Thaksin Has Ill Intention Toward Country: CNS

[george]

Thaksin has ill intention toward country: CNS

BANGKOK: -- The Council for National Security Tuesday reviewed four key issues, including the negative publicity generated by ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, and determined to stay its course in restoring democracy and uprooting the Thaksin legacy.

"Judging from his interviews abroad, Thaksin has no good intentions for the country," CNS spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnoed said.

The CNS was disappointed that Thaksin appeared to put his interest above that of the nation's, Sansern said.

In the past two weeks, Thaksin gained media exposure from CNN, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Economist and Newsweek. He tried to discredit the theory of sufficiency economy while trumpeting his populist policies, known as Thaksinomics.

Sansern said the CNS resolved to promote sustainable development as a way to debunk Thaksin's lopsided policies designed to serve the vested interests.

The CNS acknowledged the cancellation of martial law in 42 provinces, including Bangkok, which came into effect on Friday, he said.

In light of the volatile situation, national police chief General Kowit Wattana had requested the armed forces to dispatch soldiers to assist in keeping peace as police would deem necessary, he said.

The Nation 2007-01-30

[isaanbrit]

No, your kidding me,

The best that they (the very people that ousted him) can come up with is "Thaksin has ill intentions towards the country" with no evidence stated at all. It sounds like kids poking out their toungues at each other.

:-)

[blaze]

No, your kidding me,

The best that they (the very people that ousted him) can come up with is "Thaksin has ill intentions towards the country" with no evidence stated at all. It sounds like kids poking out their toungues at each other.

:-)

This morning's Post sheds a bit of light on why the international community is so reluctant to understand the 'sufficiency economy' model. "Col Sansern said the CNS suspects Mr Thaksin, who has hired an influential US-based lobbyist and public relations firm to promote his international activities, was behind the publication of those articles."

That's quite an allegation when directed at the Economist, Newsweek and the Asian Wall Street Journal. Probably not the best way to win friends in the international media.

[Briggsy]

These CNS guys still have no idea how to box clever when it comes to using the media. THEY are the ones who need a public relations firm.

[blaze]

These CNS guys still have no idea how to box clever when it comes to using the media. THEY are the ones who need a public relations firm.

Some brains wouldn't hurt either. To suggest that the economic analysis that occurs within the pages of the Economist can be swayed by a PR firm is at best stupid and childish. At least he didn't accuse the journalists of accepting bribes directly from Taksin - yet.

Edited January 31, 2007 by blaze

[britmaveric]

CNS should just ignore him, and stop worrying. Everyone knows he will be back at some juncture and likely to win again.

[churchill]

I don't think the Thai's are so stupid to believe that the current problems in Thailand , with the Baht and Foreign investment and the general negative feeling now in Thailand , are Taksin's fault .

The more they blame him for their mistakes the more likely he will make a come back .

[wintermute]

Some brains wouldn't hurt either. To suggest that the economic analysis that occurs within the pages of the Economist can be swayed by a PR firm is at best stupid and childish. At least he didn't accuse the journalists of accepting bribes directly from Taksin - yet.

It's close to libelous and it just shows how uneducated and ignorant these military guys are. The Economist is probably one of the most respected AND unbiased sources in the world.

[old wanderer]

CNS should just ignore him, and stop worrying. Everyone knows he will be back at some juncture and likely to win again.

My wife is very anti-Thaskin, BUT here mother who is just a simple rice farmer in Issan say when we asked her....You you vote for Thaskin again? "Sure" she says, "He gave me 200 baht last time to vote for him".

The city people can see the problems, the rural people are totally ignorant of what is going on.

[John K]

CNS should just ignore him, and stop worrying. Everyone knows he will be back at some juncture and likely to win again.

My wife is very anti-Thaskin, BUT here mother who is just a simple rice farmer in Issan say when we asked her....You you vote for Thaskin again? "Sure" she says, "He gave me 200 baht last time to vote for him".

The city people can see the problems, the rural people are totally ignorant of what is going on.

Footnote for all the people who insist Thaksin won the election democratically and the coup was wrong. As for the democratic election, it never happened. All the military did was push the reset button.

[Scott]

These CNS guys still have no idea how to box clever when it comes to using the media. THEY are the ones who need a public relations firm.

Some brains wouldn't hurt either. To suggest that the economic analysis that occurs within the pages of the Economist can be swayed by a PR firm is at best stupid and childish. At least he didn't accuse the journalists of accepting bribes directly from Taksin - yet.

In a way they did accuse them of accepting a bribe. There was some comment about CNN favoring Thaksin because he advertised the elite card on CNN and they made a lot of money!

[hammered]

Thaksin has ill intention toward country: CNS

BANGKOK: -- The Council for National Security Tuesday reviewed four key issues, including the negative publicity generated by ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, and determined to stay its course in restoring democracy and uprooting the Thaksin legacy.

"Judging from his interviews abroad, Thaksin has no good intentions for the country," CNS spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnoed said.

The CNS was disappointed that Thaksin appeared to put his interest above that of the nation's, Sansern said.

In the past two weeks, Thaksin gained media exposure from CNN, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Economist and Newsweek. He tried to discredit the theory of sufficiency economy while trumpeting his populist policies, known as Thaksinomics.

Sansern said the CNS resolved to promote sustainable development as a way to debunk Thaksin's lopsided policies designed to serve the vested interests.

The CNS acknowledged the cancellation of martial law in 42 provinces, including Bangkok, which came into effect on Friday, he said.

In light of the volatile situation, national police chief General Kowit Wattana had requested the armed forces to dispatch soldiers to assist in keeping peace as police would deem necessary, he said.

The Nation 2007-01-30

Well the headline "Thaksin has ill intentions towards the country" is hardly surprising. After all he is a politician!

Having read lots of what Mr. Thaksin and the Junta say it seems to me that they are aiming at different audiences, and we need to understand this before tring to analyse or ridicule what either side are saying. Mr. Thaksin is aiming at the international community to try and rally support for him and create pressure on the Junta. He is concentrating on what supportative organs such as the Economist saw as a very strong free trade and pro-globablisation capitalist economic agenda. What Mr. T is saying rigtht now is not the kind of stuff that wil appeal to his base in Thailand. The Junta are aiming at the ordinary Thai person and using a tabloid style approach to appeal to the natural nationalism and patriotism that a huge ammount of ordinary Thai people have. What the Junta are saying will not appeal to the international community or the Thai intellectuals. It is all part of politics.

[slimdog]

In a way they did accuse them of accepting a bribe. There was some comment about CNN favoring Thaksin because he advertised the elite card on CNN and they made a lot of money!

The elite card is also advertised on Thai Visa....

[John K]

I was just reading on how some wasps lay eggs inside the bodies of other insects. When they eggs hatch the larvae consume the host from the inside leaving only an empty shell.

Sound familiar?

I would think that this post could go in several threads.

[Prakanong]

I don't think the Thai's are so stupid to believe that the current problems in Thailand , with the Baht and Foreign investment and the general negative feeling now in Thailand , are Taksin's fault .

The more they blame him for their mistakes the more likely he will make a come back .

I really wish you were correct but alas Thailand is becoming the laughing stock of Asia - our Thai staff are embarressed at what is going on now

[Prakanong]

CNS should just ignore him, and stop worrying. Everyone knows he will be back at some juncture and likely to win again.

My wife is very anti-Thaskin, BUT here mother who is just a simple rice farmer in Issan say when we asked her....You you vote for Thaskin again? "Sure" she says, "He gave me 200 baht last time to vote for him".

The city people can see the problems, the rural people are totally ignorant of what is going on.

Footnote for all the people who insist Thaksin won the election democratically and the coup was wrong. As for the democratic election, it never happened. All the military did was push the reset button.

So you advocate military dictatorship instead of democracy?

No matter waht you think of Thaksin the people wanted him - just as those ignorant fools voted for Bush - no difference

The reset button??????????????

So when does the reset button stop??

<snip>

Edited February 1, 2007 by Jai Dee
Flame comment deleted

[Plus]

To suggest that the economic analysis that occurs within the pages of the Economist can be swayed by a PR firm is at best stupid and childish.

That's what people hire PR companies for - to get good publicity, including in the press.

Thais didn't pay CNN for Elite adverts, it was a minor scandal at the time.

[Aujuba]

I agree with Plus. Thaksin will do whatever it takes make his enemy look worse than himself. He's not looking for a retirement condo in South Palm Beach.

As for all those wonderful News sources and their fight for human rights etc etc . There's got to be a lot out there against them. I quickly found this through a search. It's not specifically about Thaksin but it seems Temasak got some bad press from some International Newspapers and won a case against them.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/2...zine-libel.html

"Foreign news organizations which have succumbed to Singapore's libel laws include The Asian Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune and Bloomberg LP, which paid damages in a case involving the Lee family and Temasek in 2002. "

[John K]

I can sympathize with how you Thai staff feels. You comment is half correct, you need to step back and look at a bigger picture. I did post on this in another thread but it works here as well.

Very simply Thaksin is playing Thai nature against the Thais, unlike most Thais Thaksin thinks things through to the end. Because of that he is able to construct working models that don’t fail. However Thaksin being Thaksin the models are self serving and rely on Thailand’s infrastructure to function.

During the time Thaksin was in office he built several models and Thailand has become somewhat dependant on them. As the Thais now are trying to remove some of them and because they don’t think things through to conclusion, the outcomes are very negative to the Thais that initiated the changes. This has the effect of causing the that government to lose face and make Thaksin look like the man that can.

Then add to all that all the other little straws like the bombings that are part of the undercurrents, sheep mentality of many people (not only Thais) listening to anti government people putting their spin on things and no doubt the collective power of suggestion will make things seem it is the new governments fault that the problems exist. The only truth to that is they don’t think things out to conclusion. Their intent is good but unless they can suck it up and do what is needed, they will continue fail as they deal with Thaksin’s models.

[Totster]

Please see the Forum Rules regarding discussing The Thai Royal Family.

Thankyou

totster

[baboon]

Anyone who has read George Orwells "Animal Farm" will not be remotely suprised by what is going on. Thaksin is just being used as a bogeyman to scare the public into keeping their traps shut and their heads down.

"Do what we tell you or the nasty man will come back and eat your children."

Another thought; In human history, when has anyone seized power with the intention of relinquishing it volonterilly? Thats right, NEVER.

Please do read Animal Farm if you get the chance. You will be shocked.

[Livinginexile]

The only thing Thaksin did wrong was use the law to avoid paying tax on his asset sales...THATS IT.

All the investigations vocused on him so far has not produced one shred of evidence that indicates corruption by him when he held power.

If you think corruption by politicians has ended just because Thaksin is gone then you had better wake up.

Just wait and see what happens once the junta has a firm grip on power...Thaksin will be likened to "the good ol' days. Just wait and see.

[Grover]

Thaksin has ill intention toward country: CNS

He11, I knew that the first time I saw his crooked smile & he spoke his first sentence.

[younghusband]

The only thing Thaksin did wrong was use the law to avoid paying tax on his asset sales...THATS IT.

All the investigations vocused on him so far has not produced one shred of evidence that indicates corruption by him when he held power.

If you think corruption by politicians has ended just because Thaksin is gone then you had better wake up.

Just wait and see what happens once the junta has a firm grip on power...Thaksin will be likened to "the good ol' days. Just wait and see.

Actually you have it upside down.I am no admirer of the junta but Thaksin was guilty of many abuses of power, some of them extremely serious.The most serious abuses (Tak Bai, drug war etc) were not however what alarmed the Bangkok elite, not least because it supported them.It was his populism that terrified them.What I think cannot be laid at his door is tax evasion(I think you mean evasion not avoidance) since under Thai law there is no capital gains tax on the sale of listed stock.It was however politically inept but not illegal, and perhaps like the Queen of England he should have had the sense to volunteer to pay tax even though there was no legal obligation.Now that theme gets one thinking......no. on reflection perhaps not.

Incidentally there is nothing wrong with tax avoidance.It means legally putting your affairs in such order as to minimise the incidence of tax.

[Siripon]

The only thing Thaksin did wrong was use the law to avoid paying tax on his asset sales...THATS IT.

All the investigations vocused on him so far has not produced one shred of evidence that indicates corruption by him when he held power.

If you think corruption by politicians has ended just because Thaksin is gone then you had better wake up.

Just wait and see what happens once the junta has a firm grip on power...Thaksin will be likened to "the good ol' days. Just wait and see.

Actually you have it upside down.I am no admirer of the junta but Thaksin was guilty of many abuses of power, some of them extremely serious.The most serious abuses (Tak Bai, drug war etc) were not however what alarmed the Bangkok elite, not least because it supported them.It was his populism that terrified them.What I think cannot be laid at his door is tax evasion(I think you mean evasion not avoidance) since under Thai law there is no capital gains tax on the sale of listed stock.It was however politically inept but not illegal, and perhaps like the Queen of England he should have had the sense to volunteer to pay tax even though there was no legal obligation.Now that theme gets one thinking......no. on reflection perhaps not.

Incidentally there is nothing wrong with tax avoidance.It means legally putting your affairs in such order as to minimise the incidence of tax.

But the listed stock could not be in his name being PM, so the shares of Ample Rich and Win Mark were really owned by who? The trail is currently being pursued .

Like his shares in the past, huge amounts owned by his gardener, maid and servant. Now that is surely evasion of declaration of assets rather than avoidance !

[sriracha john]

I thought it was just an "honest mistake."....

[Krungthepian]

"It's close to libelous and it just shows how uneducated and ignorant these military guys are. The Economist is probably one of the most respected AND unbiased sources in the world. "

--Wintermute.

I have to comment on this remark about the Economist. I met their new correspondent a couple of months ago and he's only been here a short time, arriving just prior to the coup. Nice fella but I've gotta say his knowledge of this country was very very basic. I think he was - and still may be - struggling to get a grasp of how things work in rural areas, as do many farang if they don't get out into the bannock. He had an ok education re international economics but my feeling was he was struggling to get a grip of how it fitted here. He had no idea of the scale of vote-buying and so many other important factors.

However, my very strong suspicion is these articles are a direct result of Thaksin's lobbyists - meeting and briefing editorial writers of these international magazines back in the US and UK. You can only put those sorts of arguments to people who don't really know the scene here, I think.

The Nation has a column by Thanong Khantong today - Overdrive - rebutting the magazines' garbage and I'd back his assessment of things here 100 to one against The Economist particularly and these magazines in general.

A Canadian journalist I know said last night the Economist has hardly ever broken a major story in its life - the magazine is known as a re-write job made to look like a pretty package. It can have some good info sometimes, but other stuff is just right-wing crap wide of the mark.

But I also agree with the comment made above that the CNS and Thaksin are playing for different audiences. Thaksin is playing for the international audience, which has no idea what's going on here.

What maybe more interesting is, I reckon momentum has stepped up against Thaksin - he's suddenly facing quite aggressive action against him and his cronies across a range of fronts. Another correspondent, an Aussie, said every day he is not here his web of power and influence diminishes, and it's becoming just a bit more noticeable now. The CNS and interim governments, whatever their faults, are sticking to their guns, and gradually clawing back all the beachheads that were causing problems - putting Gen Saprang or others in on the AOT board, the TOT board, etc - really getting serious about ferreting out corruption, than pretending to (because they're part of the problem). They've also got a far better idea how clever Thaks was in that his ploys were well-hidden in that his crimes were often policy corruption (eg the govt moves to change the way they taxed the telecom firms in 2001, I think - that saved AIS tens of billions of baht).

I think people underestimate the interim government cos they're weak on the PR and marketing side. But I strongly believe they are running this country far better than the previous regime; they react far quicker to problems that the last regime (ie, note quick reaction to flood crisis late last year) and they're not covering up important social issues that need to be revealed (eg, pollution crisis relating to Map Ta Phut, the impact of Singapore's takeover of Shin on military intelligence, etc).

The weak area, as we all know, is a series of apparent economic stuff-ups relating to capital controls and re-writing the foreign business laws. But I think other things lie underneath this - such as Thaks and his old cohorts having people ramp up the baht, which could have created a real nightmare for exporters and the economy. The re-write of the foreign biz law was a toughening or clarifying of policy that foreign investors were never going to like. But, if you step back, it was a fair thing for the Thais to do - cut the elastic regulations that allowed both sides to abuse the law. I think it related to the fear of Thaksin and his minions returning to power (winning the next election), and the Shin takeover, which is looking more and more like a nightmare for Singapore (makes you really wonder if the city-state did pay that Malaysian ref for the appalling decision he made favouring the Temasek team on Wed night). Thing is, on both those economic matters, the interim government is starting to loosen up and make things better. I've been saddened by Pridiyathorn's performance, cos I thought he would have been a backbone for this government, but you get the impression he lacked finesse and deeper knowledge how some of their financial moves would go down. On the other hand, I still believe there are deeper concerns relating to their opponents dirty tricks even that they haven't fully spelt out.

At present, I reckon the longer the Surayud government holds power, the better it is for Thailand - given the sort of crappy political trash that is lining up to govern again. They just need a breathing space to repair the clapped out vehicle that is Thailand - to sideline the political leeches such as the Newins and Chavalits and Somsaks that eat up and divert the national budget and prevent the car (the country) from upgrading, or learning how to be efficient, competitive and honest.

Generals Sonthi and Surayud faced very tough tasks, and I don't think you can seriously fault them for their efforts so far. I just reckon this country is so much safer with decent well-intentioned leaders than a man who I class as virtual organised crime. When you look at the amount of money they frittered away on all sorts of ill-considered projects, it's staggering. The diesel subsidy - US$2 billion. The rice subsidy for farmers was virtually the same amount. It's like driving a crappy old car at twice the speed it should; and tossing cash out at anyone you pass. Those are huge amounts of money for a nation this size.

It may be a lean year, but this country is getting back into shape, and frankly, I love it - because there is so much that needs to be faced and repaired and dealt with. It's facing it's problems and trying to deal with them. Only when you have a government that is honest and decent are you going to get proper outcomes on basic injustices such as lack of citizenship for hilltribe people who have lived here for their entire lives; fair treatment for labourers from neighbouring countries.. all sorts of others normally crushed by the appalling standards that have been endemic here.

If the wealthy foreigners and high-class Thais are moaning (as you see regularly on the business pages), tough luck. Think about the poor buggers at the end of the food chain. They are the ones who most need this country to grasp standards closer to the modern world, particularly issues relating to justice. The current government is poised to reform the police, and I hope to God they can do that effectively, because it is one of the most vital tasks they face. Kowit Watana, the national police chief, is gone for all money; he seems such a useless lump of muck from the last regime. On the other hand, the reforms Surayud and co are putting in are so far-reaching, they have had to put up with this Thaksin appointee, to keep the police on side and make it look like the Army is not totally sitting on their face. If Thailand had had an effective police force, Thaksin would never have got half the distance he did in running this country into the ground. No sooner have they given the Bangkok bombs inquiry to the revamped DSI and you have news of genuine suspects (not scapegoats).

Can you ever imagine an environmental scandal such as Map Ta Phut being revealed during Thaksin's time? Like his Chinese relatives to our north, he never paid an inkling to the well-being of the land. Thailand was becoming a garbage tip -where the poor are left to foot hospital bills for living near outrageous pollution. I can't help despising the heads of PTT and other big groups that keep looking to the next horizon and bigger and better turnovers and balance sheets, rather than walking out the backdoor and asking 'what sort of muck is going out of our pipe into the creek there?'

Forgive the long sermon.

It will take them a while longer to turn the car right around and for their actions to bear fruit, but I'm very much with them for now.

Anyway, pardon my

[sriracha john]

"It's close to libelous and it just shows how uneducated and ignorant these military guys are. The Economist is probably one of the most respected AND unbiased sources in the world. "

--Wintermute.

The Nation has a column by Thanong Khantong today - Overdrive - rebutting the magazines' garbage and I'd back his assessment of things here 100 to one against The Economist particularly and these magazines in general.

You mean this one? :

Foreign media need a history lesson before praising Thaksin

What is going on with the Asian Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and The Economist?

They are now lauding "Thaksinomics" and yearning for the return of the good old days of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It seems they have come to love Thaksin's style of capitalism.

At the same time, these three publications have slammed the Sufficiency Theory, as if it would turn the clock backward and lead Thailand down the drain. They tried to link the Sufficiency Theory with all the things that have gone wrong with the Surayud government, from the military coup, the capital controls to moves to revise the Foreign Business Act.

The Surayud government might not have come into being through a legitimate democratic channel, because it was appointed by the military leaders who staged the coup on September 19 last year. However, the coup took place against a backdrop that all legal channels and the system of checks and balances had failed to rein in the corrupted power of the Thaksin regime. Nobody likes the coup. But it happened because the political crisis had reached a dead-end. The coup has nothing to do with the Sufficiency Theory.

The Surayud government might have shot itself at the foot by introducing capital controls to curb the surging baht. It could have cut interest rates or slapped a tax on money market bonds to relieve upward pressure on the baht. But the capital controls also have nothing to do with the Sufficiency Theory.

The Surayud government might have failed miserably to communicate with international investors about the revised Foreign Business Law, which was, overall, a good move. The changes to the Foreign Business Law do not add new industries or services for protection. So, how could it be deemed protectionist? It only defines existing regulations more clearly and tries to create a level playing field. No law is perfect. This can be debated further in the National Legislative Assembly. There is no need to panic. If it was that bad, DTAC would not have announced yesterday that it will invest Bt30 billion over the next three years to expand and upgrade its mobile phone network. Again, the revised Foreign Business Law has nothing to do with the Sufficiency Theory.

You may recall, when Thaksin came to power in 2001, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Economist and most other international publications questioned his policies. In an attempt to win votes, Thaksin introduced a range of populist and "easy money" policies that went against the free-market principles and capitalism that The Economist and Asian Wall Street Journal editorials claimed to champion.

The populist policies under Thaksinomics that shocked the world in its early years have now become a darling of these foreign publications. How can things turn upside down so quickly?

Thaksinomics has left Thailand with more than Bt150 billion in debt arising from subsidies for farmers' programmes, labour and social policy programmes, education programmes, agricultural bank loans that had gone wrong, rice and rubber subsidies, village funds, and the universal healthcare scheme. And that doesn't include Bt80 billion for the diesel subsidy. The Surayud government has had to set aside Bt80.5 billion in the current fiscal year to pay for these huge debts.

Let me point out the flaws of Thaksinomics that has gone against capitalism and the free-market principles that The Economist and Asian Wall Street Journal so cherish.

First, Thaksinomics prescribed a debt moratorium for farmers. Was this populist policy in line with capitalism and the free-market principle? Thaksin was promoting a culture of debt write-offs. At the heart of capitalism lies the honouring of loan contracts. If you borrow the money, you have to repay it later, plus interest.

Second, Thaksinomics threw easy money around into several populist projects - the village funds and other subsidies that have become a source of corruption and saddled the country with a huge debt load. The 30-baht healthcare scheme was one of the few good projects by Thaksin, but it was poorly implemented, and going forward, the fiscal budget might not be able to finance it.

The grass-roots people, of course, loved the handouts and they came to identify these with "Thaksin's money", things they did not have to repay. Instead of using the money for investments, the handouts were spent on mobile phones, motorcycles and pick-up trucks that ended up creating more debt for poor rural people. Thaksin could artfully spend public money to buy votes. Did the Asian Wall Street Journal cover a series of stories on what went wrong with the village funds in the early Thaksin years?

Third, Thaksin and his team hated Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Asian Wall Street Journal. Do the editorial writers of these publications recall the foreign press' spats with the Thaksin regime? A few years ago they were covering stories that suggested the Thaksin regime was intimidating the press. How come they now kiss mouths with him so dearly?

Fourth, the international press jumped against Thaksin when he announced in 2001 at a UN seminar that Thailand would turn "inward-looking" against unfettered capitalism. Thaksin wanted to pursue a dual-track policy to emphasise domestic demand. With Thailand reeling since the 1997 financial crisis, he wanted Thailand to walk away from the East Asian economic model that promoted exports as the engine of growth. He was then suspicious of foreign money and the uncertainty of foreign markets. He wanted to rebuild Thailand through domestic demand.

Fifth, Thaksin and his team had bad-mouthed the US over its global role. They hated the IMF and the World Bank. They were suspicious of Western dominance. That's why Thaksin moved to shift Thailand's foreign policy toward China and, unsuccessfully, at one point, toward Russia. They envisioned a rise of Asia, which would counter the West's long imperialist grip over the world. They thought that Thailand could contribute to this Asia resurgence by playing a catalyst role in support of China and Japan, who together could form an axis to go against the Western powers.

I leave it to readers to think for themselves whether Thaksin's foreign policy was good or bad for Thailand, but I wonder how come The Economist and Asian Wall Street Journal love his policies unreservedly when these policies appear to clash with their fundamental beliefs?

Along the way, Thaksin could get away with all of his mistakes, ironically, because of the exceptional performance by exporters. Exports were the catalyst of Thai economic growth during the Thaksin era - not domestic demand or his populist policies. With the current account surplus, Thailand was be to rebuild its international reserves and Thaksin could pursue an "easy money" policy without having to worry about public debt. The low interest rate environment, the sound global economy and high exports were the true story behind the economic growth during his time in power.

But Thaksin was exceptionally good at marketing. He could revive hope for the grassroots people and rebuild domestic confidence to make it sound as if he alone saved the Thai economy.

Then he fine-tuned his policies by gradually walking away from past mistakes by embracing privatisation, mega-project investment, free-trade agreements and stock market promotion - areas that the foreign investors liked to embrace - without any feasibility studies. At the same time, his cronies went on to amass wealth without any checks until his regime was toppled last year. Now Thaksin and the foreign publications are blaming the Sufficiency Theory as the root of all things going wrong in Thailand at the moment. Sufficiency Theory, as espoused by His Majesty the King, calls for a middle-path practice, like Buddhism, which can be applied to all the sphere of human activities. It does not go against globalisation or the principle of a free market, but it urges moderation and "self-immunity" as pointed out by MR Pridiyathorn Devakula, the deputy prime minister and finance minister.

If you practice moderation, you should not run into debt beyond your ability to repay. With moderation, businesses or economies should not over-leverage their borrowings, otherwise they would run into a 1997-style crisis again. If you run your business with moderation, you reduce the chance of bankruptcy. With self-immunity, you have to make sure that when the worst comes, you have to survive. Again, businesses and economies must make sure that they can survive, say, a Sars epidemic, a global oil shock or terror attacks. Thailand is now buying oil imports equivalent to 10 per cent of its GDP. This goes against sufficiency. For when the price of oil rises, the overall economy is hurt. So Thailand has to find alternative resources of energy to reduce this high oil bill. If it can cut oil imports to 3-4 per cent of GDP, then it is practising sufficiency theory. As you can see, we don't practise sufficiency theory by cutting back oil imports 100 per cent. We only need to bring the risk down to a level we can manage. By practising moderation and self-immunity, you are pursuing sufficiency - not self-sufficiency. So stop distorting the facts.

Thanong Khanthong

The Nation

------------------------------------------------

Thank you for your well-written post too, Krungthepian.

Edited February 2, 2007 by sriracha john

[Mid]

looks like the pr folks are earning their freight ..............................

[younghusband]

"It's close to libelous and it just shows how uneducated and ignorant these military guys are. The Economist is probably one of the most respected AND unbiased sources in the world. "

--Wintermute.

I have to comment on this remark about the Economist. I met their new correspondent a couple of months ago and he's only been here a short time, arriving just prior to the coup. Nice fella but I've gotta say his knowledge of this country was very very basic. I think he was - and still may be - struggling to get a grasp of how things work in rural areas, as do many farang if they don't get out into the bannock. He had an ok education re international economics but my feeling was he was struggling to get a grip of how it fitted here. He had no idea of the scale of vote-buying and so many other important factors.

However, my very strong suspicion is these articles are a direct result of Thaksin's lobbyists - meeting and briefing editorial writers of these international magazines back in the US and UK. You can only put those sorts of arguments to people who don't really know the scene here, I think.

The Nation has a column by Thanong Khantong today - Overdrive - rebutting the magazines' garbage and I'd back his assessment of things here 100 to one against The Economist particularly and these magazines in general.

A Canadian journalist I know said last night the Economist has hardly ever broken a major story in its life - the magazine is known as a re-write job made to look like a pretty package. It can have some good info sometimes, but other stuff is just right-wing crap wide of the mark.

But I also agree with the comment made above that the CNS and Thaksin are playing for different audiences. Thaksin is playing for the international audience, which has no idea what's going on here.

Readers of the full thread above will have formed their own opinion of the writer's economic literacy and political insight.I find it beyond comment but would merely point out that it is not the role of The Economist to "break stories" like some downmarket tabloid but to analyse economic.business and political developments.Many will remember The Economist published a lengthy supplement some years on Thailand rather critical of Thaksin and his policies, which hardly amounts to "right wing crap" to use the poster's learned expression.The rage against the international journals of record, including the foolish piece by Thanong Khantong in The Nation today, is simply an expression of frustration that many commentators see the current situation in Thailand for what it is, a shameful and incompetent episode.