemical pesticides used and the vicious cycle continues. Very difficult to make it virtuous again, unless the role and importance of native trees is understood!

Nice post Chan - I've been to Nam Nao NP in the past and liked it too, but still to visit Phu Rong Kla. In Loei, Phu Rua is a winner outside of New Year, wehn half of Thailand is either there or Phu Kradung. Forests are getting a bit thin in places, and like you, the sight of so many bare hills depresses me.

As to your question of whether Petchabun qualifies as Isaan or not, reckon it's somewhere in between literally. Think the original inhabitants spoke more of a northern dialect (and a few hill tribes thrown in for variety), but the majority these days are migrants from central Isaan provinces who were encouraged to go up there and clear the forests for cash crops back in the 70s and 80s. Gave the govt., a double benefit - more agri-exports and less places for the CPT to hide out. Lots of good plaeng pua cheewit were penned up on those mountains.

There's another option to Penang for the twitchy - namely flying. Thai Air does a daily evening flight from BKK - PEN that comes in at somewhere around 8,000 i.e. a helluva lot cheaper than Oz, or other distant options. More expensive than Singapore granted, but a lot nicer place to visit and from reports, friendlier staff in Penang. Only danger in Penang are the kateoeys on Chulia street - where do they get 'em?

There seems to be a lot anger and bad feelings aimed at the Thais here. Many people are assuming that they are just plain ignorant, and I will not venture to guess why this is so. I've actually been doing research on consumer credit in Thailand and have looked into the rural credit system. My findings are:

1) These interest rates are comparable to rural, informal rates the world over. The new field of "micro-finance" is attempting to address this problem specifically. And it is a tough nut to crack indeed. If you're interested, check out www.gdrc.org. A website all about global efforts to finance poor people's needs for capital. The problem is one of policy, and is common throughout the world. The problem is not uniquely attributable to local ignorance .

2) These rates definitely seem extortionary. But analysis has shown that the rates are simply the result of an imperfect credit market, where poor people simply don't have access to bank loans at formal market rates.

Some of you may have heard of Ammar Siamwalla. He is arguably the most respected economist in Thailand and heads the Thailand Development Research Institute. He wrote a paper in 1990 for the World Bank. Here is the abstract:

Thailand has sought to increase farmers' access to credit by government intervention. In 1966 it created a government agricultural bank to lend solely to farm households, and beginning in the late 1970s it required commerical banks to lend heavily in the rural sector, either directly or by making deposits in the agricultural bank. The result was an enormous expansion of credit in the rural sector. But because formal lenders were either unable or unwilling to solve the information problems involved in the broad range of rural credit transactions, the informal credit sector (which charged interest rates many times higher than the formal sector) continued to thrive. Using household surveys and surveys of moneylenders, this article provides a detailed analysis of the ways in which lenders in the informal sector have solved the information problems of providing credit. The authors argue that the informal sector is competitive, and that high interest rates reflect high information costs, not the scarcity of funds.

like Pnu says, there is no "anger or bad feelings" aimed at Thais at all. There is a sense of disbelief that people will actually pay such high interest rates and sympathy for anyone stupid enough to take loans out at 240 % p.a., but any anger is reserved for the tiny proportion (1 in 10,000?) of wealthy people who make their living out of exploiting other's misfortunes or weakness in times of financial need.

Your "research" is obviously very important to you, but I'm afraid isn't going to win any awards for originality or applicability. Rather than quoting from old hat papers from Siamwalla, you should be getting up-to-date stuff from people/organisations working directly in this field. Micro-finance is neither a particularly new field nor a panacea for the rural poor's credit problems. May I suggest that your time would be better spent in getting out into some villages and talking directly to some villagers about their sources of credit and rates, and then entertaining us with some first hand information, than second hand bunkum.

very sad indeed, what ever nationality or religion these guys were, they deserved to die, weed out the rotten apples quickly and correctly...

I hope this International story does not affect Tourism for Phuket as the hospitality industry is struggling already.

Bit of a simplistic posting from you eh, Gent? For someone who so vehemently attacks GWB, USof A and the justification for the War in Iraq, I'm surprised that you jump to conclusions so quickly about this one. "Same, same but different", is my simplistic slant on the southern problem, which has after all been simmering for years and years. But why does it only boil over in such a volatile fashion now, when country's are so hasty about joining up to Georgie's "War on Terror"? As as has been so often said in the past, but still flies over most people's noddle, the flawed logic in declaring war on a subjective concept is to put it bluntly, mind-boggling. Saying someone "deseves to die" for actions for which no-one yet fully understands the reasons behind, is rather drastic and ungentlemanly don't you think?

yes mate very simplistic in this case, I would like to know what you actually know about the problems in the south?, who is behind it and what is it all about?

What I know is that it hasnt been simmering for years in this case (this is recent), it has nothing to do with Budhists against Muslims - that is a fact!

What it has to do with is a "handfull" of antagonists from both sides of the border, to do with a gas pipeline, which Toxin is a 50% partner in and 50% is the Malaysian "kings family" - yet to make the international press I may add!

Toxin is looking after a partnership, that is major amounts of money and very good for him and Thailand....... If you read what is happening down there, you wll also find that the 5 "lost" Malaysian military personnel are also in the region to protect this area from "terrorist" type activity - these guys are terrorists in a non political way - this is why Toxin has ruled with a rifle on this occasion and for once I support him in doing it.

Wait a few more months and it will all come out in the press!

Only that the situation is far more complex than the politicians and armchair experts are making out, Gent. Apart from that, what little I know about the deep South comes from over a decade of reading about problems simmering (yes, I stick with this term) away, and a few visits over the years. The underlying problems of poverty, disenfranchised youth and blatant discrimination have been exploited by many interests and badly handled by all past administrations, bar none. However, being the heartland of the Democrats, the Chuan govt., was far more in tune with how to deal with a wider cross-section of southerners than the present one. Having said that, there is also a rival business group of ex-New Asps supporters down there, who by default and Gen Chav's manoueverings became TRT's. But of course, the kids who were duped into jumpiing on their bikes, high on something, with machetes in hand and sailed straight into an ambush were not politically savvy enough to understand the games going on for higher stakes.

You throw an interesting new factor into the complex brew, the veracity of which I've no knowledge of one way or the other. But then why if you say it's nothing more than a personal business dispute by the PM, why are you so supportive of the PM's disproportionate response? I don't get that for one who slags off GWB et al., War for Oil, as not being a double standard?

Will be interesting to see if your predictions of media getting wind of this in a few months time is right or not.

very sad indeed, what ever nationality or religion these guys were, they deserved to die, weed out the rotten apples quickly and correctly...

I hope this International story does not affect Tourism for Phuket as the hospitality industry is struggling already.

Bit of a simplistic posting from you eh, Gent? For someone who so vehemently attacks GWB, USof A and the justification for the War in Iraq, I'm surprised that you jump to conclusions so quickly about this one. "Same, same but different", is my simplistic slant on the southern problem, which has after all been simmering for years and years. But why does it only boil over in such a volatile fashion now, when country's are so hasty about joining up to Georgie's "War on Terror"? As as has been so often said in the past, but still flies over most people's noddle, the flawed logic in declaring war on a subjective concept is to put it bluntly, mind-boggling. Saying someone "deseves to die" for actions for which no-one yet fully understands the reasons behind, is rather drastic and ungentlemanly don't you think?

The news just in from AFP is that there are 127 dead, which is NEWS indeed! This is going to play around in the international press for days, if not weeks to come and will not do the tourism industry any favours at all. It begs the question, if the security forces knew about this raid and were "prepared for it", why did they use such lethal force against teenagers on bikes armed with machetes? It's even more drastic than the situation in Israel and is reminscent of the response used on the God's Army rebels (what religion were they all you Muslim haters?) who took Ratchburi hospital a couple of years ago. No prisoners taken there either. Very sad situation yet again.

On the more serious side one thing the Thai bikers are doing for the most part is turning their headlight on while riding and I think this helps prevent some accidents, Being a lifelong biker myself and BTW I do agree with the helmet law, the Thais in general will not spend the necessary Baht to buy a proper helmet. Maybe the government should require all bike dealers in Thailand to include in the selling price of the bike, and have in their stock a wide array of DOT approved helmets the new buyer can select from.

Please don't take issue with me on the Helmet law issue, I have had some experiences with this one, been riding Dirt and street for forty years and no that is not a boast.

I'm quite amazed that people have taken to the "head lights in the day" advice, given the years of prompting and number of times that people get fined before they finallly click and buy a helmet. Here in Isaan, you can now see plenty of people with the lights on in the day, which is really weird, as it used to be a dead cert if I ever went out with my lights still on just 3 months ago, that half a dozen people would flash me, stop me and tell me about this huge national disaster. I could never work out whether it was concern for safety or that they were worried about my battery, but me explaining that it was considered a safe thing to do in alot of countries fell on deaf years. But, now all of a sudden it's considered THE thing to do, which is fine with me, as I always foregt to switch the lights off when I get back home in any case. Now I don't need to worry.

Thanks for the confirmation. Wow! 240 % p.a. - nice little earner for the lady. But what other country in the world, would people actually agree to such terms, over 24 times the going bank loan rate!? You should do some psycho-analysis on your girlfriend to find out what motivated her to pay such ludicrous rates. Was it ignorance, desperation or just some hunch that she'd win the lottery tomorrow so everything would be alright!? My wife would never dream of borrowing a baht for goods, and she was like that even before we married, so it's not just my influence! "Don't spend what you haven't got" is a good motto we both agree on, but we're the odd ones out in the nation it seems.

Possibly, possibly not. The thing is, if people don't start to lead by example (as opposed to waiting for someone else to show the way or the govt. to order them), then there's little chance of ever seeing any improvement in responsible water management (or money management for that matter).

I would also ask you Moving, if there's any inherent reason why Thais can't get into the idea of individual responsibility, or are you saying it's culturally impossible?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh now I see how the Empire dwindled. No one could understand what the other was saying. I can get a grip on what Queenie says though.

"One is not amused by the size of one's bill. Phillip, dear, go sell one of our properties and we'll bring the poor boy home". "Lizzie, my little sizzler, how does Orsetralia sound?" "Is that still ours? Fair enough, but can we really get that much for that arid dirt heap downunder?"

number 2 requirement : hearing impairment

Come again Bronco (as the young filly said), I missed that.

So do I, apart from the fact you're a big old softie CC! Most Thais I know are so risk prone when it comes to taking out loans, they're walking targets for the sharks. The concept of saving up for a motorbike or other declining value asset item is so foreign, that it's almost unheard of. This is also true in UK to a certain extent, but the big difference is that there the credit is cheaper and the checks for dodgy past credit history are far more scrupulous.

It's a recipe for disaster when an uneducated farmer can just walk into a shop, hand over their land title papers to the tao gae, sign their name at the bottom of a piece of paper they can't even read, and walk out with 100 K, 200 K or whatever, just like that. I've bailed my in-laws out one too many times now over bad loan decisions and they're on their own now. Even my wife agrees, as she's at her wits end over how dumb they can be at borrowing money! The last one was her youngest brother (who has no savings, only debt), getting married for a dowry of 100 K, and didn't bat an eyelid about the amount. We bailed him out in the end, but I don't think he's learned a lesson from it all.

These are our intensions in short :

1. We want to live a calm and pleasant country life. No stress. No enemies (if possible).

2. We want to help our Thai family to help themselves by working as farmers, shop owners, cafeteria owners or something similar. We invest our present money and they invest their knowledge and labour. As a retired I'm unfortunately not allowed to work in Thailand. Else I would! With pleasure.

3. We want a comparatively "steady" income for all of us, enough to live a comfortable (not luxury) life.

4. Some money left to put in a bank account for future investments like machines, cars, truck(s), an extra house lot or two perhaps with a new Thai style house. The family is growing and we can't live in ONE house forever. Pay everything cash. Absolutely no bank loans. Ever! I've never borrowed any money in Sweden and will certainly not start to do in Thailand!

5. The kids should have the possibility to study. One of my wife's sister's daughter's daughter has a sharp brain we can see already now. She is number one in her class. "I want to be a doctor", she says! Of course we will help her to study for being a doctor. Especially the girls needs all the help they can get. There are a lot of bright girls in Thailand who never got the chance to educate themselves because their (sometimes not so bright) brothers came in the first place.

What I DON'T mean is:

1. Buy all the land we can get around us just to show off and feel important.

2. Build "castles" here and there with a couple of BMW's and Mercedes and perhaps a private jet or a helicopter standing on the field nearby.

3. Living a sort of jet set life in the cities, having a sort of eternal vacation , travel around the world, staying in expensive hotels, buy expensive clothes and so on.

4. Buy all the gold chains we can get so we look like a "walking gold shop".

Well, I think you understand what I mean by now! Looking forward hearing from you again.

Best regards,

ThaiFarmer

Hi Thai Farmer,

Thank you for such an open broadbrush assessment of your intentions on your retirement plans in Thailand. Wash has already given a good tranche of advice on some of the pitfalls to avoid in making such a big move in life. If I may, I would like to add a few other small warning flags.

Although you may perceive that you will not be showing ostentatious wealth, by not buying gold chains, Mercs and other luxury trappings, the fact remains is that you will be viewed by your neighbours as a very rich person, especially if you are intending buying as much land as you say you would like to. As such, you will be game for regular requests for assistance from less fortunate family members and other assorted locals. how you deal with these is up to you, but don't think you can hide your financial status, just by not driving a BMW! The temptation therefore, is then to exclude the neighbours and unwanted visitors by having a big wall around the house built, which further isolates your position from the community. It's a very fine line between maintaining privacy and becoming aloof in Thai rural society and you'll be judged accordingly..

Secondly, you don't state what kind of farming appeals to your own personal aesthetics, but you do state you would like a reasonable income to be able to afford a "comfortable life" and some left over for "future investments like machines, trucks, cars and an extra house lot or two". If you intend paying for these from farm-derived income, then I think you are being a little optimistic about the potential income available from such a profession. Sure, with a 300 rai dairy and beef ranch (ChokChai style!), ou could perhaps attain this, but it would require a lot of investment in knowledge, staff and infrastructure first, not to mention some rather good connections and an A1 location!

My humble advice, FWIW, is to start small and build up, given that you're a self-confessed greenhorn to farming. Read up about integrated farming and its benefits, (where all your eggs aren't in one basket), and invest first and foremost in improving the water resources on your chosen farmland, (which need not be more than 20 rai to provide a good and steady income). Read prodigiously on farming in Thailand and the sub-humid tropics in general (there's some good stuff on the Net, but it can be a problem sorting the wheat out from the chaff), before you leap in. Oh yes, plant lots of trees too and make sure they're either fruit trees, nitrogen fixers or hardwood timber trees. Avoid eucalyptus and non-native pulp trees like the plague!

And lastly, keep your main nest egg in an overseas account and rely on the interest from that, not what you think you may earn from farming or other investments over here. Nobody ever got rich from farming in Thailand, but lots of people got very rich from buying land at cheap prices and selling it at ridiculous prices later. However, none of these were farangs and the land is mostly in the hands of the wealthy already, so those strike it rich days of Chatchai on are well and truly over. Many others lost their shirts to crackpot ideas, sold to them by smooth tongued salesmen, the latest being ostrich farming!

Likewise, Good Luck!, but step very warily as you go........

Two Killed, 13 Schools on Fire in Thai Muslim South

BANGKOK: -- Two people were killed and 50 public buildings, including 13 schools, were set ablaze overnight in a serious outbreak of violence in Thailand's restive, largely Muslim south, police said on Friday. A village headman was shot dead in his car and a fireman died in hospital after being shot while trying to put out a blaze at one of the targeted buildings in the southern province of Narathiwat, police said.

"The fireman who was shot last night has now died in hospital," an officer at Narathiwat police headquarters told Reuters by telephone.

At least 10 suspected arsonists, mostly youths under 18, were arrested after the rampage. They were now in military custody, a Defense Ministry spokesman told a Bangkok radio station.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters during a trip to northeastern provinces that the culprits would face severe penalties.

--Reuters 2004-04-23

Isn't it time to bring in the troops ?

I thought this area was already under military administration?

The Thai troops have been crawling over the southern provinces for ever and a day, and the 3 southern-most provinces have been under martial law since January, so perhaps Dr PP means the good ol' US troops should be brought in?? They could do with a break from Iraq just now and would probably jump at a bit of R&R down in Narathiwat just now.

Sue me

Bash

'Bash'

See what you started.....I think that there should be a "Class-Action" suit filed against you...all those that have a problem with a little humor, those that try to gain a little moral high ground, and those that have PC issues should ban together and sue your pants of...of course, you may like that.

P.S. And just what is the answer for the lack of water and the associated problems...perhaps Dr PP could do a rain dance? Whoops, didn't mean to make light of a serious topic but just what is it that we are supposed to do???????????

Try consuming a little less water would be a good start...........got a dripping tap at home - turn it off; got a car that needs washing - skip it til the rains come; plant less lawn and more trees at home; collect rain water off the roof in jars/tanks/cistern to use on garden (or drinking if you live far away from industrial pollution sources); only put a full load in the washing machine (or even better - hand wash); get a water efficient toilet, etc., etc. There are hundreds of way you can save water, if you just use a litle gnauss Moving. Think globally, but act locally and start at home.

Go see a doctor Erco, before one see you.

Not sure if it's just me but I found the writing to be rather mundane although maybe it's really hard to sum up Thailand in so little paragraphs....

from my experience with the bbc bunch I reckon they were just trying to get to the pub as quickly as possible

And what's wrong with that Nat? No point in wating good drinking time is there.

The Bear Pit is now a seperate entity. Go on over to www.bearpit.net for a good time!

Thanks for the pointer Boonmee. I thought for a minute that our sand pit had been concreted over and a Walmart had been put up in its place. Trouble is, have very little time these days to join the bears, so controvrsial posts are probably better off staying up 'ere for the moment.

Both crazy and desperate I think is the answer to your question Chai. Easy credit has always been a feature of Thailand for rich and poor alike, butt he difference is that the rich and middle class get their loans from banks and financial institutions and ordinary market rates, while the poor get their loans from informal, high interest loan sharks of the sort who gouged your girlfriend (assuming she's telling you the truth as 20 % per month is ultra-excessive!).

Of course the above is a generalisation and there are lots of poor farmers who've mortgaged their land with the Tor-Gor Sow (Agricultural and cooperatives Bank), which charges low interest rates. Trouble is there are lots of conditions on what you can do with the money and you can't get a loan in a hurry for emergencies or non-farming stuff (like sending your son/daughter to work abroad). So when a villager needs a large wad of cash in a hurry they revert to the sharks, who are only to happen to lend if they can get their hands on some nice juicy collateral like land documents. So, when the villager defaults (highly likely scenario at those extortionate rates), it's bye-bye land and your whark has just gained another nice piece of land that they can then use to go to a bank and borrow some money at 10 % p.a. Life's a bitch when your poor, uneducated and vulnerable to the many influences saying DEBT IS GOOD.

Have you noticed how everyone has a loan on reducing value assets like bikes, cars, TVs, DVDs, etc., but very few have loans for increasing assets, like their land? Education is the one exception, but research studies have shown that most of the loans divvied out by govt. supposedly to help "poor students" study further, have in fact been given out to the kids of wealthy families, because of of influence and connections. So the poor often end up mortgaging their land toa shark and losing everything so their kids can get past secondary school, while the rich enjoy student loans at really low interest rates. However, rich and poor alike, the default rate for these educational loans is said to be appalling and the govt. is now scaling back before the country goes bankrupt. Hidden debt, away from official figures is huge here, espcially in rural communities. The bubble is going to burst one of these days and it's not going to be a pretty sight when it does...................