nigelforbes

My wife operates a bakery delivery service which is now in her fourth year with turnover in excess of 2 mill. Last October through February were her best months ever with huge orders arising from Bangkok, 150 to 200 units at a time (company gifts to staff, party gifts to friends etc). It's a seasonal business with Xmas/New Year being prime time, other hols such as Chinese New Year, Valentines coming second. For us it's all about pricing, quality and customer service and I have to say Mrs Neil works very hard. People are spending, especially Bangkokians, as long as pricing and quality are right.

Nope, we don't agree, that happens sometimes, oh well. I'm not sure what Japan being a US ally has to do with Thai/US trade so I'll skip that, for a second time! I prefer to take stats from the horses mouth, the Thai Central Bank and not from a commercial third party site. Again, being a trading partner is more than just being a recipient of exports. Let's agree to disagree.

Have you ever sat and watched the road safety video when you renew your license in Thailand, for two hours, everyone sleeps or plays with their phone whilst the video is being screened. If locals are happy to kill their fellow countrymen on the roads and wont be educated to do otherwise, I can't imagine any form of education being successful, unless it's accompanied by a very large stick.

No it wasn't! 15 years ago, in 2009, gold in Thailand sold for about THB 30k per ounce. One Baht of gold is equal to approx. 0.47 troy ounce, ergo, one Baht of gold was worth about THB 14k. I recall buying one baht of gold in 2008 and it cost about THB 13,300. https://goldprice.org/gold-price-charts/all-data-gold-price-history-in-thai-baht-per-ounce

https://tradingeconomics.com/gbpthb:cur

I hate to state the obvious but the Asian crash was in the 1990's so yes, the Baht did fall in value from a fixed rate to a floating rate, in 1997 hence the 25 (US) and 35 (GBP). But what Britman didn't say is that the Pound also has fallen in value against USD since after the second world war, consequently it has been falling against THB as well. To be clear, when I say falling, I refer to long term trend rather than any ups and downs that form part of intraday/week/month trading. Sooo, Pound trending down against USD over the longer term, THB trending up against USD over the longer term and Baht trending up against GBP, over the longer term.

Thailand's exports to NAFTA are indeed quite large but Thai exports to ASEAN are much larger and are growing because of the new RCEP trade group which includes Japan, Australia and China and others. https://www.bot.or.th/App/BTWS_STAT/statistics/BOTWEBSTAT.aspx?reportID=743&language=ENG At present, Thailand earns more revenue from exports to the US than the US earns from Thailand, almost 100% more. This imbalance has resulted in the US Fed labelling Thailand a currency manipulator, because of the resulting trade surplus. The reality is that the US desperately wants Thailand to import more goods from them and because they haven't, the label of currency manipulator has been hung around their collective necks - the following link describes this scenario in simple graphical terms. https://www.cfr.org/article/tracking-currency-manipulation The term. "trading partner" is also a misnomer if it is used solely to refer to exports. Japan is by far the largest trading partner that Thailand has. "Trading partner" also includes investments by other countries and FDI, both of which place Japan in the number one position. The advent of the RCEP trade group will magnify all of these things. The following post explains further. The US desire to maintain trading relations with Thailand is not so much about trade but about maintaining a presence in the region and to prevent Thailand from slipping further into China's grasp. As you correctly state, the US has plenty of other trading options in 3rd world countries, to its Southern border. You then wrote, "If together with other allies, the US imposed sanctions on Thailand, Russia/China, would not have the capacity to absorb the loss of trade". I hope by this point you can see this is simply untrue and that Japan is the key partner, not China or Russia.

Good post, I'll respond when I get back home

And it's too bad you haven't learned how to debate and attack the issue instead of the poster

I am aware, I was trying to tease an answer from the poster who doesn't seem to know. In fact, ME oil has also been priced and exported in rials and dirhams also, things are slowly changing in an attempt to get away from USD.

Not everyone's lines are in the same place, US/Iraq for example. You have no idea where my lines are so you're not in a position to comment.

I agree, large fines, land confiscation, high profile cases and jail time.

Which currency is that?

My neighbor is Chinese, a real wheeler dealer but a nice guy, if kept at arms length. He has two children in the private school nearby, figure 250k per child per semester. He also has a free spending Chinese wife. During the early days, we introduced him to friends, one of whom is Taiwanese and they started doing business together, our neighbor ended up owing a large amount of money to our other friend as a result of unpaid sales and commissions. Subsequently he found a contact in Immi. and began a lucrative career of selling visa's to Chinese who want to live here, business was brisk by all accounts. Right around the time Big Joke announced a crackdown on officers selling visa's to Chinese, our neighbor held a large party, the following day he disappeared and hasn't been seen since. His wife says he's gone back to Beijing to sell his house but we think he may be in a restricted environment more local!!!

Do I sense some animosity or disdain towards the leadership?

My guess is that it will take a serious loss of tourist revenue before somebody is forced to act, increased bad health and deaths probably wont be enough.

My wife and I discussed this yesterday, we both agreed that the identity of virtually ALL the burners is known to local villagers yet nobody is prepared to do anything. Dont expect serious rioting or local people taking matters into their hands soon.

Excellent, thanks for posting that. FWIW Chiang Mai Province, June through October, sees relative humidity of about 80%, the year round average is about 75%. https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Humidity-perc,mae-rim-chiang-mai-province-th,Thailand

Where's your community spirit, get with the program and go burn something. ????

Funny, the US needs Thailand's trade more than Thailand's needs the US. https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5490.html

Yes I agree, time of day is seriously important, which underpins the role the inversion layer plays since the colder dense air warms and rises in the course of the day. And also, Friday and Saturday nights are by far the worst, for obvious reasons.

Now I've looked at the graph again, if covid hadn't come along in 2020, 35 would have been perfectly reasonable to assume within 5 years, as I recall it did reach 37 ish at one point.. https://tradingeconomics.com/gbpthb:cur

Brits will be on a 3 day week before long too and they don't produce anything either except a lot of hot air.

I will be extremely surprised if the AQI numbers in places such as Maehongson today are similar to what they were twenty years ago. The reason for this in part is because during the past two decades, use of contract farming in Shan State and Laos has increased exponentially year on year, mostly as a result of a ban on Maize cultivation in Southern China. Some where out there is a Greenpeace report on this aspect which suggests that burning has increased as a result, by over 1,000% during that period. By contrast, agriculture in Thailand as a percentage of GDP has decreased over the same period as ex-agri. workers have moved into tourism services. This means there has almost certainly been a transfer of the source of burning, from upcountry Thailand, to neighboring countries.

Help me understand this better, you are upset apparently because a forecast that somebody (unnamed) made (who knows when) didn't come true today, really? And because of this, you think your gut feel is more accurate than any considered analytical view, really? The best I can do for you my friend is to give you an overview assessment of how Baht exchange rates are derived and leave you conclude whatever you want to conclude, which on the basis of what you have written so far, will almost certainly be wrong.