DrDweeb

Good. The farmers will get paid as we all knew they would. Great pity it has taken so long

As usual, you are in dire need of remedial math lessons!

So, as stated the delays in paying the farmers was down to the anti-government protesters as confirmed by the GSB labour union head Likit Klinthanom. Perhaps the farmers will think again about approaches from the ever slippery suthep and his sheeple.

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 5 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Wow, a talking head said something, so it must be true.

More kool-aid patently ridiculous rhetoric for the converted and astroturfers here on AV,

A predictable response from fab4 who will probably die of some form of chemical poisoning soon as he/she has consumed so much of the stuff

If you think corruption will end in Thailand when the Shinawatras are gone, you are blind.

The Shin corruption will be gone. That will be a start, and a start is better than not.

Please can I borrow those rosy tints of yours.

Such a simple solution . once that is done, can we move onto Ferrari red bull guy. So simple to solve this corruption business.

Genius pure genius. Get rid.of thaksin and thailand becomes Norway with warm.weather. brilliant.

You obviously cannot read, you need regular glasses apparently.

It is not in any way "rose tinted" to write what I posted.

The departure of the Shins would indeed end their regin of corruption, it is a logical consequence. They would surely be replaced by one of the hoards ready to follow in his footsteps. The second statement does not negate the first.

Putting Al Capone in gaol did not end crime, but it put a severe dent in the crime business. Afte Big Al, more followed. In a society where "rule of law" is espoused, that is how you do it, one villian at a time. In the end (or so theory goes), the crime business becomes unpalateble due to the risks and the number of villians declines.

I wonder what the preventive effects of actually putting a few Thai "white collar" villians in the Bangkok Hilton would have?

(If you were replying to the previous poster, learn to quote)

So the sins of the father are used to tar the son, and regurgitated to tar the father again.

Suthep has had so much traction with the protests that PTP will take any and all roads high low and subterranean to remove even a jot of his influence and ability to cut their path short. In that light, it is no wonder anything his son does in business will be laid at his feet as a crime of the highest magnitude. Until proved in a court of law, this reportage MUST be assumed to be a political hatchet job, driven by PTP desperation, and nothing more.

But of course Thaksin partisans whether paid PR hacks, or zealot believers, or the simply misinformed, will parrot the innuendos endlessly.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Unfortunately for you, the property scams of Suthep's family are so brazen that it is not suprising that most people would believe almost anything he does would probably involve some degree of corruption.

By the way, as Suthep Junior has now been involved in this, how did his court appearance for forest encroachment go? You see, the whole family is as rotten to the core.

Interesting to me is that in some 8 pages of this thread, not a single person has pretended that what Suthep did was not either dodgy or dishonest, the best his "huggers" can come up with is the usual whine of "but Thaksin did this (or that)" ad infinitum!

Perhaps it is because it is not at all clear that he has done anything whatsoever!

The BBC have long since abandoned impartial reporting. The place is pocked with disaffected no-hopers with agendas and the quality of BBC news has shown it for quite some time.

I am told Al Jazeera is way better source these days, but I do not have access myself. Hell, RT is probably more reliable!

Chalerm is doing all right....did he accumulate this money from when he was a policeman?

Has assets worth 170 Million. Do you believe that?

With at least two cars in the 40/50 million range each, I don't.

What cars are they? Sorry, I am just curious what sort of car costs that much in Thailand

So are these Burmese farmers not also waiting for payment?

Hmmm, wasn't TS good buddies with the Junta there?

One suspects there might be a special account for "Grown in Thailand" rice imported directly from Myanmar.

--> Tinfoil hat this way

Oh dear, it seems I was right. I hope we see more of this.

The Thai rural population are largely uneducated it is true, but one does not need a PhD to recognise when one has been well and truly shafted by the Govt. of the day. An agreement has been entered into in good faith by the farmers and they have the not unreasonable expectation that it will be honoured. Seems the Govt. has other ideas and has had for quite some time.

Regardless of a Thai farmer's politics it is more than likely that it is not the current government who is pulling the strings here. Thailand, like most countries, has a Rothschild modeled, privately owned central bank which inflates and deflates the currency as it needs to. Virtually all banking is privately controlled by what are being referred to as the elite. It is very likely that Yingluck wants to pay but cannot because of the central banking process. Bankers can use this to discredit the current government and the beat goes on. This happens in the USA with the Federal Reserve and the average American has no idea that the Fed is a private, for profit, bank. There are not enough details on this to really nail it down but this is one of the arguments against private central banking.

Hang on a bit, I need to get my tinfoil hat.

The news just keeps getting better and better..

As many of us on here have noted, the failure to make due payments to the farmers precedes the dissolution of the former government by a good two months, but I note that Jonathan (Richard) Head perpetuates the lie that the caretaker government and its followers continue to use: ...

"[the government] is barred from borrowing to fund rice purchases", the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok says.

I wonder when we are likely to see any balanced reporting from him...?

55555555 ... never, obviously - he is a clown.

Farmers should also have expressed their anger by means of vote against those involved in the rice-pledging scheme.

And if all of them voted in favor of the opposition, I think that huge number of farmers' would be great plus votes to oppositions and big lost of votes to the government candidates.

Oppositions are really weak if with the number of farmers counted for them still don't make them win.

When one has vested one's "faith" in a perseon or deity, it takes quite a lot to change said "faith".

There are not enough farmers starving yet ... but it is the likely outcome. I can personally point to plenty that haven't been paid since they handed over their rice in October.

Blaming the opposition for not capitalizing on this, is to misunderstand the reality.

The government has to go down and go down hard, at the hands of an angry mob (think Young Frankenstein) with farming implements in hand. That is the level of discontent that will be needed, because as I wrote, it will take a lot for people to realise that their faith in Thaksin and his puppet YM and PTP was sorely misplaced and that they have been shafted. The sad part is that TS and Co. are in the process of destroying and bankrupting Thailand and the people who are Thailand.

I actually hope the international loan market hammers Thailand into submission and that the cost of being bailed out is serious gaol time for TS,YL and the whole leadership of PTP. It might serve as an example to future politicians that their obligations are to the people, rather than to themselves and their cronies.

The 2 things are completely separate, one the rice pledging ( I don't support, never have), two, the commercial transaction to sell rice to China. Any sane person would support that...it gets the farmers paid and reduces the mountain, albeit at a loss. That transaction has been derailed by Suthep . Tragic for everyone, especially the farmers. I'm not surprised the Chinese got cold feet...but there is no reason why the sale should not proceed. In fact, it's in everyone's best interests that it does so ( apart from a few obsessions who see something corrupt in a straightforward, transparent transaction). Mystifying

The transaction was not derailed by Suthep, it never appeared to exist as any more than a verbal vague commitment with no pricing or details agreed. Maybe that is a straightforward transparent transaction to some, but it certainly isn't to me (one of the many people paying for this scheme). How Suthep could derail it as a protester I have no idea; the PM or government officials or the Chinese could derail it - what power does Suthep have??? Zero other than the power to show corruption!

Like most of the other G2G deals, it never was real, it is fairytales and handbags.

This was the original claim - 1million tons starting with 500,000 tons in Dec to the Chinese - we should have seen deliveries already made and cash in:

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/china-agrees-buy-1-million-tonnes-rice-one-year/

echoed by the PM in Oct - note it was only said by Thai side, never said by Chinese side AFAIK

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/10/thai-pm-says-rice-deal-secured-with-china-20131013145918839617.html

Now the scheme is 'cancelled' again only according to the Thai side, never by the Chinese side AFAIK, and the sale was supposedly to an unnamed state enterprise in Harbin; note from other sources we know that the same govt spokesperson had no problem stating the name of another company interested to purchase 1m tons of rice in China (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation, a Chinese state-owned food conglomerate) but refused to give the details of the company who actually supposedly signed the contract no one has ever seen for 1.2m tons (different details than what was previously stated by the spokesperson and the PM in the past also). Deliveries in December vanished without a trace.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26028335

Now when we bear in mind the Thai govt (i.e. PT via the commerce ministry) claimed they would sell 8.5m tons for 2013 in Nov worth approx. 183 billion baht with 7m tons via G2G deals

http://www.thairiceexporters.or.th/Int%20news/News_2013/int_news_281113-1.html

Then in Dec admitted the real number was likely to be more like 6.7m tons in Dec (1 month later) worth around 125 billion only for 2013 including G2G of 4.7m but even then the rice exporters themselves dispute this number claiming the G2G deals are lower than what the govt is claiming

http://www.thairiceexporters.or.th/Int%20news/News_2013/int_news_271213-1.html

And what is interesting, is who actually buys Thai rice, coincidentally no China here in the past so it really would be a major win if Thailand had managed to sell rice to China this time around: "Thailands top five rice importers include Benin, Iraq, South Africa, the U.S. and Ivory Coast."

http://www.thairiceexporters.or.th/Int%20news/News_2013/int_news_291213-1.html

We know what Thailand has been selling rice for: Thailand has sold 5%-white rice at 450 U.S. dollars/ton or approx. 13,500b per ton (supposedly) and apparently even trying to sell 5% at $420 USD (around 13,000b per ton) they cannot find customers in the private sector, so there has to be some seriously odd things going on if a foreign state wants to pay more for no reason (they could just buy from the private sector at a lower price rather than the G2G price) - hence the likely corruption on both sides of the transaction hidden by claims of 'security secrecy':

http://www.thairiceexporters.or.th/Int%20news/News_2013/int_news_291213-1.html

http://www.thairiceexporters.or.th/Int%20news/News_2013/int_news_171213-2.html

Now there are claims of other deals, like to Indonesia and Iran, but these are for hundreds of thousands of tons, which are way, way less than the sorts of numbers we need to raise funds

http://www.thairiceexporters.or.th/Int%20news/News_2013/int_news_061213-1.html

The current stockpile, depending who you listen to is somewhere between 10m tons, and 16 and 17m tons (16m in this article).

http://www.thairiceexporters.or.th/Int%20news/News_2013/int_news_061213-1.html

Note that 1 million tons of rice would generate around 15 billion baht in a best case scenario (more likely they would be getting a price of around 13 billion at the most less delivery costs etc; as the scheme is short around 200 billion baht at last estimate and they need an instant 50 -77 - 130 billion baht to pay the farmers now (depending who you listen to), the numbers don't even come close to adding up - it is a drop in the bucket compared to the actual loss - we need to do another 3-9 deals of the same size immediately just to raise the cash needed. As we do not have the rice on hand (the government claims to have stockpiles but no one knows the quality or size of the stockpiles, and it's likely a bunch of rice is missing gone forever/never existed).

BTW Thailand imports some rice and exports Thai rice - Thai rice used to be world renowned for fragrance, quality and good pricing - at the right price why not sell abroad to other countries who grow rice - no issue. But the problem is trying to corner the market when you are not in an oligopoly situation; Mingkwan tried it in 2007 and it was a disaster...only PT would be so unwise to try the same thing again expecting a different outcome, but I guess its easy when they are only spending our money, not their own.

As I said, if Thaksin wants to support Thai rice farmers only (note there is no similar scheme for other crops) because they think the market price will rise, then the Shinawatras are rich enough to buy the rice for export themselves at the pledge price of 15,000, and they are welcome to the profits stemming from such a venture. No problem.

Man, excellent post. It is pleasing to see that someone can actually do the hard yards and post a coherent chronology.

pip pip.

I wondered why Yingluck was the chairwoman of the rice mortgage committee scheme, after all her knowledge about rice is probably limited to cooking.

Apparently it was considered appropriate and a chance for the fledgling PM to bask in the glory of this revolutionary ingenious scheme to help both Thai farmers and push up the world price of rice.

She must be cursing big brother now. I wonder if he is burying his head in the sand of Dubai?

"She must be cursing big brother now."

It is the worst kept secret in Thailand that she is not his sister. It amazes me that no journalist has "investigated" and published on this matyter.

In any case, one reaps as one sows as they say, and she deserves everything that is coming to her for being the sock puppet she is.

Well the only thing I can say right now is let's wait and see what stupid suthep does next. I know he cant wait to get more blood spilled in the streets.

He has closed down two protest stages because he is sick of his supporters getting their blood spilled on the streets by pro-government people.

He is sick. I agree on that. But not that he is sick of violence erupting. His boomerang effect of pissing on democracy, disrupt the nomal life in a metropole and shout rhetorics which to the point have agression/call for violence in it. Watch the BBC series about the uprising of the Nazi's. Our Mr. Suthep has similar speeching habits as A.H. during the end of -30's.

..............................Better than listening to your square head god!!

Godwin's law seems to have a built-in acceleration function where TV is involved.

-- removed quote ---

Can't you accept that the government have lied about the rice scheme, they have not sold any rice on a government 2 government basis as they have claimed! they paid too much for the rice, they could sell it but not at a price that recovers what they paid. It is quit possible that the old stocks are now beginning to rot, so it may be that they can't even sell that at a give away price!

So how can anyone lend them money thinking it will be paid back! that is where the 2 trillion infrastructure plan came in, to cover the loses from the rice scam!

To find a solution you have to admit the problem first, before a solution can be applied or all you do is continue the lie! In other words you don't throw good money at a bad money trying to save something not worth the paper it was printed on!

We are getting away from the original topic but I am honour bound to respond to valid points.

Has the govt lied about the G2G sales? I do not know, but then, neither do you for a fact. At this point in time, no one can prove this conclusively.

They paid too much for the rice - yes, they made some very poor financial and fiscal decisions, overestimating their influence over the world market. Some very clever people (including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Richard Branson) have also made some bad business decisions.

Lending money, being paid back - we are not talking about individual, person to person loans here. Most countries operate a trade deficit. Loans are not paid back in the lifetimes of the respective presidents / prime ministers. Think of it like a revolving loan without a maturity period. Also, loans, regardless of purpose, are used to pay whatever is needed to be paid. Do you think that your road tax only goes to pay for road maintenance?

A solution has to be found. There is no escaping that. Everything else is just beating about the bush.

Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Richard Branson aren't a political party! they answer to their shareholders who if not satisfied can vote them out of the company. Actually if governments issue bonds for national projects, there is a maturity date when those bonds must be bought back! Though they can issue further bonds at that time as well in that regard yes they appear to be revolving loans.

As for the purpose of those loans, I would suggest that the ministry responsible would have done proper due diligence to make sure everything added up and that the scheme was workable. It's called transparency, it lets investors know if the bonds are worth buying!

quite what road tax has to do with this is, well side tracking from the issue as is your comment about Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Richard Branson?

Anyway. You now have a situation where the cat is out of the bag, and you expect the banks to loan money for a bankrupt scheme where the only way the government (this one or the next) can pay back the money it to borrow more money. So when do they actually pay it off? in five ten or fifty years?

But hey the real purpose isn't important just as long as we can keep revolving the loan maybe we can hide it for 100 years before anyone notices!

And yes the G2G sales are a lie, it is one of the the issues that is before the courts in relation to the rice scam.

finally, A solution has to be found. There is no escaping that. Everything else is just beating about the bush.

Your in the wrong place if your looking for a solution! and all you seem to do is knock other peoples views without actually coming up with any solutions, and I'm guessing you might be Thai?

Sorry to Thai people if your not!

The point that I was trying to make when mentioning WB, BG and RB is that even the most astute, ingenious and clever people in the world can and do make mistakes. It does not surprise me at all that the govt, any govt for that matter, in Thailand, do, and will continue to, make mistakes in fiscal and monetary policies, long after you and I have departed from this world. Stakeholderscan kick out CEO's. By the same token, the population, eligible voters, are stakeholders of their country and can exercise the same right - via elections. It's a crying shame that one of the major stakeholders (Dems) decided to roll over and play dead instead.

As to when loans will be paid back, how long do you think it will take the US of A to clear their debts? Not in your lifetime or mine, that's for sure. Govt bonds are typically for 15 - 25 years after which more bonds are issued......

G2G sales - you may be right, or you may be wrong - Billy Joel

I'm in the wrong place looking for a solution? But I was led to believe that TVF has the cleverest people in the kingdom. Please don't dash my dreams so cruelly.

Finally, I'm not Thai. Not sure if Thais are happy or sad about this fact.

It does not matter if Jesus H. Christ made a bad decision. It is irrelevant to the appallingly obvious cash grab that has happenned with the rice pledge schema and the attempts by the puppet and other lapdogs to cover it up. It should be viewed in isolation for what it is - a very severe case of corruption and abuse of power, something the masses tend to get annoyed about when they discover that they have been robbed and are starving. YS and the PTP did not "make a bad decision", that is the most appalling display of an apologist I have seen for a while. What they did, at TS's request, was rape the poor bastards who trusted them (incl. people about whom I personally care).

"Let them eat cake"

At the moment I am tending towards a quiet, bloody purge as the best possible outcome in the short term. YS will rue the day forever that she let her dear old dad half brother convince her to be PM - serves her bloody well right!

I think the aussie phrase is "hangoing's too good for 'em"

After 11 years of Thaksin control the young and educated people from Thailand are demanding a change. They refuse to accept that the dictator in Dubai should continue to ruin the country.

The rice farmers always sell their souls to the devil no matter who he is. This time their love for themselves came back to bite them in the arse badly. Now do you see Thaksin sending money to pay them back. the BOT rightly recommended selling rice at a loss to pay the farmers. Do you see the greedy evil people in the government trying to do this. They don't even know where the rice is let alone how much they have. Bloody amazing.

Thaksin is not smart in playing commodities as he imagined he was. He was only successful in businesses where he had paid massive bribes to ensure their was no fair competition. The first rule of this type of speculation is to cut losses as soon as your original strategy is proved wrong before the losses mount. But they are caught like rabbits in the headlights still pretending that their position will be saved by some miracle. In the world of futures you can at least roll over your losing position at a cost but these people are playing on margin with perishable deliverables. Some of the position will end up worthless but that's Ok for them because margin is provided unwittingly by subsistence level farmers.

If there's a god in heaven, these people will surely burn in hell.

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

".. in hell"

Historically, quite a number of similar types have discovered that the wrath of the masses can only be sated with blood.

So one suspects that "here on earth" is rather more likely

Which part of my post is a lie?

The bold text...

Don't the farmers realise that the govt cannot pay them now, in part because of the protests going on in Bkk, in part because they do not have the authority as they are only a caretaker govt inter alia?

Fixed it for you

All silent on the pro-red expat front.....hmmm, interesting.

The caretaker govt is not allowed by law to pay the farmers from the govt coffers. What's so interesting about that? What is more interesting is that the PDRC is ACTIVELY preventing the farmers from being paid by threatening those who might be willing to ease the farmers' plight.

That is a patently false post.

Suggesting that the caretaker government is not allowed to pay its debt obligations for contracts entered into is bogus, and the idea that a protest movement could actively prevent the government from executing payment are the words of the deluded. Next you will tell me that the public service is not being paid because the caretaker government cannot write checks any more.

There is a hold up BORROWING money to meet the government obligations. The caretaker government is not able to put the public coffers in more debt (and rightly so).

The inability to indebt the nation is not the same as the government being unwilling to honour its obligations.

The entire financial mess is TS (YS and PTP)s doing and as it all comes crubling down around them, morons like you leap to their defence.

All silent on the pro-red expat front.....hmmm, interesting.

As a matter of passing curiosity, what is it that makes so many expats that post on TV such "raving red loonies"?

The blind red support, supported (pun intended) by outright fabrication is astounding, and I cannot quite get it to gel with the level of intellect and opinion of the expats and foreigners in my circle of acquaintences.

Clue me in please.

Suthep and all the protesters in Bangkok could go home today. The farmers and the Anti-Corruption Commission will accomplish the "de-thaksinization" process that the protesters started with the Amnesty Bill.

Google "A rotten harvest" on Bangkok Post for the latest analysis of the situation.

(If I understand it correctly, it's not allowed to post links to BP)

From the above, they have spend $22 billion on rice. That could be the worlds most expensive experiment, moving the Large Hadron Collider to second place.

With a budget of 7.5 billion euros (approx. $9bn or £6.19bn as of Jun 2010), the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is one of the most expensive scientific instruments[90] ever built.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider)

Words cannot express how hilarious I found your post!

Have an upvote from me!

Why don't the Police surround the encampments and block off all supplies to the protesters? Force them to do something. You can't as the government just let protesters control the city. I have never seen this in any other country. Unbelievable.

So, you were calling for that during the red shirt siege of Bangkok a few years ago as well?

Thailand does not really have a police force as we europeans/americans etc. understand it, so calling for them to perform the duties we might expect, is a declaration that you are clueless as to the practical (mal)functioning of Thailand, even though your point is and seems reasonable.

A lot of people are seriously pissed off at TS, his puppet daughter and the band of thugs in his employ. I do not think a civilised outcome is on the table at the moment.

I would wager that even more people are seriously pissed off with Suthep and his supporters (I do not lightly call people thugs) for disrupting their daily routines and business.

That would be the same lot that were seriously pissed off when Bangkok was taken over by the Reds with YS as the willing bagman then?

Useless factoids from my sphere of contacts.

• It seems no rice farmer in the area my GF family comes (in Ubon province) from has been paid for their rice. Months have passed. I predict many will fall into the waiting arms of the loan sharks in order to put rice on the table.
• My GFs mother crawled out of her hospital bed to go vote, at least one poor farmer understands the symbolic importance of that action.
• Sadly, many villagers loudly continue to blame the opposition for their woes, which indicates the shallow understanding they possess and how easily they are, and have been manipulated

Isn't there a minimum number of votes that need to be cast, seats contested etc. etc. necessary for an election to be valid under the current Thai legislation? Did (or indeed will) this poll meet those requirements?

Why don't the Police surround the encampments and block off all supplies to the protesters? Force them to do something. You can't as the government just let protesters control the city. I have never seen this in any other country. Unbelievable.

So, you were calling for that during the red shirt siege of Bangkok a few years ago as well?

Thailand does not really have a police force as we europeans/americans etc. understand it, so calling for them to perform the duties we might expect, is a declaration that you are clueless as to the practical (mal)functioning of Thailand, even though your point is and seems reasonable.

A lot of people are seriously pissed off at TS, his puppet daughter and the band of thugs in his employ. I do not think a civilised outcome is on the table at the moment.

Why are armed militias from Suthep allowed to shoot people in Bangkok at will every day?

Get this militia off the streets - NOW!

Why do the police not do their job? Wishful thinking, I am afraid.

Thailand IS a Failed State.

Most failed states are the result of the corrupt excesses of one (or very small number) of individuals. Thailand is no exception I am sad to observe.

Were I TS, I might study history a little to find out wat normally becomes of those who manifestly are responsible for the state of failure.