Cracks In The Mighty Baht...

[Mid]

thanxs

[Mid]

Garment factory cancels mass layoff, reopens

Thursday 12 July 2007 07:04:31 PM (GMT+7:00)

SAMUT PRAKAN, July 12 (TNA) – Cancelling its previous announcement closing operations and dismissing its labour force, Thai Silp South East Asia Import and Export factory agreed Thursday afternoon to resume producing garments for export Friday.

"As far as I know, the company is able to continue its business operations again thanks to financial assistance from the Thai Garment Manufacturers Association," said Labour Minister Apai Chanthanachulaka, who presided over a three-and-a-half hour negotiation session.

snip

After the tripartite meeting at Samut Prakan City Hall, the minister proceeded to announce the successful negotiation before the protesting workers in Bang Pli district.

He added that the ministry would hold a special meeting to consider establishing a Thai Silp factory labour union at the request of the protesting labourers. (TNA)-E002

MCOT Public Company Limited

[midas]

Seems to me to be a case of "the biter....bitten" here

I, for one think that its got nothing to do with currency appreciation, but more to do with the Thais pricing themselves out of a job. Similar thing happened in The West some years ago, when the manufacturing industry here (West) couldnt compete on a wage level with places like Thailand, Indonesia etc, and, either moved lock, stock and barrel over to The East, or had to become more efficient to compete.

Higher labour costs will almost ALWAYS focus a companies mind on where to look for the cheapest operating base, in this "Global Economy"

Penkoprod

Neighbouring countries have always been cheaper than Thailand, why would anyone come to Thailand 20, 15, 10, 5 years ago in the first place?

Because the neigbouring countries are pretty much rubble with no infrastructure.

Baht has to go further up, maybe to 20baht to dollar to make likes of Toyota, Nissan, GM think of rellocating their capacity elsewhere.

The neighbouring countries won't be ready for big business even then...if ever.

I cannot agree with your comments! You cant measure the success of Thailand merely on the basis

of the behavior of Toyota, Nissan, GM ? and as for infrastructure well this is rapidly being built

up in many of the other countries. But one thing some hope these neighboring countries can offer

is a better educated workforce. Have you ever been to Cambodia and heard how well young Cambodians

can master the English language? Companies in todays global world needs intelligent and outward looking

workers - not just roads and railways so I don't think Thailand has as much of an advantage as you seem to think ?

[Mid]

Opinion

BOT wants to have its cake and eat it too

Thu, July 12, 2007 : Last updated 23:05 pm

Since the beginning of this year, the baht has jumped more than 7 per cent to Bt33.32/33 against the US dollar.Published on July 13, 2007

At the end of last year, the baht stood at Bt36, up from Bt41 at the end of 2005. Why does the baht keep on rising?

snip

Thanong Khanthong

The Nation

dissension in the ranks ...................

[Heng]

Nothing like a good shake out. Feel a little bad for the folks out there that are leveraged, but that's how it goes.

[teejay]

Nothing like a good shake out. Feel a little bad for the folks out there that are leveraged, but that's how it goes.

agreed. a prolonged strengthening of the baht could result in a nice clean-up of Thailand, especially the tourist areas... No need to change visa rules, etc. to keep out the unwanted, just a 25baht/dollar exchange rate for a couple of years and nature will take it's course. Look at how quiet the threads are re: the strong baht... guess the sharks can't pay for internet anymore.... or maybe they've already left.

Really tho, I can't sympathise with those who don't grasp the fact that we live in a dynamic world, things change, currencies fluctuate, governtments change -- if one expected to have 40-odd baht to the dollar for the next 20-30 years of one's retirement (and have 30baht Changs and 1000-baht hookers forever) -- well... that's just not smart. Hedge against all that you can hedge against... that's the only smart thing to do, but so so many don't, and the circumstances can be dire.

The baht isn't cracking. It has no reason to.

[Mid]

Strong Baht Hits Burmese Migrant Workers

By Sai Silp

July 12, 2007

The increasing strength of Thailand’s currency, the baht, is threatening the jobs of Burmese migrant workers employed by export-oriented factories in the border town of Mae Sot and the industrial center Samut Sakorn, near Bangkok, officials warned o­n Thursday.

irrawaddy.org

oh yea , lets have that clean up ,

some people

[thaihome]

Textiles are always the first to go as an export economy matures. There is always cheaper places for low tech to move to. What happens is the export economy moves into higher tech industries as the labor force becomes more skilled and local infrastructure becomes stronger and can supply raw material. Besides Thailand large automotive industry, here is a recent case in point.

TH

[Gary A]

Nothing too surprising here. Over the past four or five years Thailand has lost most of its garment industry to China. A friend of mine, (farang) had fifty industrial sewing machines and did contract garment assembly. He went belly up several years ago. I was telling him about the Bangkok factory. He looked at me and told me that he knows all about the garment industry going away. I had forgotten about his venture.

[TopDogger]

Interesting how nobody here seems particularly concerned with the people who have lost their jobs but rather with gloating over Thailand's economic problems.

They'll get new jobs easy enough, unemployments @ 1%

[think_too_mut]

Seems to me to be a case of "the biter....bitten" here

I, for one think that its got nothing to do with currency appreciation, but more to do with the Thais pricing themselves out of a job. Similar thing happened in The West some years ago, when the manufacturing industry here (West) couldnt compete on a wage level with places like Thailand, Indonesia etc, and, either moved lock, stock and barrel over to The East, or had to become more efficient to compete.

Higher labour costs will almost ALWAYS focus a companies mind on where to look for the cheapest operating base, in this "Global Economy"

Penkoprod

Neighbouring countries have always been cheaper than Thailand, why would anyone come to Thailand 20, 15, 10, 5 years ago in the first place?

Because the neigbouring countries are pretty much rubble with no infrastructure.

Baht has to go further up, maybe to 20baht to dollar to make likes of Toyota, Nissan, GM think of rellocating their capacity elsewhere.

The neighbouring countries won't be ready for big business even then...if ever.

I cannot agree with your comments! You cant measure the success of Thailand merely on the basis

of the behavior of Toyota, Nissan, GM ? and as for infrastructure well this is rapidly being built

up in many of the other countries. But one thing some hope these neighboring countries can offer

is a better educated workforce. Have you ever been to Cambodia and heard how well young Cambodians

can master the English language? Companies in todays global world needs intelligent and outward looking

workers - not just roads and railways so I don't think Thailand has as much of an advantage as you seem to think ?

Of course I can use Toyota and other big companies as a messure of success.

In today's BKK Post: "Despite the appreciation, Thailand's exports grew 18 per cent in the first five months of 2007, but economists have pointed out that this surge was essentially in exports of high-tech items such as electronic, electrical appliances and automobiles, which account for nearly 70 per cent of all exports but all of which have a high import content."

If Cambodia can offer "better educated workforce" why don't they make something more sophisticated than garmets or rice straw products?

When will they attempt something like other neighbouring country, Malaysia, to over build Petronas? Their infrastructure won't have bandwidth for bricks and stones to be brought to the site.

Or, why don't they write software, like India does? IBM only has 50,000 software engineers in India.

Thailand is second to the throne (Malaysia) for with others so far back they not even in sight.

More likely, over next 10 years, Laos may lease a second plane for their national fleet and employ some mechanics who understand how planes work(other than 1 French guy whose work days are carefully monitored, expats there don't fly if he is on holiday).

Edited July 14, 2007 by think_too_mut

[Naam]

Cracks In The Mighty Baht..., Is this just the beginning..

where do i find these cracks in the Baht... pray tell?

[backflip]

Months ago, Ford cancelled its planned billion dollar investment in Thailand, and bingobongo danced with glee. What excuse did Ford use...did they announce "under the incredibly bad leadership of William Clay Ford, the Ford Motor Company stock has lost 80% of its value"? Nope. Did Ford announce, "under the incredible leadership of William Clay Ford, Ford Motor Company lost $6 billion in the last year, and we have no idea of when or how we will be able to recover"? Nope. Ford announced the reason for the cancellation was the "baht-to-dollar rate". As marginal companies fail, not a single one of them will use employee inefficiency, or bad management practices as a reason for failure. They will use the reason du jour, "the baht is too strong". Unfortunately, a lot of you accept this reason without question.

Too, as the good doctor asked, in all of this, where does the OP see "cracks in the baht"?

Edited July 14, 2007 by backflip

[nikster]

Dr. and backflip - thirded. There are no cracks in the Baht.

Certainly not based on that story.

Looking at this naively, Thailand always seemed too cheap to me. In high finance terms, the Chinese Yuan is going up and it's pulling all Asian currencies with it. The THB is part of that wave... whereas the USD is headed the other direction, for many very good reasons.

It seems to be hard to understand for some, but the THB rate has absolutely nothing to do with how badly the current gov't fckus up. As long as they don't change things significantly to the worse, as long as they keep the status quo, the THB will go up.

It's surfing the wave of the Chinese Yuan until further notice.

Edited July 14, 2007 by nikster

[Jingthing]

About the dollar crashing. It has already crashed. Now everyone seems to be saying it will crash even more. Even Bangkok taxi drivers are short on dollars. There is a point at which the trend will reverse. Nobody knows this point. Ever heard of contrarian investing? Last time I checked, the herd is usually wrong. Either way, unless you are professional currency speculator, I find the best idea is to be hedged, especially for dollar based Americans. I win and lose when they baht gets stronger, and vice versa. I am not smart enough to predict the future rates. However, I don't believe the direction will be straight down the toilet, without corrections. I also believe a change in power in the US presidency in 2008 will radically change the psychological world feeling about US dollars and be bullish for the dollar, except in the unlikely case of a Bush loving republican win or a more leftist democrat like Edwards.

Edited July 14, 2007 by Jingthing

[jumnien]

"cracks" in the runway, "cracks" in the baht; these farang are a bit crack-happy aren't they!

[Naam]

Dr. and backflip - thirded. There are no cracks in the Baht.

cracks in the Baht are presently existing only in wishful thinking. of course... most of us would like to see a weaker Baht. after all our expenses are in Baht and most of us have income which is not denominated in Baht. but that does not necessarily imply we should hallucinating and have wet dreams.

[VegasVic]

Nothing like a good shake out. Feel a little bad for the folks out there that are leveraged, but that's how it goes.

agreed. a prolonged strengthening of the baht could result in a nice clean-up of Thailand, especially the tourist areas... No need to change visa rules, etc. to keep out the unwanted, just a 25baht/dollar exchange rate for a couple of years and nature will take it's course. Look at how quiet the threads are re: the strong baht... guess the sharks can't pay for internet anymore.... or maybe they've already left.

Really tho, I can't sympathise with those who don't grasp the fact that we live in a dynamic world, things change, currencies fluctuate, governtments change -- if one expected to have 40-odd baht to the dollar for the next 20-30 years of one's retirement (and have 30baht Changs and 1000-baht hookers forever) -- well... that's just not smart. Hedge against all that you can hedge against... that's the only smart thing to do, but so so many don't, and the circumstances can be dire.

The baht isn't cracking. It has no reason to.

I like that idea, clean up Thailand and let the backpackers and the whorechasers weed themselves out, lets get the baht to 25/dollar or better yet 20/dollar it sounds great! Well maybe not, now that I take the time to actually THINK about what would happen then I guess that this strong baht might not be such a good thing after all. While a strong baht might weed out some of those undesireables (a noble thing to do but the wrong way to do it), it will also have long lasting negative consequences on the Kingdom and its population. As the baht rises, layoffs will continue (as we have seen recently) and unemployment will spiral upwards and along with it there will be jobs lost that will never return to thailand because companies will move offshore. The export and tourisim sector will be decimated with a continued rise in the baht and with consumer spending already down in Thailand we really need those tourist dollars to make up for lack of domestic spending. Oh yea one more thing, todays student backpackers while they may be on a tight budget now, are tomorrows wage earners and if they are backpacking in India or Vietnam or Tibet or Indonesia or Costa Rica instead of Thailand right now then a few years down the road when they are financially comfortable they will likely vacation in those spots as well and Thailand will not even enter into the possibility of choices because they never had the chance to see how beautiful Thailand really is. So I guess if you really hate the Thai people and wish a longterm recession on Thailand with a limited chance at economic recovery, then yes indee a stronger baht is just the ticket. Its hard to imagine that anyone would be so callous to the Thai people (who are some of the most wounderful people I have ever met) or to the great Kingdom of Thailand that they would wish for any further strengthening of the baht and any further degradation of the Thai economy, so I have to believe that you just sort of shot from the hip and really didn't THINK things through very well. The good news for the Thai people is that the chinese market is in a major bubble and will come crashing down in the not too distant future, and this will ripple down to Thailand as the short term foriegn investors cash out of the SET and the FOREX traders stop bidding up the baht, the baht will soften quite a bit and then Thailand will be able to compete and grow their ecomomy for the longterm interest of the Thai people.

[Jimjim]

I don't think the baht can sustain a high level in the long-term.

[Heng]

The export and tourisim sector will be decimated with a continued rise in the baht and with consumer spending already down in Thailand we really need those tourist dollars to make up for lack of domestic spending.

That's the weedout I was referring to. The weak players in export, tourism, and whatever other industries will go, leaving the stronger players behind. It's the same the world over. Just because the weak and heavily debt ridden drown doesn't mean the industry is "decimated." I'll certainly still be turning an export profit at 25 Baht to the dollar and beyond. Combined with import and domestic income streams, the overall balance may even result in 'no change' in overall revenues.

[samran]

I like that idea, clean up Thailand and let the backpackers and the whorechasers weed themselves out, lets get the baht to 25/dollar or better yet 20/dollar it sounds great! Well maybe not, now that I take the time to actually THINK about what would happen then I guess that this strong baht might not be such a good thing after all. While a strong baht might weed out some of those undesireables (a noble thing to do but the wrong way to do it), it will also have long lasting negative consequences on the Kingdom and its population. As the baht rises, layoffs will continue (as we have seen recently) and unemployment will spiral upwards and along with it there will be jobs lost that will never return to thailand because companies will move offshore. The export and tourisim sector will be decimated with a continued rise in the baht and with consumer spending already down in Thailand we really need those tourist dollars to make up for lack of domestic spending. Oh yea one more thing, todays student backpackers while they may be on a tight budget now, are tomorrows wage earners and if they are backpacking in India or Vietnam or Tibet or Indonesia or Costa Rica instead of Thailand right now then a few years down the road when they are financially comfortable they will likely vacation in those spots as well and Thailand will not even enter into the possibility of choices because they never had the chance to see how beautiful Thailand really is. So I guess if you really hate the Thai people and wish a longterm recession on Thailand with a limited chance at economic recovery, then yes indee a stronger baht is just the ticket. Its hard to imagine that anyone would be so callous to the Thai people (who are some of the most wounderful people I have ever met) or to the great Kingdom of Thailand that they would wish for any further strengthening of the baht and any further degradation of the Thai economy, so I have to believe that you just sort of shot from the hip and really didn't THINK things through very well. The good news for the Thai people is that the chinese market is in a major bubble and will come crashing down in the not too distant future, and this will ripple down to Thailand as the short term foriegn investors cash out of the SET and the FOREX traders stop bidding up the baht, the baht will soften quite a bit and then Thailand will be able to compete and grow their ecomomy for the longterm interest of the Thai people.

Vegas,

unfortunately it would be unwise for any sensible poltician or economist to advocate a weak currency just to prop up an economy. Just like a lazy teenager who has been relying on copying others homework to get passing grades to date, Thailand needs a good kick up the bum economically so that in future it can overcome the challenges that the world economy throws at it without having to rely on a cheap currency to get though the day.

A productive economy with strong fundamentals is what Thailand needs to be. To use your example, a strong tourist based economy need not rely on the 'cheapness' of the currency to support it. Witness places like NZ, Australia and most of the EU. Highly succesful and yet, they aren't 'cheap' countries. They cater to all, backpackers and hi-spending tourists alike based on great well run value for money attractions at one end and high quality service at another. Aust and NZ are 'suffering' from historically strong exchange rates at the moment, but the industries are surviving because they don't rely on a cheap currency to survive. Rather, they stay competitive and fit economically to stay in business.

Flexible exchange rates are good, as they act as shock absorbers for a economy - if left alone. During the Asian financial crisis, it was ultimately good that the baht was weak, so that it could sell its products cheaply to regain some economic traction. But thats happened now, and as people are increasing their interest in the Thai economy (and buying baht to invest here). An expensive baht will mean that people will really have to make sure they do their sums before they invest in the SET to find value. In the same way it is making many retirees think twice about moving here, a strong baht will prevent to an extent a huge bubble forming on the SET as people see that the SET becoming more expensive in foreign currency terms.

A stong baht will also make it easier for the BOT not to raise interest rates as much as they would otherwise have to, given that that imports are cheaper, there is less pressure in inflation. Lower interest rates mean that businesses will be able to more confortably borrow to fund new enterprises, or expand existing ones.

And so what if some industries die here? Others will pop up in other sectors which Thailand is better suited. It won't be an easy transition, but neither should anyone advocate a 'stop the world - I want to get off' strategy. It does no-one any good to delay the inevitiable, and ALWAYS turns out to be more expensive for you and I in the meantime due to having to consume inferior and more expensive products in the mean time.

[wcr]

Seems to me to be a case of "the biter....bitten" here

I, for one think that its got nothing to do with currency appreciation, but more to do with the Thais pricing themselves out of a job. Similar thing happened in The West some years ago, when the manufacturing industry here (West) couldnt compete on a wage level with places like Thailand, Indonesia etc, and, either moved lock, stock and barrel over to The East, or had to become more efficient to compete.

Higher labour costs will almost ALWAYS focus a companies mind on where to look for the cheapest operating base, in this "Global Economy"

Penkoprod

Neighbouring countries have always been cheaper than Thailand, why would anyone come to Thailand 20, 15, 10, 5 years ago in the first place?

Because the neigbouring countries are pretty much rubble with no infrastructure.

Baht has to go further up, maybe to 20baht to dollar to make likes of Toyota, Nissan, GM think of rellocating their capacity elsewhere.

The neighbouring countries won't be ready for big business even then...if ever.

I cannot agree with your comments! You cant measure the success of Thailand merely on the basis

of the behavior of Toyota, Nissan, GM ? and as for infrastructure well this is rapidly being built

up in many of the other countries. But one thing some hope these neighboring countries can offer

is a better educated workforce. Have you ever been to Cambodia and heard how well young Cambodians

can master the English language? Companies in todays global world needs intelligent and outward looking

workers - not just roads and railways so I don't think Thailand has as much of an advantage as you seem to think ?

Of course I can use Toyota and other big companies as a messure of success.

In today's BKK Post: "Despite the appreciation, Thailand's exports grew 18 per cent in the first five months of 2007, but economists have pointed out that this surge was essentially in exports of high-tech items such as electronic, electrical appliances and automobiles, which account for nearly 70 per cent of all exports but all of which have a high import content."

If Cambodia can offer "better educated workforce" why don't they make something more sophisticated than garmets or rice straw products?

When will they attempt something like other neighbouring country, Malaysia, to over build Petronas? Their infrastructure won't have bandwidth for bricks and stones to be brought to the site.

Or, why don't they write software, like India does? IBM only has 50,000 software engineers in India.

Thailand is second to the throne (Malaysia) for with others so far back they not even in sight.

More likely, over next 10 years, Laos may lease a second plane for their national fleet and employ some mechanics who understand how planes work(other than 1 French guy whose work days are carefully monitored, expats there don't fly if he is on holiday).

That is an unfair statement about Laos. They certainly have more than one plane. Also the Laos government is very much waking up to the potential in thier country and have already lostened up constraints on foriegn investors. They are making strong statements encouraging inward investment and offering tax breaks as well as other incentives to foriegners wanting to invest, or do buisness there.

Thailand needs to wake up to the fact that its neighbours are starting to take advantage of this countries zenophobic attidudes.

[think_too_mut]

That is an unfair statement about Laos. They certainly have more than one plane.

Ohh, ...they do...but no jet any more: A320 lease was for 2 year only.

Look at the fleet....about 200 seats for the population of 6 million (think of Singapore with 4 million)....and that sole French mechanic was there when they had 1 ATR propeller plane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_Airlines#Fleet

I know things are hardly comparable, but Laos, Burma or Cambodia coming to get Thailand (for anything other than low tech garment industry, if that) is equally hard to imagine. The roads there have to be paved first.

Edited July 15, 2007 by think_too_mut

[VegasVic]

I like that idea, clean up Thailand and let the backpackers and the whorechasers weed themselves out, lets get the baht to 25/dollar or better yet 20/dollar it sounds great! Well maybe not, now that I take the time to actually THINK about what would happen then I guess that this strong baht might not be such a good thing after all. While a strong baht might weed out some of those undesireables (a noble thing to do but the wrong way to do it), it will also have long lasting negative consequences on the Kingdom and its population. As the baht rises, layoffs will continue (as we have seen recently) and unemployment will spiral upwards and along with it there will be jobs lost that will never return to thailand because companies will move offshore. The export and tourisim sector will be decimated with a continued rise in the baht and with consumer spending already down in Thailand we really need those tourist dollars to make up for lack of domestic spending. Oh yea one more thing, todays student backpackers while they may be on a tight budget now, are tomorrows wage earners and if they are backpacking in India or Vietnam or Tibet or Indonesia or Costa Rica instead of Thailand right now then a few years down the road when they are financially comfortable they will likely vacation in those spots as well and Thailand will not even enter into the possibility of choices because they never had the chance to see how beautiful Thailand really is. So I guess if you really hate the Thai people and wish a longterm recession on Thailand with a limited chance at economic recovery, then yes indee a stronger baht is just the ticket. Its hard to imagine that anyone would be so callous to the Thai people (who are some of the most wounderful people I have ever met) or to the great Kingdom of Thailand that they would wish for any further strengthening of the baht and any further degradation of the Thai economy, so I have to believe that you just sort of shot from the hip and really didn't THINK things through very well. The good news for the Thai people is that the chinese market is in a major bubble and will come crashing down in the not too distant future, and this will ripple down to Thailand as the short term foriegn investors cash out of the SET and the FOREX traders stop bidding up the baht, the baht will soften quite a bit and then Thailand will be able to compete and grow their ecomomy for the longterm interest of the Thai people.

Vegas,

unfortunately it would be unwise for any sensible poltician or economist to advocate a weak currency just to prop up an economy. Just like a lazy teenager who has been relying on copying others homework to get passing grades to date, Thailand needs a good kick up the bum economically so that in future it can overcome the challenges that the world economy throws at it without having to rely on a cheap currency to get though the day.

A productive economy with strong fundamentals is what Thailand needs to be. To use your example, a strong tourist based economy need not rely on the 'cheapness' of the currency to support it. Witness places like NZ, Australia and most of the EU. Highly succesful and yet, they aren't 'cheap' countries. They cater to all, backpackers and hi-spending tourists alike based on great well run value for money attractions at one end and high quality service at another. Aust and NZ are 'suffering' from historically strong exchange rates at the moment, but the industries are surviving because they don't rely on a cheap currency to survive. Rather, they stay competitive and fit economically to stay in business.

Flexible exchange rates are good, as they act as shock absorbers for a economy - if left alone. During the Asian financial crisis, it was ultimately good that the baht was weak, so that it could sell its products cheaply to regain some economic traction. But thats happened now, and as people are increasing their interest in the Thai economy (and buying baht to invest here). An expensive baht will mean that people will really have to make sure they do their sums before they invest in the SET to find value. In the same way it is making many retirees think twice about moving here, a strong baht will prevent to an extent a huge bubble forming on the SET as people see that the SET becoming more expensive in foreign currency terms.

A stong baht will also make it easier for the BOT not to raise interest rates as much as they would otherwise have to, given that that imports are cheaper, there is less pressure in inflation. Lower interest rates mean that businesses will be able to more confortably borrow to fund new enterprises, or expand existing ones.

And so what if some industries die here? Others will pop up in other sectors which Thailand is better suited. It won't be an easy transition, but neither should anyone advocate a 'stop the world - I want to get off' strategy. It does no-one any good to delay the inevitiable, and ALWAYS turns out to be more expensive for you and I in the meantime due to having to consume inferior and more expensive products in the mean time.

Samran, I don't recall in any of my posts ever suggesting that any politician in any country should advocate a weak currency just to prop up an economy! In fact I have stated multiple times on this forum that in the case of the U.S., treasurey officials have publically stated on numerous occasions over the last 4-5 years that they are in favor of a strong dollar, of course at the same time they have privately behind the scenes let it be known that they will not take any action to attempt to keep the dollar strong, thereby encouaging the hedge funds and currency traders to short the dollar for many years now. I also have stated multiple times on thaivisa that I don't think the Thai goverment has the ability to stop the rapid appreciation of the baht despite their many efforts to do so. Now as far as your reference to Aussie or European economies go, the largest economies in Europe (Germany, France and the U.K.) are indeed facing some very substantial problems (not the least of which is doulble digit unemployment that continues to grow) that are directly being caused by the strong currency there. I am curious as to how you think that the farmers in Issan and elseware in thailand will not be negatively effected by a stronger baht, since they have already faced lower export prices (in real terms) for their products and their competitiveness will continue to decline with each and every uptick in baht value. Finally please explain this "stop the world I want to get off" situation that you refer to, personally I am a free trader and have always believed in free market economies, but sadly we now live in a world of hegde funds that go unregulatd and unprecedented control on world markets and hence the value of the baht is controlled more by these entities than anything that is happening in Thailand. If this strong baht does indeed help in your efforts to "clean up thailand" then I think thats great, It just seems to me that you don't get the "big picture" here, if the baht does in deed continue on to a valuation level of 25/dollar then I think what I have been saying here will become very evident. Until that occurs we will have to agree to disagree!