Thai Govt Price Claims Ignore Key Goods

[siampolee]

Fortunately poor Thais don't have credit cards or the shit would really hit the fan.

True but there is the convenience of the local money lenders at the rate of 15% to 20% per month ,the repayments being collected on a daily basis.

Regarding the clothing matter you wil find that many of the locals will buy from the old fashioned, ''tally man,'' normally of Indian extraction who peddles his range of wares around the area. Again payments are on a daily basis,often clothes are given by the company the people work for as well as hand me downs form other family members.

Cars and motor cycles are often paid of by the concentrated efforts of all the family members contributing to the monthly payments, likewise the other big ticket items too.

There are other family members one may not see often who send money back home on a regular basis too.

You may not be aware of the fact that the Mom and Pop shops do run a strict credit system, don't keep the payments going you're on the stop list..

Remember too that people who work for large companies do in fact often receive large bonus payments once a year often enough to pay for a motorcycle outright, or furnish the down payment on a car which can be financed over as long as 7 years.

Looking in from the outside through the curtains only gives a small insight into what the financial situation really is.

As my grandmother used to say when walking round her village, ''It's all lace curtains and no knickers in that house.''

Being the matriarch of the local squires family she knew all that went on, unlike we farangs here.

Edited April 11, 2012 by siampolee

[hellodolly]

Fortunately poor Thais don't have credit cards or the shit would really hit the fan.

True but there is the convenience of the local money lenders at the rate of 15% to 20% per month ,the repayments being collected on a daily basis.

Regarding the clothing matter you wil find that many of the locals will buy from the old fashioned, ''tally man,'' normally of Indian extraction who peddles his range of wares around the area. Again payments are on a daily basis,often clothes are given by the company the people work for as well as hand me downs form other family members.

Cars and motor cycles are often paid of by the concentrated efforts of all the family members contributing to the monthly payments, likewise the other big ticket items too.

There are other family members one may not see often who send money back home on a regular basis too.

You may not be aware of the fact that the Mom and Pop shops do run a strict credit system, don't keep the payments going you're on the stop list..

Remember too that people who work for large companies do in fact often receive large bonus payments once a year often enough to pay for a motorcycle outright, or furnish the down payment on a car which can be financed over as long as 7 years.

Looking in from the outside through the curtains only gives a small insight into what the financial situation really is.

As my grandmother used to say when walking round her village, ''It's all lace curtains and no knickers in that house.''

Being the matriarch of the local squires family she knew all that went on, unlike we farangs here.

Right on.

I went to a friends wedding in his wife's village in Issan. I did not see cars and motor bikes parked all over the streets. There is only one road through the village and they blocked it off for the festivities. There was one other back road to get through town on and the village store would not last a week if they did not receive payment.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

Now go to ASDA or Tesco and do the same. Actually tuna is a bad example, part of the increase is due to rapidly depleting stocks.

Actually that's the fundamental problem with rising commodity prices worldwide. As the population of the developing world can afford to buy more "higher-level" food and other goods, they are competing with the former developed-world-only consumers for either the same or in many cases, lower quantities of goods.

This is good for those producing those commodities, but bad for consumers generally, especially those for whom real income is flat or even declining.

Plus futures markets have been expanding in to more and more basic commodity markets, so speculation has also contributed to the worldwide trend.

Both individual families and countries have to figure out how to both increase their productive value and reduce their expectations for the future.

Most Thais are actually quite conservative in their diets, they have allowed themselves to become dependent on a limited range of foods, particularly poor Thais. Thus when there is a price increase in these "basic" foods they can visualise no alternatives.

Believe me "most Thais" are already eating the cheapest available choices, and do very much vary their diet by what's in season. I know my own house hasn't bought lemons for two months now, they used to come down to 80B/100 bag every few weeks, but lately haven't dropped below 4-5B per lemon.

And it used to be a lot easier for the subsistence upcountry farmer when they could get fish out of the streams/irrigation ditches, frogs, birds, snakes grubs etc were plentiful. Now with chemical-based farming nearly all their food has to be purchased with scarce cash. . .