Thai Id Cards And A Bit Extra

[Guest IT Manager]

This from a Thai chap. Makes good sense. Comment sil vous plais!

November 10. Letters to the Post Editor

Institute help for the poor

Thai children responded en masse to a government offer of financial aid if they wrote in to say why they needed help.

Almost half a million did so, and the prime minister was reportedly moist eyed, moved by their plight.

I could almost feel the ripple of joy as children everywhere learned that, unlike in previous years, Santa had come, and come early.

Thaksin has promised to eradicate poverty within six years. But many can't wait six years. Thais will soon get a smart card in lieu of an ID card. I suggest this card should also be a debit, or D, card, issued at birth, entitling cardholders to 1,000 baht per month, cash or kind. Children and the elderly will then not lack for necessities.

Millions won't need this assistance, so they can opt for a credit, or C, card, which pledges 3% of their salary to the D cardholders. The snobs can get a gold C card, and pledge 5% and up. The well heeled who don't donate will get a Z card, and preferably have zilch tattooed on their buttocks.

This is voluntary, zero sum income redistribution. Though a pittance, it is the margin that makes the difference to hungry kids and old folks, a fork that offers another path to poor girls and boys besides prostitution.

The ripple of joy would become a tsunami of good karma. Thai Rak Thai would not be just a political cliche{AAC}.

A rite of passage for D cardholders, like the tonsure ceremony of old, would be when they find jobs and hold a ``D to C'' party. Within a generation, the system will have achieved self obsolescence.

Trirat Petchsingh

Nonthaburi