The Challenge Of A Rising Thai Baht Amid Global Crisis

[webfact]

EDITORIAL

The challenge of A rising baht amid global crisis

By The Nation

In the face of worldwide financial turmoil, Thailand should turn its focus to the domestic market

We are indeed in the middle of a currency war. The United States, Europe and Japan - the Group of 3 - are suffering from stagnant growth. The US, in particular, is about to face an imploding financial crisis. Europe is adopting austerity programmes to deal with its countries' sovereign debt. Social turmoil, in Greece and more recently in Spain, will intensify. Japan, which is trapped in an export-led growth model, is propping up its exports by selling the yen to prevent its currency from appreciating beyond Yen82 to the dollar. In effect, the G-3 is pursuing a weak exchange rate regime to restore growth. With this broad macroeconomic trend, capital is fleeing from the global financial centres to Asia, including Thailand.

The question is, how a small, open economy like Thailand should pursue its foreign exchange policy in the face of the massive inflow of capital and the downward trend of the dollar, the euro and the yen.

The policy challenge will be critical over the coming months. The baht is about to break through the Bt30/dollar level, its strongest level since September 1997. The Bank of Thailand and the regional central banks have been intervening in the foreign exchange markets quite actively to halt the appreciation of their currencies. The abrupt currency appreciation hurts exports and slows down economic growth.

If we do nothing, the baht will continue to appreciate and might return to the pre-crisis level of Bt25-Bt26 to the US dollar in a hurry. The export-related industries will be destroyed. If we try to fix the baht at a certain target, we would go back to the pre-1997 crisis with the fixed exchange rate regime. The baht crisis as a result of the fixed exchange rate regime remains a fresh nightmare for the central bank authorities, who are not likely to go back to embracing the fixed exchange rate regime. If the Bank of Thailand continues to raise the rates to curb inflation, it will have no choice but to introduce administrative measures to deter the capital inflow. In December 2006, the Thai central bank introduced a 30 per cent reserve measure to deal with the capital inflow, with adverse consequences.

There is no magic formula for managing the Thai exchange rate in the face of the impending global financial turmoil.

The US Federal Reserve is now deliberately pursuing a policy to debase the US dollar. It is about to embark on second-phase quantitative easing by pumping in US$1 trillion-$3 trillion to purchase US Treasury securities. In the first phase of quantitative easing, the Fed spent about US$1.7 trillion to purchase largely mortgage-related securities to prevent a collapse of the housing market and the US financial system. Now the Fed, with signs of a continuing deflationary trend, plans to roll out its big gun to print another US$3 trillion over the next six months. The consequence of this will be to drive up the value of the dollar and push the interest rate down even further. Lower interest rates would relieve the problems in the housing market. But the dollar devaluation could spark hyperinflation in the event that investors or consumers lose confidence in the greenback.

China is dealing with the currency war by cementing its ties with Southeast Asia. At some point in time, China is likely to dump US Treasuries. The US is now threatening a trade war through legislation against China, accused of keeping the yuan competitively undervalued to promote Chinese exports. Beijing is believed to be holding 60-70 per cent of the outstanding US Treasury securities. Over the past two years Beijing has been promoting further liberalisation of its foreign exchange regime and financial markets by allowing offshore yuan settlements. China is now aiming to rely on its own currency in international trade, focus more on its domestic market, and build closer ties with Southeast Asia, because US consumers are so indebted that they can no longer be the locomotive of global consumption.

In this changing global landscape, Thailand should be preparing to rely less on external factors by focusing more on the domestic market while the baht continues its upward trend.

-- The Nation 2010-10-01

[Spee]

"We are indeed in the middle of a currency war. The United States, Europe and Japan - the Group of 3 - are suffering from stagnant growth."

Let's toss in a little cause & effect analysis here to keep the perspective .....

The US, Europe and Japan are not "suffering from stagnant growth." The people are suffering from excessive government intervention, regulation and taxation which places them into the bondage of stagnant growth, as a result of lost business, lost jobs and at least in the US, one's rights to liberty and property.

Thailand can do a lot to respond to the challenge of a rising baht. They can reduce taxes and corruption which cause increased costs of getting products to market, which in turn can offset the prices that need to be charged on exported goods.

They can petition the US, European and Japanese governments to get their fiscal shit together. They can petition the governments of nations to which Thai businesses export, to reduce or eliminate import duties, taxes and other tariffs, which in turn cause high prices and reduced demand.

It's a huge problem not because of the complexity, for surely the causes are well known. The problem lies in the magnitude, the sheer size of the problem. And there's only one way to tackle a large problem, a little bit at a time. But one little step after another is far better than doing nothing at all.

Edited October 1, 2010 by Spee

[lovelomsak]

<P>So is anyone now ready to listen to be about Thailand emerging as a strong power in the new world of trade and finance. I copied a small part of this news clip to give you more insight please read and digest and see if you can understand how Thailand is benefiting.</P>

<P>QuoteChina is dealing with the currency war by cementing its ties with Southeast Asia. At some point in time, China is likely to dump US Treasuries. The US is now threatening a trade war through legislation against China, accused of keeping the yuan competitively undervalued to promote Chinese exports. Beijing is believed to be holding 60-70 per cent of the outstanding US Treasury securities. Over the past two years Beijing has been promoting further liberalisation of its foreign exchange regime and financial markets by allowing offshore yuan settlements. China is now aiming to rely on its own currency in international trade, focus more on its domestic market, and build closer ties with Southeast Asia, because US consumers are so indebted that they can no longer be the locomotive of global consumption. unquote<BR> As we all know Thailand is already trading in other currencies than the us dollar. The US dollar is soon to become simply a puppet of the asian economy. The cold war has heated up. One other thing Brazil has caught on to this and now their currency is starting to rise quickly. I would like to state here I have mentioned may times on these forums that a strong baht is good for Thailand and I feel soon all the doubters must agree.</P>

[asiawatcher]

Very good article from the Nation in many respects and and even better reply from Spee.

Thailand is insular in a lot of ways. It lacks credible management and fiscal responsibility in many areas but still rides out the storm. In 1990 Thailand was doing 1% of the worlds GDP and in 1996 it was predicted to do 2% by 2000 but the 97 crash took that away from them. Thailand has always had at its finger tips the ability to excel but continues to not reach out and close its hands around the next stage.

Gross corruption at all levels has not helped and as Thailand continues to evolve much of what could be put to good use is skimmed off and hidden. Some of the 'cash' economy is reinvested in many areas thus it still behoves the country in some ways and with the Baht strengthening this will lead to Thai's investing in foreign enterprises and assets so a 'wealth' drain so to speak.

I believe the world banks and governments who have been propping up their own cronies are only paving the way for a huge crash and the US is well overdue. My last assessment of the US some years ago showed they had 13 trillion in GDP and 11 trillion in debt. But they had not taken into account retirement and the 401k and medical debt situation and that pushed consolidated debt to 19+trillion meaning the US was unable to meet commitments and was technically bankrupt back then! Now we have the so called financial crisis and the Govt has bailed out banks but not corporate America - sure there have been a few high profile corporates aided but it has been Govt helping banks (to help Government). The private corporate sector is about to hiccup and when it does US will fall. Now whilst all the Yanks out here will cry 'foul' it will not stop the failure and mismanagement of their country.

Time will always tell but there has to be a levelling soon and Thailand has the chance - still - to maintain and become a far larger power. Thailand will not be able to stop the strengthening of the Baht against currencies such as the US if the US causes its own crash. So Thailand just has to wear it and look to managing it industrial, manufacturing and agricultural sectors to remain competitive and this would be helped by tax relief (drop VAT for a few years) as the Government continues to ride up on the efforts of others whilst within Government politicians continue to skim from entrepreneurs efforts. It may not be an ideal situation but management by crisis is never a good prediction for any Government and with the examples of the way Thailand is presently run, this may be the only way they know how!

AS I often say - everything will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Edited October 1, 2010 by asiawatcher

[Jose]

Chart of the "rising Baht" against a steady currency.

[Capealava]

"In this changing global landscape, Thailand should be preparing to rely less on external factors by focusing more on the domestic market while the baht continues its upward trend".

The domestic market will never be able to to contribute to Thai markets to the extent that means anything. Wages are so low, 20 % of the population owns 60% of the wealth. The greed of the elite and their lack of investments outside of Bangkok, does not speak well for Thailand. Tell me how a person making 10,000 baht a month or less can purchase anything except the basic necessities of life. The vast majority of Thai's fall into to this wage range. Thailand's policies only continue to hurt the majority of Thai's. Without significant wage increases and more viable jobs throughout Thailand (not just Bangkok) the rich will get richer and the corrupt will flourish.

[Anyse]

Asiawatcher!

I like your analysis. One thing that you must factor in is the overall confidence of Americans in their economy, how it will be saved (or not) and their place in it (maybe non-existant!). The latest news in the Rockwell Report is that the public confidence that any jobs lost in the last 2-3 years will ever be regained again is extremely low. I have spoken with a lot of financial people here and they agree. There are even greater tidings on the burner for the future of Americans and their jobs that are not manual, menial or factory types. We know about the export of jobs from the US to anywhere that will pay less and help to cut the overhead on all things purchasable began years ago. So, steel is gone as well as most jobs that could help to serve the basic needs of business (building materials for homes and office buildings) where most of the jobs were lost in the downturn and the subsequent "created" mortgage crisis in America. Yet, as I have been reading in the New York Times, jobs done by paralegals here in the US are also going to be gone in the not-too-distant future! Yes, what is planned is to export all of that work to India, where people will be trained to fill in the forms and to prepare them to be sent via the internet for use by attorneys. Paralegals here in the US make from $15-75 per hour! There are many as the paperwork is so abundant that it is daunting to see how all of it can be stored in courthouse files for as long as 3-4 years after litigation in criminal as well as civil cases. So, if this happens, there will be a huge loss of jobs not only by paralegals but also legal office staff that will no longer be required to "finish out" the paralegal's work, office copiers may be used even less, paper will not be wasted as much (jobbers in the paper market will be lowered in number), xerox machines may be used less (xerox techs will diminish in numbers) and on and on. The fallout from this, according to the NYT will be dramatic as well as a great casualty in the legal field. So, even paperwork can be moved off shore, costing far less (estimated at close to one-third of costs in a legal office). What is next? Accounting services? Tax preparation? So, as the confidence in the return of lost jobs is not there, there is also a lack of confidence in what jobs will be there in the future. Imagine all of the attorneys who have worked for their J.D. who will be out of work as a result of this as well! Imagine how they will not be able to repay their student loans as a result when they go to work for MacDonald's or WalMart for low-paying unskilled jobs. This will be a mess and, of course, I am sure that other areas will also follow suit.

I like with England did! They would not allow a single job to be lost to foreign competition of off-shore exploitation! They know the value of people working and making good money for the society as a whole as well as for the economy. Why the US does not understand this, I will never know. I am an American and I hate to say it! This country is shameful to me in how business runs everything with profits as obscene as possible overriding the social interests of having a domestic workforce that is skilled, trained and ready should any crisis arise. Imagine what would happen should a "real" war break out! How long would it now take for the manufacturing sector to "ramp up" production to the rate necessary to produce whatever is necessary? I would say, "Too long!" There is no way that any country can rely upon others during any global crisis that may require secrecy as well as the best production oversight to assure that whatever they are using will be reliable or even workable. No, I don't think that there will be a big global war; however, any nation, in order to be truly strong, must have control over all manufacturing and production in order to really survive in a global crisis or a global war. With too many fingers in the pie of manufacturing, it would be too easy to get chips from Korea that may be programatically "tainted" or tampered with. It may be too easy to get metals for protective shielding or the making of a tank or battleship or plane that can experience metal fatigue too quickly to make the manufacture of such equipment unfeasable. On and on . . . The US, with its gunboat dipomacy and lack of control over the manufacturing and business sectors is no longer "strong." It is weak and getting weaker every day with every decision to outsource anything at all so as to keep things "cheaper" and not more "realiable" and "safe."

Well enough of this rambling diatribe. I just hope it makes sense to you out there and that you can break down or build up my thesis here. Thank you for reading.

[Anyse]

Wow! What an eye-opener! I did not realize that, when I was there in 2002, the Thai baht was around 45 to the dollar. I now can see why it would be hard on Thailand to gain more strength in the baht. This would mean that, today, were I to be in Thailand, everything would cost at least 33% more! Thar room that I rented in Patong for $20 per day would now cost me (if the rates weren't raised, which I am sure that they were) would cost close to $27 per night. Some of the meals with some local Thai friends I made there that were about $40 for 6 of us, would now cost about $54. This adds up, doesn't it. Of course, I am calculating with the baht at 30 to the dollar. This would definitely also play havoc on medical vacations as well - a big-ticket item. A breast implant (no I did not have one! LOL!) costing about $2,000 US (90,000 baht) back then would now cost $3400 today and, I know, as I saw the other day, that they are now in the $4-5,000 range and would actually cost $6800-8,500 today. I also looked at some of the room rates there and, of course, in luxury hotels, they charge all too often 2600 baht per night. At 30 baht to the dollar, this would be roughly 90 per night. At 45, it would have been roughly $58. When you add up a couple of weeks of this with everything that is done and/or purchased, it adds up to a nice chunk of change. I can see how some people may cancel their trips or purchases of Thai goods based on this rise in prices alone. However, for a person from a foreign country, working in Thailand at usual Thai rates, this could be a nice way to save a lot of money! So, as an example, this would be an upside for a teacher working and teaching English in Thailand. Gee, I never really thought about any of this until now! I was also in Europe in the summer of 1986 (when they had the "Who Shot JR" posters all over the place here in America as well as everywhere I went in Europe!) and the dollar was super strong (3.6 German Marks, 35 Belgian Francs, 42 French Francs , 2.9 Swiss Francs, I also want to put in the exchange for Dutch Guilders but can't rememer now, but it, too, was phenomenal! I won a lot of money on a slot machine in Amsterdam one night as well!). Now, I am quite sure that my trip would be very expensive today were I to do just as I did there in 1986. The trip was for 7 weeks and cost about $8,000. I am sure that, today, it would be a lot more as there is practically only the Euro to deal with now and no real fluctuations from country to country as there were in 1986. Darn! I want to go back! Could I ever afford it? I don't think so . . .

[mommysboy]

"In this changing global landscape, Thailand should be preparing to rely less on external factors by focusing more on the domestic market while the baht continues its upward trend".

The domestic market will never be able to to contribute to Thai markets to the extent that means anything. Wages are so low, 20 % of the population owns 60% of the wealth. The greed of the elite and their lack of investments outside of Bangkok, does not speak well for Thailand. Tell me how a person making 10,000 baht a month or less can purchase anything except the basic necessities of life. The vast majority of Thai's fall into to this wage range. Thailand's policies only continue to hurt the majority of Thai's. Without significant wage increases and more viable jobs throughout Thailand (not just Bangkok) the rich will get richer and the corrupt will flourish.

I agree, economies can actually get along quite nicely without high exports, but seemingly not Thailand. It must be that the average Somchai simply does not have baht in his pocket. Then there's public investment in people and infrastructure, or rather the lack of!

So how should Thailand cope: forget currency pegs, they never work and it needs to be accepted that exports will suffer badly both because of reduced global demand and an overvalued currency. So the only way forward will be by developing the domestic economy. That won't be easy, Thailand does not have a debt problem like USA, but it still has one of sorts, and further borrowing will put it in the same league as many Eurtopean countries in terms of public debt. Also, it may just be my prejudice, but these people really don't like to invest their own money, is that right?

[Tagaa]

I believe the world banks and governments who have been propping up their own cronies are only paving the way for a huge crash and the US is well overdue. My last assessment of the US some years ago showed they had 13 trillion in GDP and 11 trillion in debt. But they had not taken into account retirement and the 401k and medical debt situation and that pushed consolidated debt to 19+trillion meaning the US was unable to meet commitments and was technically bankrupt back then! Now we have the so called financial crisis and the Govt has bailed out banks but not corporate America - sure there have been a few high profile corporates aided but it has been Govt helping banks (to help Government). The private corporate sector is about to hiccup and when it does US will fall. Now whilst all the Yanks out here will cry 'foul' it will not stop the failure and mismanagement of their country.

Why would we cry foul? This mismanagement is why I am here. In 2007 sold EVERYTHING I had in the US & moved ALL of my dollars out of the country & converted to other currencies. If a not so smart guy as me could see it, why couldn't all the PHD's of Economics in the world see it coming.

The mismanagement started with FDR & the country has been on a downward slide ever since. The Democrats have been leading the charge and the Republicans have been objecting in public & slapping the Dems on the back behind closed doors ever since..

Until the US Congress drastically cuts entitlement programs (which will never happen) the problems will only get worse. The US is doomed to go the way of ancient Greece, Rome & that empire of yore that the sun never set on.

[moggoid]

It was stated in the article that;

Now the Fed, with signs of a continuing deflationary trend, plans to roll out its big gun to print another US$3 trillion over the next six months. The consequence of this will be to drive up the value of the dollar and push the interest rate down even further.

This is not correct...If the Fed indulges in qualitative easing, or printing the dollar, it devalues the currency and drives down the value, as it will purchase less in an inflationary environment.

The other thing I guess could be just be language, but printing the dollar will not drive interest rates down, lack of economic activity, and the need to keep interest repayment lower to avoid foreclosures will have the FED looking to lower interest rates.

[damian7000]

I believe the world banks and governments who have been propping up their own cronies are only paving the way for a huge crash and the US is well overdue. My last assessment of the US some years ago showed they had 13 trillion in GDP and 11 trillion in debt. But they had not taken into account retirement and the 401k and medical debt situation and that pushed consolidated debt to 19+trillion meaning the US was unable to meet commitments and was technically bankrupt back then! Now we have the so called financial crisis and the Govt has bailed out banks but not corporate America - sure there have been a few high profile corporates aided but it has been Govt helping banks (to help Government). The private corporate sector is about to hiccup and when it does US will fall. Now whilst all the Yanks out here will cry 'foul' it will not stop the failure and mismanagement of their country.

Why would we cry foul? This mismanagement is why I am here. In 2007 sold EVERYTHING I had in the US & moved ALL of my dollars out of the country & converted to other currencies. If a not so smart guy as me could see it, why couldn't all the PHD's of Economics in the world see it coming.

The mismanagement started with FDR & the country has been on a downward slide ever since. The Democrats have been leading the charge and the Republicans have been objecting in public & slapping the Dems on the back behind closed doors ever since..

Until the US Congress drastically cuts entitlement programs (which will never happen) the problems will only get worse. The US is doomed to go the way of ancient Greece, Rome & that empire of yore that the sun never set on.

republicans have been running the country for 19 out of the last 25 years. bush is the one that lead america and the rest of the western world into it's current fiasco. the current admin came into a complete cluster frag caused by the previous 8 years of mismanagement.

[lounger]

To get back to the subject ( the Thai Baht) I, like all who have to buy baht, have been concerned about the ecurity of the currency.On the face of it I/we should be buying trunk loads of baht and save ourselves the pain of it strengthening. But is there a likelyhood that Thailand will follow Vietnam and devalue?

[cloudhopper]

To get back to the subject ( the Thai Baht) I, like all who have to buy baht, have been concerned about the ecurity of the currency.On the face of it I/we should be buying trunk loads of baht and save ourselves the pain of it strengthening. But is there a likelyhood that Thailand will follow Vietnam and devalue?

How would Thailand "devalue" ?

[cloudhopper]

From the article - "The consequence of this will be to drive up the value of the dollar and push the interest rate down even further. Lower interest rates would relieve the problems in the housing market."

Both statements are counterfactual.

[lee68]

Have you been to England lately? more eastern Europeans working there now than brits! thats the governments fault for opening the doors to immigration and letting anybody in.

Asiawatcher!

I like your analysis. One thing that you must factor in is the overall confidence of Americans in their economy, how it will be saved (or not) and their place in it (maybe non-existant!). The latest news in the Rockwell Report is that the public confidence that any jobs lost in the last 2-3 years will ever be regained again is extremely low. I have spoken with a lot of financial people here and they agree. There are even greater tidings on the burner for the future of Americans and their jobs that are not manual, menial or factory types. We know about the export of jobs from the US to anywhere that will pay less and help to cut the overhead on all things purchasable began years ago. So, steel is gone as well as most jobs that could help to serve the basic needs of business (building materials for homes and office buildings) where most of the jobs were lost in the downturn and the subsequent "created" mortgage crisis in America. Yet, as I have been reading in the New York Times, jobs done by paralegals here in the US are also going to be gone in the not-too-distant future! Yes, what is planned is to export all of that work to India, where people will be trained to fill in the forms and to prepare them to be sent via the internet for use by attorneys. Paralegals here in the US make from $15-75 per hour! There are many as the paperwork is so abundant that it is daunting to see how all of it can be stored in courthouse files for as long as 3-4 years after litigation in criminal as well as civil cases. So, if this happens, there will be a huge loss of jobs not only by paralegals but also legal office staff that will no longer be required to "finish out" the paralegal's work, office copiers may be used even less, paper will not be wasted as much (jobbers in the paper market will be lowered in number), xerox machines may be used less (xerox techs will diminish in numbers) and on and on. The fallout from this, according to the NYT will be dramatic as well as a great casualty in the legal field. So, even paperwork can be moved off shore, costing far less (estimated at close to one-third of costs in a legal office). What is next? Accounting services? Tax preparation? So, as the confidence in the return of lost jobs is not there, there is also a lack of confidence in what jobs will be there in the future. Imagine all of the attorneys who have worked for their J.D. who will be out of work as a result of this as well! Imagine how they will not be able to repay their student loans as a result when they go to work for MacDonald's or WalMart for low-paying unskilled jobs. This will be a mess and, of course, I am sure that other areas will also follow suit.

I like with England did! They would not allow a single job to be lost to foreign competition of off-shore exploitation! They know the value of people working and making good money for the society as a whole as well as for the economy. Why the US does not understand this, I will never know. I am an American and I hate to say it! This country is shameful to me in how business runs everything with profits as obscene as possible overriding the social interests of having a domestic workforce that is skilled, trained and ready should any crisis arise. Imagine what would happen should a "real" war break out! How long would it now take for the manufacturing sector to "ramp up" production to the rate necessary to produce whatever is necessary? I would say, "Too long!" There is no way that any country can rely upon others during any global crisis that may require secrecy as well as the best production oversight to assure that whatever they are using will be reliable or even workable. No, I don't think that there will be a big global war; however, any nation, in order to be truly strong, must have control over all manufacturing and production in order to really survive in a global crisis or a global war. With too many fingers in the pie of manufacturing, it would be too easy to get chips from Korea that may be programatically "tainted" or tampered with. It may be too easy to get metals for protective shielding or the making of a tank or battleship or plane that can experience metal fatigue too quickly to make the manufacture of such equipment unfeasable. On and on . . . The US, with its gunboat dipomacy and lack of control over the manufacturing and business sectors is no longer "strong." It is weak and getting weaker every day with every decision to outsource anything at all so as to keep things "cheaper" and not more "realiable" and "safe."

Well enough of this rambling diatribe. I just hope it makes sense to you out there and that you can break down or build up my thesis here. Thank you for reading.

[rametindallas]

"We are indeed in the middle of a currency war. The United States, Europe and Japan - the Group of 3 - are suffering from stagnant growth."

Let's toss in a little cause & effect analysis here to keep the perspective .....

The US, Europe and Japan are not "suffering from stagnant growth." The people are suffering from excessive government intervention, regulation and taxation which places them into the bondage of stagnant growth, as a result of lost business, lost jobs and at least in the US, one's rights to liberty and property.

Thailand can do a lot to respond to the challenge of a rising baht. They can reduce taxes and corruption which cause increased costs of getting products to market, which in turn can offset the prices that need to be charged on exported goods.

They can petition the US, European and Japanese governments to get their fiscal shit together. They can petition the governments of nations to which Thai businesses export, to reduce or eliminate import duties, taxes and other tariffs, which in turn cause high prices and reduced demand.

It's a huge problem not because of the complexity, for surely the causes are well known. The problem lies in the magnitude, the sheer size of the problem. And there's only one way to tackle a large problem, a little bit at a time. But one little step after another is far better than doing nothing at all.

I concur

[Spee]

republicans have been running the country for 19 out of the last 25 years. bush is the one that lead america and the rest of the western world into it's current fiasco. the current admin came into a complete cluster frag caused by the previous 8 years of mismanagement.

Methinks your opinion is an inaccurate as that bit in the article about pushing up the value of the dollar by printing more of them. We have the current economic crisis because of excessive government spending and other financial mismanagement, not because of falsely propagandized problems with market economics, business investment, research ingenuity and worker production.

Here is one reason key reason why. All US spending legislation originates in the House of Representatives. The House has been Democrat party controlled for 38 of the past 50 years, including most of the last four. The greatest economic boom in world history occurred during the 13 years the Repubs controlled the House purse strings. All of the periods of great economic misery, including the current one which isn't close to being over, have occurred during the Dems watch. Seems like clear trends to me.

The US dollar is in the toilet, and dropping like a stone against the Thai baht because of excessive government mismanagement, and it is fairly obvious who has been and continues to do a big chunk of that mismanagement. The Thai government should be trying to help the US get Pelosi and her cronies tossed out of office in November. That will sow the seeds of a new economic upturn.

[harrypatterson]

How can one say the US financial problem is caused by govt. regulation and intervention.. I think it is caused by the opposite. The govt. should have got involved in trying to prevent his problem but did nothing. it is pointless to blame republicans or democrats. They are all equally guilty. The real cause of all the mess is greed. Greed of bankers, corporations and the consumers themselves. This is true in US, Europe, and I believe will have the same outcome in China, Thailand and everywhere else. If everyone would strive for what they really practically need and can realistically afford, economies will run fine. But when everyone tries to grab as much as possible, with no thought for the future consequences and no consideration of their fellow man, then this financial crash is inevitable, everywhere.

[Spee]

The real cause of all the mess is greed. Greed of bankers, corporations and the consumers themselves.

Sources? Evidence? Proof?

And what about the greed of government .... the greed to sieze some, most or all of a person's property whether through taxation or siezure? Several years ago, the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe siezed all of the country's private wealth by force. Look what has happened since then ... death, destruction, misery and unmitigated economic disaster .... nothing else.

If everyone would strive for what they really practically need and can realistically afford, economies will run fine.

Do you really understand what is meant by universal unalienable rights to freedom, liberty and property? What place is it of some government, you or anyone else to determine what me or anyone else in this world "really practically need and can realistically afford?"

This cosmic utopia you seek can only happen when someone or something exists for the sole purpose of determining what people "really practically need and can realistically afford" and of course has the will and power to enforce such draconian and tyrannical sets of rules. We already have far too much evidence of these "utopias" in places like Cuba, Zimbabwe, Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Myanmar and Venezuela.

[Jimi007]

The real cause of all the mess is greed. Greed of bankers, corporations and the consumers themselves.

Sources? Evidence? Proof?

Hum, common sense?

[moe666]

"We are indeed in the middle of a currency war. The United States, Europe and Japan - the Group of 3 - are suffering from stagnant growth."

Let's toss in a little cause & effect analysis here to keep the perspective .....

The US, Europe and Japan are not "suffering from stagnant growth." The people are suffering from excessive government intervention, regulation and taxation which places them into the bondage of stagnant growth, as a result of lost business, lost jobs and at least in the US, one's rights to liberty and property.

Thailand can do a lot to respond to the challenge of a rising baht. They can reduce taxes and corruption which cause increased costs of getting products to market, which in turn can offset the prices that need to be charged on exported goods.

They can petition the US, European and Japanese governments to get their fiscal shit together. They can petition the governments of nations to which Thai businesses export, to reduce or eliminate import duties, taxes and other tariffs, which in turn cause high prices and reduced demand.

It's a huge problem not because of the complexity, for surely the causes are well known. The problem lies in the magnitude, the sheer size of the problem. And there's only one way to tackle a large problem, a little bit at a time. But one little step after another is far better than doing nothing at all.

Sorry to disappoint but haven't lost any property or liberty lately.