lannarebirth

It will be interesting to juxtapose Abhisits inclusiveness and reasonableness with whatever Dear Leader's next phone-in has to say. I could be wrong but I'd guess he will show a lesser degree of equanimity and bon homie.

does anyone know if there is a web site streaming the discussion with English commentary?

http://www.thailandoutlook.tv/tan/

This is starting to look like it will end badly which will be sad.

It has looked that way to me from the beginning. Violence very well COULD ruin the future for Abhisit and Korn

I very much hope not... violence has no part in this and I would defend anyone against it - of course debaters know my sympathies are more red than yellow but that does not mean i support violence OR Khun Thaksin who should be ditched by the reds eventually.

Why should he have not been ditched already?

Reds are starting to get concessions:

Abhisit has said he was willing to disband Parliament but there must be conditions attached

He mentioned three conditions for an election a few days ago. I cant remember them all but one was the right for any candidate to campaign without fear of attack anywhere

Correct. Another was to understand that his government had no jurisdiction over the courts and he could not negotiate favorable court concessions.

You think THIS v v has anything to do with THAT ^^ ?

THE NATION: Weng: "Govt is making negotiations impossible."

Reds are starting to get concessions:

Abhisit has said he was willing to disband Parliament but there must be conditions attached

He mentioned three conditions for an election a few days ago. I cant remember them all but one was the right for any candidate to campaign without fear of attack anywhere

Correct. Another was to understand that his government had no jurisdiction over the courts and he could not negotiate favorable court concessions.

The way I look at things, the ability to put a lot of warm bodies on the street is related to having a large population of idle "n'er do wells" available, who have nothing better to do than complain. When I look at a long caravan of Red Shirts, what I see is a population of folks who are not usefully employed in any productive enterprise to feed their families (unless you accept that they are all being paid a salary to appear, in which case they are simply actors) - and all I can think is: "Do I really want such idle, unemployed people to be selecting the next government of Thailand?"

The argument between the Thai elites and the lower economic strata of Thailand is the same argument being played out all over the world:

One side says - The pie is divided unequally, and my team feels that our slice of pie is too small - so we want your side to accept smaller slices - and shift the distribution of the existing pie so that we get larger slices. We deserve more pie!

The other side says: Just listen to us, and let us run things, and we will make the pie MUCH bigger - so that everyone gets more pie, even without changing the angles of the slices.

In a nation with an ever-growing population, the first approach will never work out in the long run. If you just want to redistribute existing wealth, everyone will eventually become poor.

What the first group wants is both benefits: You give us some of your pie now, while at the same time, you go off and do your thing to make the pie bigger for everyone - while we sit here eating pie in the shade.

The second group says: Uh, sorry, but - that's not how things work. If we are going to put our blood and sweat into the very hard work of making EVERYONE's pie bigger, we want to reap big rewards - not watch the fruits of our labor flow to less industrious people.

In one form or another, this battle is playing out all over the world.

I have not been everywhere in Thailand, and there may be localities that have seriously declined since I first visited Thailand in 1995. But - everywhere that I have been - including remote rural parts of Thailand - things have gotten significantly better, across the spectrum. Better roads, better clinics, more reliable electricity and clean water, better roads, better schools, better telecommunications and transportation, etc. Some of the improvement was before Thaksin, some was during his tenure, and some occurred after Thaksin's departure. But - the trend has always been upwards. Every Thai's slice of pie has gotten bigger - but - if you listen to the Red Shirts, you would think that their villages have been raped and pillaged since 2006, and everything is going downhill rapidly. Well - to my own eyes - this is simply fabrication.

I have seen absolutely NOTHING that even remotely suggests to me in any way that the Red Shirt leadership has any ideas about ways to make the pie bigger. A rising tide lifts all boats - but they have no brilliant thoughts about how to bring on a rising tide. They just want to pursue the "Robin Hood scenario": Take from the rich and give to the poor. Well, Robin Hood may have been popular among the peasants - but I'm not so sure he would have made a great Monarch, or great Prime Minister.

Superficial populism can be seductive to the weaker-minded parts of the electorate (a great example being the travesty that put the current US administration into power), but it usually damages the long-term prospects of success for the nation.

The Red Shirts are all worked up about the illegitimacy of the Abhisit government - and also about the unjust distribution of wealth and power throughout Thailand. But - I never hear them talk about substantive policies and improvements that they would make. They are focused on superficial issues - but do not appear to have any transformational proposals for how to run the country. As far as I can tell, they want to pursue the exact same agenda as the current government - they just want their favorite sons to be sitting in the big chairs. That does not seem like a very compelling argument in favor of immediately unseating the current government.

Very good post and I have nothing to add, but it did remind me of a funny Bush quote:

"We ought to make the pie higher."

George W Bush

lannarebirth

i sought thairath but could not find jatupon's comment....

could u be more specific.... thx

Anyone have a translation of the Jakropob Penkair speech reported about in todays Thai Rath? From what I can gather he says Abhisit is legitimate and the Red people suffer from their leaders, of whom he had little good to say.

I never saw it and my wife was describing it to me. As she does so often I think she did some literary embellishment. If this is the article, it seems both general and benign:

http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/72092

Make him pay the taxes on the gain on the sale of his shares and a 20%? penalty for weaseling out of it. Taking all of the family's wealth earned during the time he was in office without a calculation and connection to specific issues is just too much, smells of dirty politics and doesn't allow for any settlement and healing over the issues.

It's really unfathomable given the courts multi hour delivery of the verdict, how he walked away with any money at all. They proved damages well in excess of the monies frozen, but then seize only a fraction. It reeks of a "finessed" verdict and of course everyone knows appeasement policies always blow up in your face.

I don't believe we're allowed to discuss when the civil war will begin.

This IS the fight you're expecting later.

Anyone have a translation of the Jakropob Penkair speech reported about in todays Thai Rath? From what I can gather he says Abhisit is legitimate and the Red people suffer from their leaders, of whom he had little good to say.

Interesting.

Maybe it need to be assayed? Or maybe they are waiting to buy on a dip, eg: $1000. Doesn't look 'overbought' to me.

Nor does it look oversold. Nor does there exist anything looking like a positive divergance; on the contrary:

This is a battle between the elite of Bangkok who control the judiciary, supported by most of the army and the rural poor.

Think what you like of Thaksin but he harnessed this previously politically deprived group and gave them an identity.

The army overthrew Thaksin while he was abroad knowing he wouldn't return. When the next election was won by his followers they used the judiciary to overturn it several times and eventually bought the parliament. No way can the current goverment be thought of as legitimate.

Abhisit may well be a good guy but he is just the front man for all the dodgy guys behind him who don't like the power they feel is theirs by right being threatened which is why they want to disenfranchise the poor and take the vote away from them. As a front man he was a good choice.

I am no great fan of Thaksin but at least he challenged the status quo and used the ballot box to do so. Sure he spent some money but that is true even in our so called western democracies. You need a few billion to stand a chance of becoming president of the USA and if you want to be mayor of New York then $50m should cover it. Politics is dirty everywhere but at least these reds are not just sitting back allowing the traditional elite to have it all their own way without a fight.

Thailand is at least showing that free speach is not dead even if their media is ranked as one of the most censored/supressed in the world.

You're wrong that this is a battle between the elite and the rural poor. There's a huge number of Thais that are neither and whose voices are thusfar silent. My wife is an educated middle class woman. She has some sympathy for the red movement, as do most of her friends who are professional people and academics. However, if they don't shed Thaksin or start violence, it is her hope that the Army does whatever is necessary to remove them. She will not shed a tear if they do "whatever's necessary". They are not going to let these people come to power through violent means you can rest assured about that. Thaksin's never coming back, ever.

There's a reason they do these in Bangkok on the weekend. Monday the citizenry would rip into them and I think most all of you know that.

Lets be clear about this. Many of the red supporters here have been whipping up a violent, civil war mentality, egging on the reds to perform revolution for their dear leader, at any cost. They are not the voice of reason, they are the voice of madness.

I don't agree with everything you say but this quote here sums it up for me. There are some people here with blooddlust iin their hearts and absolutely no stake in the conflict. One wonders what slights they themselves suffered in their own lives to make then such irrational, vengeful proponents of violence. Civil War is no substitute for psychotherapy.

during the past six decades, there had not been a supreme court in thailand history which is allowed a free hand and feet.... to decide and judge according to the laws of the land.

and after having read some of the reasons behind the decision rendered.... tuksin was fortunate to even be allowed to have some of his corrupted fortune returned to him....

had there not been because of only ONE SYMPATHETIC JUSTICE who dissented.... the male prisoner escapee named tuksin.... would have ended up with zippo, nothing....

REALISTICALLY, JUST HOW MUCH WOULD A MAN NEED.... to live a life of leisure....?

many farangs are happy and content like larks living their lives out around pacificrims.... with just 3,000 usd a month in interest received.... without having to ever tough the invested capitals...

in retrospective, how much do we really need.... to live a decent life....?

It's a bad thing when judges don't respect the rule of law. They try to "finesse" these verdicts because they are the elite dealing with another elite. It's all going to blow up in their faces one day. The anti judiciary crowd here have got that right, but it didn't work against them as they claim, but for them. It gave this cancer life when it should have been excised long ago. It seems the puyai still think they know best.

Mr. Thaksin brought many issues out into the open. Issues like the festering grievances of the have nots. He also served as a catalyst that caused discussions of subjects previously kept quiet, such as the entrenched power of the military and the "elites". The role and influence of the military was exposed, as well as the role of the privy council and its place within a quasi modern democracy. It doesn't matter if Mr. Thaksin's position was right or wrong. Rather, that these were issues that needed to be brought into the open. For what it's worth, I believe the Royal Thai Navy also received more support than it had previously or since as the army had always been the dominant branch. Under Thaksin, the navy could breathe. Mr. Thaksin also restored Thailand's image in the foreign arena. He was seen as a popularly elected PM and not someone annoited by the military. If I am not mistaken, foreign investment and foreign development project funding increased under Thaksin, until the troubles began. (Of course the economic conditions were different, so it has to be taken within that context.)

Why didn't Thaksin expose the role of the military elite when he was bribing them to get his monopoly? He could have used like a hidden camera and showed them all for what they are. Why was he trying to move his own family into military elite roles. Hey, that would have been a great chance to expose it huh? Hey, and the judiciary, he could have done like a "cabndid camera" thing and showed the hypocrisy of the judiciary when his lawyers proffered that 2 Million baht bribe.

Anyone writing something negative about Thaksin is off-topic. As per the topic title.

I'd like to say I benefitted personally from Thaksin's premeirship. A LOT of money got funneled to Chiang Mai and his family was selling influence left and right up here and that led to lots of high end development. Sure they siphoned off the funds to finish the roads projects halfway through, but hey, they appropriated more and got most of it done.

The persistant rumors of casinoes got big hotels to develop and even the boondoggle "Night Safari", while killing hundreds (maybe thousands now) of exotic animals DID get a lot of money circulating while it was being built. Sure it's like a ghost town now, but it served its purpose.

^What the hel_l does that mean? Even google won't translate it!

After me, (comes) the flood.

"Après moi, le deluge"

Long Yuan and Gold

Short USD / UK Pound / Euro

Those are the safest simplest investments one can make imho

You want want physical gold not paper gold that isn't actually backed by gold which is the case with many of these american etfs

One may be long or short the $USD Index but with respect to those other currencies don't you need to be short against a given currency? If that's so, which currency is it? Unless you're using futures of course, but it's my impression most "forex" folks don't use futures.

I love the circularity of the "Double Standards" argument. It was first presented by HM during a birthday speechin 2001 or 2002 directed at an uncomfortably squirming Thaksin undergoing his assets concealment case. We know from interviews with the judges later that they used a "double standard" to get Thaksin off on that one. Now Thaksin uses the double standard argument because he thinks its unfair that the same standard applied to him in 2001 is not applied now. It's sooo Thai.

He's like that grain of sand that irritates the oyster into forming a pearl. That's an important role in Thailands political development. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be a role he thinks is important enough and instead pursues his own interests.

Rabies

Because of the high number of stray and wild animals in Thailand, please be forewarned that a rabies vaccination will not protect you from dying of rabies if you simply do nothing after being bitten by a rabid animal. The vaccine gives you time to find medical help, particularly if you are in a rural area and need to travel some distance to a hospital. This means that even when you have had the vaccination, you must go to a hospital within a few days if any wild or stray animal has bitten you. At the hospital, you will need further treatment. If you do not have the vaccination, you must go to the hospital immediately.

Sorry to hear of your less than friendly encounter Khun orang. I think the advice to see a doctor and maybe start a course of shots is probably most appropriate. The chance of the dog having rabies is likely small, but the risk is too great to ignore IMO, McCormick Hospital I think offers good care and reasonable rates for this treatment. Best Wishes.

Here's to better days:

orang.bmp

Anyway, I am due to surprise her on Monday with a visit ...

I am going to go to her old place of work to find out her parents' address and knock on her door.

If you go to her place of work there won't be any surprise. If she's not still working there they will certainly call her and tell her you've inquired about her. You've been given some good advice here by most posters. I hope you take some of it to heart. Good Luck either way.

shhhhhh...! the Mrs has the hots again since she saw <1100

Smart Girl

Undoubtedly she is, but OTOH it may be getting ready to plunge. Those negative divergances only go on for so long.