Thais overwhelmed by rising prices of food, necessities, poll shows

[ChipButty]

I dont really look at prices but my misses always seems to come home with discounted goods, like the other day she bought some cheese buy one get one as well as discounted,

Last night she buy me a new jacket for the rain 50% off and she used some of her points so less than 700 Baht 

I see lots of restaurants offering good deals just need to look around 

[hotchilli]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

According to the poll, the biggest complaint people have is that food and necessities are getting expensive, followed by low income, inefficient government administration, inefficient teachers and schools, and political conflicts.

Just about everything that affects peoples daily lives.... 

[EricTh]

14 hours ago, connda said:

Food prices are rising globally.  

 

If some country can just print money, other countries have to produce goods to serve them, it will come to a halt someday.

 

Let's compare .... If I just print paper money everyday, and someone work for me , this situation won't last.

 

It's the world economics that isn't working.

Edited October 13, 2020 by EricTh

[RPCVguy]

14 hours ago, connda said:

Food prices are rising globally.  We all see if locally.  However, the governments of the world including Thailand will then massage the price increases in statistical hocus-pocus and with a straight face tell the public that inflation is under 2% and thing have never been better. 
Why?
Because if actual inflation in the good and services that normal folks buy ever gets published, then the debt bubble will pop and the "It's never been better" facade comes crumbling down.  Think things are bad at the checkout?
We haven't seen anything yet.  The next depression is going to make the Great Depression look like a walk in the park.  In the meantime, governments world-wide tank their economies and are creating a new class of the "pandemic poor" at the same time as online billionaire magnates are capitalizing on the closure of brick and mortar retail stores and billions are flowing into their own coffers.  Money that could keep businesses afloat.  Good-bye middle-class.  Maybe you'll get a loan if the trillions of dollar being pumped into the banks actually get distributed to where it's needed instead of into the pockets of the bankers themselves and their corporate friends who use that money for stock buybacks instead of capital improvements and capital reserves. And what is the massive injection of capital going to do?  Make-prices-rise-even-more! 
But talking about statistic?  We're all told that unemployment is under control and is only a few percentage points.  Yeah.  Don't statistically count the total unemployed which in the US is about 1/3 of the work force.  Instead call them a pejorative like "uninterested workers".  Based on the labour participation rate almost close to 40% of the available work force in the US - wasn't working.  I have no doubt that the statistical hocus-pocus is used in Thailand to boot.  "Things have never been better and the economy is improving!  Stocks are rising! Happy days!"  Tell that to the people in debt up to their eyeballs who are now standing in food lines.
Government's message to the plebs:
"Most people are gainfully employee.  Inflation is under control.  You're imagining higher prices, it's all in your heads!  Economize - Eat rice stubble, it's good for you. Look at the ox and buffalo.  They love it."

YES, You are right, for a far as you went. Financial spikes upwards or down are like the weather, always shifting. The fiat currencies of the world have expanded well beyond what the supply of minerals,  and ability of soil or oceans to supply. Worse, the population has continued growing. When more cash chases similar or diminishing materials, the prices go up (inflation.)

That is prelude, it is fiscal hocus-pocus. The world's biosphere, the resiliency of life is at stake. Some of the impacts are hitting now in the form of droughts, floods and storms that are more frequent and or more intense due to the excess warming - due to the insulation imbalance shifting the long term climate.
An analysis done by MIT published a book in 1972, "Limits to Growth." It's authors used models to generate several possible situations for our global society, depending upon what policies and behaviors humans would take. A review of that book in 2014 shows a prescient resemblance between the "Business as Usual" scenario and what indeed unfolded.
Here is a graphic comparison from that review:



Economists and politicians certainly did not like that analysis in 1972; they attacked it then and media joined in discrediting the report. Still, looking at that track record, and especially the warnings of trajectories heading south THIS DECADE, the patterns in the streets was predictable. So too the behavior of those who are surrounded by wealth and resources to track commodities, politics. 

ADD onto the above generalities as known in 1972, the complications of climate change on food supply as summarized below.
I'm glad I saw what I did in my lifetime. The generation born this century though, my step-children and grandchildren here in Thailand, they will live and die by the consequences of the world we are leaving to them. For their sake, I'm hoping they learn the farming skills my wife learned from her dad. Call it Permaculture, call it family garden resiliency as promoted by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, it is what I see as the best localized chance for surviving the next few decades.

[Rimmer]

An off topic troll post has been removed

[BritManToo]

17 minutes ago, RPCVguy said:

Some of the impacts are hitting now in the form of droughts, floods and storms that are more frequent and or more intense due to the excess warming - due to the insulation imbalance shifting the long term climate.

I deny this.

Thailand will continue much as it always has.

The weather is much the same every year with droughts, floods and storms.

Land and housing remain affordable for young Thai people.

Prices are unlikely to rise significantly in a country that is essentially self sufficient.

Edited October 13, 2020 by BritManToo

[LomSak27]

11 hours ago, Lacessit said:

This must be some other area of Thailand, Chiang Rai is very cheap. Rents have tumbled, a kilo of mangos in season was 25 baht. Most fruit and vegetables are inexpensive.

IMO prices are not rising, it's unemployment and underemployment that is the problem. No income, no money for food.

The G is a confirmed morning market shopper, besides fluctuations in the price of edible bamboo, nothing that she buys has jumped up in price.

Gas, benzene, is down.

My Makro has started to cut prices on a number of farang items. Shock, Gasp, Horror. Regular brands of olive oil and wine vinegar are reduced, significantly. I assume, to sell old stock, & not buying replacement. High end is still the same price, but the tamada bulk brands bought by restaurants and hotels.. That market is gone. Shocking to see in Thailand, but it is a chain store. 

[BritManToo]

Just now, LomSak27 said:

besides fluctuations in the price of edible bamboo

You know she can walk into the jungle and dig it up herself for free.

[John Drake]

15 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Crime is going to skyrocket and guess what? Foreigners will be a prime target.

 

I have just hired a local ex-military driver/bodyguard and I will keep him around for the next year or until the economy improves as I expect things to get really bad in the coming months.

Hmmm. Guy rich enough to hire his own personal bodyguard. I think you've made yourself a target.

[herfiehandbag]

15 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Crime is going to skyrocket and guess what? Foreigners will be a prime target.

 

I have just hired a local ex-military driver/bodyguard and I will keep him around for the next year or until the economy improves as I expect things to get really bad in the coming months.

It is just as well that he doesn't read this then - if he realises that his employment is only until "things get better" then his services, in terms of loyalty and dedication as a "bodyguard" would probably not be all that you hope for!

[herfiehandbag]

15 hours ago, DrTuner said:

And then...

 

 

"What causes riots? That’s not a question you would expect to have a simple answer.

But today, Marco Lagi and buddies at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, say they’ve found a single factor that seems to trigger riots around the world.

 

This single factor is the price of food. Lagi and co say that when it rises above a certain threshold, social unrest sweeps the planet."

 

 

Nice going, usurpers.

Golly, I'll bet the ghosts of several Roman Emperors, the French pre-revolutionary aristocracy, The Russian Imperial regime and rather a lot of governments of the past, throughout the world, wish they had realised that! Does the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge specialise in stating the bleeding obvious?

[Susco]

21 minutes ago, LomSak27 said:

My Makro has started to cut prices on a number of farang items. Shock, Gasp, Horror. Regular brands of olive oil and wine vinegar are reduced, significantly. I assume, to sell old stock, & not buying replacement.

There you go, lowering prices to deplete old stock before it becomes unsellable, and not buying replacement.

 

I notice the same in Big C, shelves going empty or getting filled with dried noodles.

 

But this is a fake solution to avoid inflation, because at one point they will be forced to buy new stock, or have a supermarket with only dried noodles on the shelves.

 

Gas prices are not controlled by the Thai government, but are set by the world market, and Saudi Arabia and the OPEC countries are currently in big doodoo, so they have to lower crude prices because there is not enough demand

[ChipButty]

24 minutes ago, LomSak27 said:

The G is a confirmed morning market shopper, besides fluctuations in the price of edible bamboo, nothing that she buys has jumped up in price.

Gas, benzene, is down.

My Makro has started to cut prices on a number of farang items. Shock, Gasp, Horror. Regular brands of olive oil and wine vinegar are reduced, significantly. I assume, to sell old stock, & not buying replacement. High end is still the same price, but the tamada bulk brands bought by restaurants and hotels.. That market is gone. Shocking to see in Thailand, but it is a chain store. 

We use Makro quite a lot only a mile away, recently a lot of things are reduced we use Olive oil a lot 50% off last week on one brand and then Baked Beans 3 tines for 60 baht I already say packets of cheese I like was buy one get one and discount even in Tops the discounts are there shampoo buy one get one the wife said you dont use that brand, I said I do now

[herfiehandbag]

1 hour ago, Ventenio said:

Schools seem be set-up to make money

buildings falling apart as the director buys his 100th new car

teachers lazy

English teachers can't speak English, or from a country where English is poor

kids all get 100 percent and then fail a "normal" test

kids all get 100 percent and then realize their school is ranked 187,927,379 in the world

teachers have been hitting kids for decades

high turnover

parents don't complain much, the whole "face" thing

teachers don't get fired often, or never.   

kids can sleep in class, play on their phone, do anything

backpackers with zero experience can be their best teacher

Didn't get the job then?

 

There is a lot which could be done to improve, but it is not the apocalyptic picture you paint.

[nobodysfriend]

1 hour ago, RPCVguy said:

YES, You are right, for a far as you went. Financial spikes upwards or down are like the weather, always shifting. The fiat currencies of the world have expanded well beyond what the supply of minerals,  and ability of soil or oceans to supply. Worse, the population has continued growing. When more cash chases similar or diminishing materials, the prices go up (inflation.)

That is prelude, it is fiscal hocus-pocus. The world's biosphere, the resiliency of life is at stake. Some of the impacts are hitting now in the form of droughts, floods and storms that are more frequent and or more intense due to the excess warming - due to the insulation imbalance shifting the long term climate.
An analysis done by MIT published a book in 1972, "Limits to Growth." It's authors used models to generate several possible situations for our global society, depending upon what policies and behaviors humans would take. A review of that book in 2014 shows a prescient resemblance between the "Business as Usual" scenario and what indeed unfolded.
Here is a graphic comparison from that review:



Economists and politicians certainly did not like that analysis in 1972; they attacked it then and media joined in discrediting the report. Still, looking at that track record, and especially the warnings of trajectories heading south THIS DECADE, the patterns in the streets was predictable. So too the behavior of those who are surrounded by wealth and resources to track commodities, politics. 

ADD onto the above generalities as known in 1972, the complications of climate change on food supply as summarized below.
I'm glad I saw what I did in my lifetime. The generation born this century though, my step-children and grandchildren here in Thailand, they will live and die by the consequences of the world we are leaving to them. For their sake, I'm hoping they learn the farming skills my wife learned from her dad. Call it Permaculture, call it family garden resiliency as promoted by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, it is what I see as the best localized chance for surviving the next few decades.

Excellent post .

Some still do not realize that eternal growth is just not possible . The resources are limited as is the time granted to humans to resolve the urgent problems this planet faces now .

The ' values ' of the current capitalistic system lead straight to greed and that leads to the destruction of the environment that people need to survive . ( Clean air and drinkable water , intact and life producing ecosystems that will enable our species to live a life worth living it )

It is the powerful lobby of successful ' businesses ' around the world that does not want change that out of fear that they might lose their privileged position in life . That is what they care about , about the state the planet is in thanks to the never ending pollution and production of toxic non degradable waste , is not of their concern .

The fault is in the system and the values it teaches .

Edited October 13, 2020 by nobodysfriend

[connda]

12 hours ago, Lacessit said:

This must be some other area of Thailand, Chiang Rai is very cheap. Rents have tumbled, a kilo of mangos in season was 25 baht. Most fruit and vegetables are inexpensive.

IMO prices are not rising, it's unemployment and underemployment that is the problem. No income, no money for food.

I was talking with a caddie at one of the golf clubs here. Pre-pandemic, she was making 8000 - 10,000 baht/month. Now, 2000-3000. That's underemployment.

The prices may seem low, but over time, the price in the villages have risen steeply.  I've watched produce prices double over the last 10 years and more than that since I first arrived.
10 years ago your kilo of mangos probably cost 10 THB.

The key to village price is that the produce is grown locally.  The pressure that keeps prices down is that fact that most villagers could simply grow their own. But for convenience you buy from the market.  Or you grow some garden crops for sale in the market yourself.  The inflation creeps in when retail price start to increase at wholesalers.  Certain produce and products increase in price.  Then suddenly, in sort of a hive mind, sellers bump the price of say mangos from 10THB to 20THB.  The prices are still low enough that doubling the price doesn't scare off the consumer.  Sometimes the increases goes up by 1/4, 10THB to 15THB for mango, and a few years later another bump to 20THB, then another bump to 25 THB.  The price doesn't seem that high - until the locals earning power decreases - then what?  Do you keep buying mangos at 25 THB or do you plant your own tree and only eat them seasonally like it was back 50 years ago.
My take is that when the wheels come off the economic buggy, people in the villages will go back to how it was 50 years ago in many way.  Grow your own food, sell the excess at prices the market can support, barter.  If people can't afford to eat the mangos out of cold storage or those transported in from somewhere else, then people will hunker down and economize.  Village prices should stay relatively stable for basic food item.  If they go up, the entire village starts to hurt.

[stouricks]

16 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Crime is going to skyrocket and guess what? Foreigners will be a prime target.

 

I have just hired a local ex-military driver/bodyguard and I will keep him around for the next year or until the economy improves as I expect things to get really bad in the coming months.

Will you incease his salary in line with the price of sticky rice?   LOL

[nobodysfriend]

3 minutes ago, connda said:

My take is that when the wheels come off the economic buggy, people in the villages will go back to how it was 50 years ago in many way.

And the people living in the big cities , not owning any land , what will they do ... go back to the villages ?

[Surelynot]

16 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Crime is going to skyrocket and guess what? Foreigners will be a prime target.

 

I have just hired a local ex-military driver/bodyguard and I will keep him around for the next year or until the economy improves as I expect things to get really bad in the coming months.

Hope he/she has good references....they have a nasty habit of turning out to be your biggest threat.

[sanuk711]

16 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Crime is going to skyrocket and guess what? Foreigners will be a prime target.

 

I have just hired a local ex-military driver/bodyguard and I will keep him around for the next year or until the economy improves as I expect things to get really bad in the coming months.

Pass me one of those fear pills please Mr Meeseeks ..... If you had wanted ex-military/bodyguard , I could have got you a bargain  from the bar stools of Pattaya .....all SAS/Seals . Train to kill etc.................

[Surelynot]

I might be wrong (often am) but all this all seems to stem from a lack of competition and/or cartels operating freely to fix prices. 

 

Five or six big (Chinese?) families seem to be running the whole show, screwing Thailand for all it's worth.

[ChipButty]

6 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

I might be wrong (often am) but all this all seems to stem from a lack of competition and/or cartels operating freely to fix prices. 

 

Five or six big (Chinese?) families seem to be running the whole show, screwing Thailand for all it's worth.

Tell us something we didn't know

[ChipButty]

7 minutes ago, sanuk711 said:

Pass me one of those fear pills please Mr Meeseeks ..... If you had wanted ex-military/bodyguard , I could have got you a bargain  from the bar stools of Pattaya .....all SAS/Seals . Train to kill etc.................

I was in the British Legion would I qualify?

[connda]

2 hours ago, Jonathan Swift said:

from tradingeconomics.com:

 

Thailand Consumer Prices Decline for 7th Month

Consumer prices in Thailand fell by 0.7 percent in September 2020, after a 0.5 percent drop a month earlier and compared to market forecasts of a 0.64 percent decline. This was the seventh straight month of deflation, with the cost of transport falling at a faster pace (-4.99 percent vs -4.5 percentt in August), largely due to vehicles and vehicle operations. At the same time, food prices rose by 1.42 percent, after a 1.62 percent increase in the previous month, mostly due to meats, vegetables and fruits. On a monthly basis, consumer prices declined 0.11 percent in September, following a 0.29 percent rise in August. Meantime, core consumer prices rose by 0.25 percent year-on-year in September, compared with a forecast of a 0.21 percent gain less

2020-10-05

This is what I'm talking about. 
"Official publications" herald declining prices or modest increases.
Anyone with a set of eyes who purchases retail knows declining retail prices are a load of pamper-poo.  And they know the exact extent of price increases for food and necessarities - because those prices are now causing financial pain. 
And it's going to get worse all the while the diamond pinky-ring and million-baht watch set will throw crumbs and accolades to the public.  Think 2020 is bad.  Wait for next year.  Keeping social cohesion when times are good and the public is fat isn't difficult.  But when a new class of poor and struggling are born from the maw of government dictate and the public really starts hurting? 

[Mr Meeseeks]

11 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

Hope he/she has good references....they have a nasty habit of turning out to be your biggest threat.

He has and came recommended from Thais I deal with who are up the pointy end of the tree here. 

 

12 minutes ago, sanuk711 said:

Pass me one of those fear pills please Mr Meeseeks ..... If you had wanted ex-military/bodyguard , I could have got you a bargain  from the bar stools of Pattaya .....all SAS/Seals . Train to kill etc.................

I asked a couple and they did not know the colour of the boat house at Hereford.

[herfiehandbag]

18 minutes ago, nobodysfriend said:

And the people living in the big cities , not owning any land , what will they do ... go back to the villages ?

A lot have, faces which we would see at New Year and or Songkran have returned on a much more permanent basis lately.

 

Just outside the village is a road junction where the day labourers assemble in the morning to try to be picked for work. There always used to be a dozen or so hanging around when i went past, now there are two or three times that number, waiting for the pick up truck to pull up looking for half a dozen labourers for a building site or a fruit farm.

[connda]

18 minutes ago, nobodysfriend said:

And the people living in the big cities , not owning any land , what will they do ... go back to the villages ?

Those that can have already done it if they were effected by the current economic downturn.  Most Thais have a connection to their villages.  When you realize that in the 60s many villages didn't have electricity or running water, no paved roads, and if you owned a motorcycle you were "rich."  It wasn't that long ago. At that time young villagers headed to the cities to make more money. So most Thai boomers have direct ties to their villages and the younger Thais in their 20s to 50 have ties to their village though their parents.  The majority of Thais can vacate the cities and head back to rural Thailand if the economy goes teats-up.  Those that can't may be able to capitalize on the fact that real estate and rental property prices will be in fire-sale mode.  If you are a landlord without renters - you lower your prices or go bankrupt.  And most cities other than BKK still are very accessible to the surrounding rural areas and have access to rural food supplies - for example, Chiang Mai.  But most Thais will bail back to the villages if shtf.

[NoshowJones]

14 hours ago, trucking said:

 

Just not this government and this prime minister.

"government"?? We do not have a Government, it was not elected by the people, all we have is a "PM" with tinpot soldiers playing at being politicians.

Real politicians know exactly what they are doing. they have the education and brains to do everything that is in their favour and talk their way around things, these soldiers we have in charge do not have that, and keep coming away with stupid statements that change daily and has the whole country in a state of confusion.

[NoshowJones]

3 hours ago, simon43 said:

The idea is not to look rich....  I look and dress like an impoverished tramp and found that absolutely every local gives me a wide berth... ????   Pretending to be mentally unstable also helps a bit.

Some people do not need to pretend. 

[NoshowJones]

19 minutes ago, possum1931 said:

Some people do not need to pretend. 

Not talking about you Crossy.