700,000 Trucks Parked As Truck Drivers Go On A Nation-wide Strike

[Gumballl]

The gov't should invest more in rail transport, and more importantly, lift the restrictions on the truckers/fisheries/farmers so that they can pass their costs onto the consumer. Some companies will survive, others will not. What's the big deal? This is what happens all over the world, in good times and in the bad.

I am unimpressed with what I have read about concerning the current gov't. They are acting like a pack of whores, bending over to each and every request. Sort of surprises me they haven't ceded power (when "asked" to do so recently). I bet the next group to demand subsidies will be those b*stards that make plastic bags!

Democracy and the free-market economy in Thailand are indeed MIA. I wonder if a Thai "Hugo Chavez" is planning to take over the gov't. Seems like the mood is right for such a thing.

Edited June 28, 2008 by Gumballl

[Meerkat]

Democracy and the free-market economy in Thailand are indeed MIA. I wonder if a Thai "Hugo Chavez" is planning to take over the gov't. Seems like the mood is right for such a thing.

Indeed. If you think it's bad already, one of the PAD leaders is now advocating a system of parliament with 70% of members selected rather than elected (what does the 'D' in 'PAD' stand for again?), and Senator for Bangkok Rosana Tositrakul wants the renationalisation of PTT. Decidedly Chavez-like...

[Plus]

Make up your mind, guys.

Is PAD being accused of being leftist now? I wonder what the "real" leftists think of their agenda being hijacked by "right wing facsists".

Renationalisation of PTT might not be a bad idea - oil market became very very important in the past couple of years and PPP plays a role similar to Central Bank in that field, it won't hurt to have it under control.

It's all hypothetical anyway, there's no way the government can buy PTT back. The cat is out of the bag already.

Re. selected vs elected MPs - what you've got to lose? They are already de-facto selected, just by different groups of patrons. Then they are sent out to harvest votes and that's the only two months when they behave in any kind of democratic way (minus vote buying and all the other trickery). After that they return to serving their patrons for the next four years and make a complete travesty of democracy.

Look at the current, absolutely useless parlament - letting 30% to be elected is already generous, one might say.

Disclaimer - I don't know the context of that quote, maybe it was made in jest or something. I hope no one takes it seriously.

The bigger problem is - if people can come up with such ideas in the first place, their faith in democracy is at the all time low, and you can't correct it simply by quoting Churchill for umpteenth time. You either have to reconsider your fundamental assumptions or come up with some kind of proof.

On the plus side, maybe people are close to realisation that their society is rotten to the core and neither generals nor bureaucrats nor the highest institution can save them, 'cos now they still hope that somebody else can fix their problems. But what can they do once they realise that?

[sriracha john]

And the answer is no you don't have to go to Bangkok, Garlic Farmers got what they wanted today.

Interestingly no one threatened to block roads today

The khao ne-ow farmers are right there to pick up the slack from the garlic farmers, because they HAVEN'T gotten what they were promised (which seems to be a recurring theme from the government for any number of these various groups)...

Sticky-rice farmers demand payment

More than 1,000 northern farmers are threatening to march on Chiang Rai provincial hall next Monday to call for help in getting paid by a miller for their sticky rice.

"We want the government's assistance in negotiating with this miller, because the government allowed the miller to participate in the pledging programme in the first place," Somsa-ard Karuna, a sticky rice farmer from Chiang Rai, said yesterday.

The farmers say they have not yet received 322.85 Million Baht from Siripinyo Rice Miller in Chachoengsao province, the largest miller participating in the government's sticky-rice mortgage scheme.

The company purchased 40,360 tonnes of glutinous paddy rice from them while asking the farmers for 15 days of credit from May 29. However, it has put off clearing its debt to the farmers even after almost a month has passed. Farmers are suffering badly from the delay and need capital to prepare for the next crop.

"After several attempts to protest at the Commerce Ministry and Government House, we've not received any assurance that the miller will pay all remaining credit to us," Somsa-ard said.

Meanwhile, despite the government's guaranteeing between Bt8,000 and Bt9,000 per tonne, the price for sticky paddy rice has gradually dropped to Bt6,200 a tonne.

"The lower rice price has created difficulties for us, because the cost of production runs around Bt7,000 or Bt8,000 a tonne," he said.

- The Nation

Edited June 29, 2008 by sriracha john

[Meerkat]

I agree that Thailand's brand of politics is hardly the shining light that aspirers to democracy turn to, but I find it hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would actually prefer the 70/30 system advocated by Suriyasai Katasila, one of the PAD's leaders. The most important question being of course, who does the selecting? Link is here btw, but it's only giving me a SQL error at the moment (his article was in Thai Rath).

Regarding Senator Rosana's PTT plans, I don't know whether it would be a good idea or not (although in general I'm opposed to state-run industry). I was just posting it seeing as the previous poster brought up Chavez - the current (re)nationalization poster-child.