Ricardo

You guys are just over analyzing things, the Thai Baht is kept strong so the corrupt politicians have enough time to move their ill gotten gains out of the country slowly enough without raising suspicion and getting a reasonable exchange rate. Once it is all out the Baht will crash Viola politicians happy and exporters happy Simple!

Now that sounds quite credible

But how much longer to wait, until the crash, when they bring their money back and double it, in Baht terms ? That's the question !

Tourism is a different story. Remarkably, many headline costs (hotels) have not come down despite market conditions and a weakening of the Baht will only really benefit those already committed to Thailand - OK, it would increase their spending power and put more Baht into the economy. For potential new visitors any currency devaluation/depreciation is likely to be out-weighed by the fact that many Westerners cannot afford to come anyway - the strong Baht (weak Sterling etc) is just the nail in the coffin.

The many Westerners who cannot afford to come anyway, are already lost to Thailand's tourist-industry, at least for the next few years. But for those who can still afford to come, if they find a weaker Baht when they change their money, they will hopefully spend those extra Baht and this will boost the Thai economy, a bit.

Same for long-term residents, if they get a few more Baht for their pounds or dollars, they're likely to spend them, which boosts the Thai economy just a little.

Ditto the farmer who gets a few extra Baht, for his lower-priced sack of rice (if the middle-man doesn't grab it first !), may spend them, and boost the domestic economy just a bit. Remember when Khun Tarisa was claiming, about 8 months ago, that the saviour of the Thai economy in 2009 was going to be domestic-consumption ? This is it.

The closed export-factories are gone, history, won't come back in a hurry. The ones on a 4-day-week, cutting their overheads and workers' pay, might survive. But anything which helps Thailand to compete, for those exports remaining, has to be better than just sitting frozen in the headlights. When Vietnam devalued by 16% (?) in the autumn, Thailand should have been competing by following them, it's all about minimising the damage from the global slowdown.

OK the cost of imports, raw-materials or parts-for-assembly or luxury-goods, will go up in Baht-terms. But isn't the best time to do this, when global commodity-prices are falling, or have just fallen ? And so long as Thailand adds value to materials or parts, before it re-exports them, then there is still a net-benefit, especially if the alternative is to lose the exports completely by pricing yourself out of business.

Charge for the indoor loos, but make the outdoor open-air ones free, bejasus !

Buying student-uniforms makes as little sense as the million-cows project, the rubber-tree project, the computers-for-schools scandal, the mismanaged village-loans scheme (would have been good only if it had led to productive investments which could repay the loans) or a host of others. It will do nothing for raising educational-standards, but then again, how successful was Thaksin at achieving this key improvement ?

What has Democrat Party done to raise educational-standards?

Nothing much, in two-and-a-half months, as compared to nothing much, over five-and-a-half years.

I do hope that they'll do something, and start soon, as educating people better takes time to have any effect. But it helps people to help themselves, rather than being handed some benefit, by the government or a poo-yai. If you want people to work their way out of poverty, you have to give them the tools, which is why I called education "this key improvement".

The longer governments of all parties do nothing ... the more one suspects that they prefer to have a good supply of cheap uneducated workers instead !

At least we haven't, as far as I've heard, had any schools burned-down recently ?

Perhaps we might restrain ourselves, and cease this oafish behaviour, then again perhaps not.

Fishy meal.. mate, inflation has gone up sky high...

Sky high prices, must have been a flying-fish, then.

Who will give just pure cash 2,000 Baht because he can't think of anything better?

Koo, I must agree that cash giveaways are not a wonderful solution, to Thailand's economic problems. But would point out that the USA is also trying this approach, and the UK by cutting Value-Added-Tax, the aim is the get more cash into the economy, which will then be spent quickly and use the multiplier-effect, to generate several times the turnover.

What can Abhisit help Thai economy after the PAD's protests at airports? What crisis? I only hear that many jobs have lost immediately after airport protests. I didn't hear Thailand had any crisis when the man you don't like was PM. He won an election!

Thailand's economy grew when the global economy was growing strongly, now it is in trouble and so is Thailand, politicians may like to claim the credit for the good times, but are often less responsible than they would like to believe.

If the man had not kicked out by a coup in 2006, all these would have been done.

Thaksin resigned, and called an election, later annulled, which led after several painful months to the coup. Would you agree that his resignation was part of the trail that led to the coup ? So that he too bears some responsibility for not staying in power. Who knows what policies he might then have followed ? Or how effective they might have been ? ?

Sorry for those who cheer Democrat Party. What did this party do to develop Thailand? I only remember they borrowed money from IMF and now they have borrowed again.

Would you care to comment, on how Thaksin raised the money, to pay back the IMF loans ahead-of-time ?

They borrow for what? To donate uniforms to students. Students still have pants to wear now. They can wait another year. Thailand is having crisis. Buying uniform is not priority.

(my comments above in red)

Buying student-uniforms makes as little sense as the million-cows project, the rubber-tree project, the computers-for-schools scandal, the mismanaged village-loans scheme (would have been good only if it had led to productive investments which could repay the loans) or a host of others. It will do nothing for raising educational-standards, but then again, how successful was Thaksin at achieving this key improvement ?

Excellent news, just thinking of all the hundreds of transparent contracts to be awarded makes me go weak at the knees. Newin's father-in-law for one will be very happy. Problem is there's a worldwide recession on, hasn't anybody told them and if so where do they expect to get the money from?

Step forward, the credulous farang or Japanese/Chinese government, perhaps even the World Bank ? Who cares, so long as much of the money comes in brown-envelopes !

At least he was elected twice (or is three times) by the people (legally) and not put up by puppet Generals.

Fobuff

Erm, elected twice (not three times), as the third election was annulled, long before the coup. Do you feel that Samak, Somchai or Abhisit were also put up by puppet generals ? Surely you can only make that claim about the junta-government.

I wonder what Thaksin Shinawatra knows about national security and top secret files, eg the money path taken by Golden Triangle revenues.

He was privy to intelligence files for five years. He must have felt tempted to peek inside.

Lets hope his tribulations do not prejudice his ongoing duty of confidentiality.

Good point, which may be why he found friends initially in China, but I'm sure that the Chinese government also realise that the present PM has access to the same information, which may encourage them to take a more-balanced view.

It`s seems not only do they want to kill him, but eat him as well.

Source for your claim of wishing to eat Thaksin ? Even the claims of assasination seem to come only from Thaksin, who has played the same tune many times over several years, without ever producing any real evidence, so it looks more like a pitiful attempt by a fantasist or unstable personality to gain sympathy.

If Thaksin wants to come home, he can, but must face the courts & he can no-longer bribe or brow-beat them into letting him off, so easily. Fighting for justice is all very well, but he fears that he might just get, what he claims to want !

If he wants forgiveness, to return home to lead a quiet life, and a negotiated-behind-the-scenes settlement on his/Pokemon's money, then he has to stop creating bad publicity for his home country, and trying to destabilise it. If he still believes that it's possible, to return and become PM again, then he must be living, not in Nicaragua or Hong Kong or Togo or Dubai, but in 'cloud-cuckoo-land'.

One of the great tests, of any political leader, is whether they can recognise when history has moved-on, and they're no-longer relevant. A test which Thaksin seems to be failing.

I propose that they build more fly-overs, to bypass the bad logistics, at ground-level.

Would be nice if some of this money went to constructing the LCC-terminal, at Swampy, I've lost count of how many times this project has been announced, but not started !

I've been around a long time...

Wasn't that the latest exhibit, up at the Night-Safari, Ian ?

Where did you find a burger-bun big enough, after throwing it on the BBQ, or did you have to carve it ?

I hope the govenor ban that sh!t!

Erm ... ban a parade, which aims to educate people on an important health-issue, or ban the thugs who broke it up ?

the parade, its so sick

Not that I'm gay myself, or likely would have attended, but I can't see why you would object to part of the local community running an event like this, trying to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, which is a serious health-problem here in Thailand, for both straights and gays.

Ignoring a problem, or trying to sweep it under-the-carpet, is surely more harmful ? Ignorance kills ! People dying when it's avoidable ... that would be sick.

Did the UK actually start issuing these yet ? I thought it wasn't due to start, for another year or two, perhaps time is passing quicker than I thought !

Utilisation of 8 hours per day is rather low, should perhaps try to run a longer overnight route or two like HKG or India or Korea or Japan, to boost the numbers.

I will be here when the grim reaper comes looking.

I myself plan to be out, probably at the pub round the corner, when he attempts to call !

Lower The Baht

Short & to the point. Thailand has to become cheap-and-cheerful again, something which has been ebbing away for a long time, this won't be an overnight-cure, but is a necessary step in the right direction.

As far as tourism is concerned, this could be promoted a little bit if they liberalized tourism visas.

Won't solve everything, but it would certainly not do any harm, and would send a more-welcoming message.

Thailand gives 30 days on arrival to most citizens who are potential tourists.

Unless of course they happen to arrive by land, from Singapore/Malaysia, or Laos/Cambodia, as part of a S.E.Asia-tour.

It would be interesting to see the patterns, of people touring the region, which gateway they first arrive into & then where they go from there, what short side-trips they make.

I don't think there is any quick-fix, to the woes of Thailand's tourist-industry, so it makes sense to maximise the benefits of what there still is, not drive visitors away with restrictive visa-regs or high prices, real or apparent due to the strong baht.

Please take a look at this website http://www.siritaracondo.com/ ,for photos of condo etc ...................project 1......................

From the map, that looks to be near the south end of the runway, close to LIST & the driving-license office & the new Big-C, and a couple of miles from airport-plaza.

perhaps airasia might do this in the near future.

I would think that CNX-HKT and v.v. would be a good route for AirAsia.

Agreed, Thai can only fill a wide-bodied Airbus profitably in one direction, but AA ought to get good loads for a daily narrow-body B737 both ways, especially with their lower fares.

What other new routes might a LCC operate, from Chiang Mai, to get respectable loads, any ideas ? We've got KL & Singapore, domestically BKK, ignoring the minor routes flown by SGA in-association with Nok Air.

But Hong Kong Express failed, on the direct route to HKG, and other routes to Japan/Korea/Taiwan seem to be mostly charters. Samui would be a good one, but only if a low-cost-carrier were to slash the fares, which Bangkok Airways would never do, sadly.

Perhaps Air Asia might look at direct point-to-point routes from other hubs of their network, as RyanAir or Easyjet do in Europe, or do you think CNX is condemned to always be an outlying end-of-the-line destination, rather than a hub in its own right ?

I hope the govenor ban that sh!t!

Erm ... ban a parade, which aims to educate people on an important health-issue, or ban the thugs who broke it up ?

http://<URL Automatically Removed>/2...nder-democrats/

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/artic...uKJFWsuPociBEAw

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=asia

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=a6WOwlZtZOq4

Thanks for the links. But I was looking for Ricardo to justify his statement

Sorry, but there were a reported half-million factory jobs lost, in the 4th Qtr of last year, not just several thousand. Which rather changes the overall picture.

Sorry 12DrinkMore, I only saw this a couple of days ago, been busy, and I've been trying since then to track-down where I heard the number in-passing. It wasn't the Bangkok Post on 24/12/08 which spoke of 880,000 workers forecast to lose their jobs in the 1st Qtr of 2009. There are so many similar threads running, in this & the News forums, that it's hard to find.

I was merely reacting to the idea that only several thousand jobs were lost, in the 4th Qtr, when I believe that it's one or two orders-of-magnitude greater.

Shouldn't the thread-title read 4th Qtr, not 3rd ?

What would it take to rescue this airline and make it a first class airline along the lines of Singapore Air?

The quick-answer is, beg or bribe Singapore Airways or Cathay Pacific, to take them over. Not going to happen.

Deny the hundreds of MPs and ex-MPs that are allowed free flights, free hotel accommodation and free food at Thai International's expense and blatantly abuse this perk.

Identifies one symptom, they are carrying way too much 'fat', throughout the business.

I know I'm biased, as a retired-accountant amongst other things, but it is time to send in the 'ninja-accountants', chopping and cutting their way through this once-glorious pork-barrel.

Then hire some good airline-management, savvy on marketing & modern-standards for customer-service, and give them freedom to try to turn it round.

Several billion dollars for fleet-renewal would also be very helpful ! Not sure where that's going to come from !

It is amazing that, as a major international tourist-destination country, Thailand's national airline struggles to survive.

Agriculture will be affected so people, especially in the Northeast, should find ways to store rainwater for both farm and household use, he said.

-- The Nation 2009-02-23

Isn't it a little late-in-the-day, to start building extra dams or water-tanks ? Where will the rain come from, to fill them, now that the hot-and-dry season is here ?

And I also love the suggestion that tropical storms may involve winds of 40-50 km per hour, which can blow things over. Where do these guys get their extra-ordinary insights & training ? !

At least this settles the question, oft on the minds of TV members, of where Thaksin currently is.

Keeping in mind that before Hong Kong, he was... in... of all places...

He said Thaksin had just arrived at Hong Kong, having previously been 'in hiding' in Nicaragua.

"Thaksin has been in hiding in several countries because he could be assassinated. And he has been keeping a low profile in Nicaragua and has just visited Hong Kong," Chaowarin said. "I won't say where we will meet him, because assassins may try to kill him."

I think he is safe to believe, none of these alleged-assasins would ever think, to look for him in Nicaragua ! Wonder what the golf is like, and how much a 5-star hotel-room costs, somewhere like that ? Can he find Thai food there ?

The tongue-in-cheek posts on the local-forum on TV too ?