The misconception is about time. The supply shocks of the floods, unusually hot weather affecting crops & high oil prices have decreased short-run aggregate supply causing an increase in prices. Once the effects of these have eased so will prices. If oil prices do not ease then the problem remains, but it has nothing to do with the current government.

The misconception is about time. The supply shocks of the floods, unusually hot weather affecting crops & high oil prices have decreased short-run aggregate supply causing an increase in prices. Once the effects of these have eased so will prices. If oil prices do not ease then the problem remains, but it has nothing to do with the current government.

The pickup I bought 5 years ago that cost 600,000 baht now costs 1m baht. I think this gives a very good idea how much the cost of living has increased in Thailand over this period.

I think there is a cultural point here. Thais don't know how to manage costs well and make cost savings where possible to manage a budget. Instead they just let costs spiral which leads to huge inflation.

Thailand becomes so expensive now that I cannot afford to take time off in Thailand like I used to. My feeling is that it will continue like this until something gives; probably another market crash like in 1997. Its only a matter of time if the economy continues to be badly mismanaged.

The misconception is about time. The supply shocks of the floods, unusually hot weather affecting crops & high oil prices have decreased short-run aggregate supply causing an increase in prices. Once the effects of these have eased so will prices. If oil prices do not ease then the problem remains, but it has nothing to do with the current government.

Wow, what an educated, detailed & thoughtful response. Those intellectually incapable of debating the issues resort to childish smileys.

The misconception is about time. The supply shocks of the floods, unusually hot weather affecting crops & high oil prices have decreased short-run aggregate supply causing an increase in prices. Once the effects of these have eased so will prices. If oil prices do not ease then the problem remains, but it has nothing to do with the current government.

Wow, what an educated, detailed & thoughtful response. Those intellectually incapable of debating the issues resort to childish smileys.

the debate is about the foxy lady in charge of guarding the hen house and her government giving out Minitrue type fantasy statements to the plebs ...that is what is laughable .. a satangs' worth of economic forecast and perceived government culpability from Economics or MBA majors, though interesting, is somewhat superfluous...

I actually agree with her. The high inflation numbers are indeed a misconception. The price of perfumes, tablet pc's from China (lol), expensive watches, airfares to the Maldives, visits to Angkor Wat, tickets for the Manchester derby, Burberry items have indeed never been cheaper for Thais. Also the fact that a lot of food items have doubled in price, or 30% up, is just not true. You just get 2 pound instead of 1 kilogram, beer and water is served and sold in smaller bottles (as if we didn't notice!), and even a nice portion of noodle soup is not what it used to be, I mean where is the red pork?

The price of the chocolate bar doesn't go higher, but the chocolate bar gets smaller. The cereal is the same price price, but the box is a little smaller and the "net" weight gets lower. The doughnut gets smaller and the whole gets bigger. Pretty soon we won't have to bring our own vaseline, the whole will get so big we will just fall through.

The misconception is about time. The supply shocks of the floods, unusually hot weather affecting crops & high oil prices have decreased short-run aggregate supply causing an increase in prices. Once the effects of these have eased so will prices. If oil prices do not ease then the problem remains, but it has nothing to do with the current government.

So you agree that she's wrong. Prices ARE rising.

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It would be very useful to know where all this unbudgeted money is coming from?

It would be very useful to know where all this unbudgeted money is coming from?

Didn't they budget 180 billion baht for "other things"?

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Reading this article reminds me of the children's fable concerning the King's new clothes, To just talk perception, her survey says eggs are less than 3 Baht a piece where I buy my eggs,(Tesco Lotus) eggs are 45 to 47 Baht for 10 that makes them 4.5 + per egg. Limes 7 to 10 Baht a piece???? bottled water up 60%. Last year I paid 10 Baht for 20 liters today it costs me 16 Baht.

The everyday items are up,up,up. The P.M. just needs to face reality and quite trying to spin everything with her "Red" tinted glasses.

I'm paying 80bht for a tray of 30 eggs.

Water still 1/2bht per liter from the osmosis machine around the corner.

Special offer 5kg of rice is 89bht, the cheapest I have ever seen it, previously 99bht.

Tesco has become very expensive ....... so shop elsewhere.

Petrol has increased by 30% though.

The other newspaper has a good article about rising costs in the fast food industry. Strange how the PM can say it's not happening when local businesses are all saying they are increasing their prices due to increases in raw materials????

I'm not sure what size eggs we get, but our eggs are 105 Baht/tray,

I'm not sure what size eggs we get, but our eggs are 105 Baht/tray,

Class 1 (largest) are 87bht where I buy. Look elsewhere for your eggs.

I'm not sure what size eggs we get, but our eggs are 105 Baht/tray,

Class 1 (largest) are 87bht where I buy. Look elsewhere for your eggs.

Not that easy in the sticks, nearest supermarket is a 70km round trip.

I'm not sure what size eggs we get, but our eggs are 105 Baht/tray,

Sounds like you've been sold the high end Parrot eggs. They look nice but are useless.

The misconception is about time. The supply shocks of the floods, unusually hot weather affecting crops & high oil prices have decreased short-run aggregate supply causing an increase in prices. Once the effects of these have eased so will prices. If oil prices do not ease then the problem remains, but it has nothing to do with the current government.

You have a valid point here; except for the excessively expensive populist policies, that will increase prices even more in the near future, she cannot control the world oil prices. What is interesting here is that she treats here 'peuple' as retards and is clearly referring to cooked up inflation statistics.

The last thing this government want is to upset the grassroots, their voters base, as it would endanger their ultimate election goal, which of course is the return of her darling brother.

I'll stand in while he's away at the Hitler Youth camp.

This is a politically motivated story pushed by the criminally negligent editorial staff of the world's worst coupist newspaper. Inflation was much higher under the Dems inferior economic management and had the army not illegally coupist thrown coupist the democraticaly coupist government out, we would all be living in Nirvana right now.

I think you threw in a bit of Calgaryll.

I miss CalgaryII, a bit like going to the range at the gun club every week

But getting a much higher level of gastric reflux per visitation.

The other newspaper has a good article about rising costs in the fast food industry. Strange how the PM can say it's not happening when local businesses are all saying they are increasing their prices due to increases in raw materials????

The other newspaper has a good article about rising costs in the fast food industry. Strange how the PM can say it's not happening when local businesses are all saying they are increasing their prices due to increases in raw materials????

Not really strange:

• She is on an expense account.

• Her shopping is done for her.

• She never fills up herself at the gas pump.

• House husband pays the bills, she's too busy.

• And she is handed a script to stay on message.

Of course she is out of touch with the day to day lot common Thai,

she is a multi-billionariess.

They whined about Abhisit sounding 'too HiSo because of his educated accent',

but regardless of how she talks, she is so far removed economically from

the average Kuhn Somchai, that she only knows their life from pictures,

and PTP staged photo ops.

Why would she know about prices, except as a line item on her speech list?

On weekly TV show, PM vows to tackle high consumer prices, increase household income; energy prices adjusted in accordance with world market mechanism /MCOT

Why would they need to tackle high prices if they are already going down?

She's forgotten the important one.

Beer. Up from 26B to 31B in the last 7 months. 19% increase.

The misconception is about time. The supply shocks of the floods, unusually hot weather affecting crops & high oil prices have decreased short-run aggregate supply causing an increase in prices. Once the effects of these have eased so will prices. If oil prices do not ease then the problem remains, but it has nothing to do with the current government.

Self-deception vis a vis misconception is a misdepeception of perception.

I wonder if she'd say the price of going siam to bang chak on the bts with a smartpass has also gone down (despite the fact that it has risen from ~20 to 35 baht). I think I understand, I am paying 75% more just for living one stop past on nut, but in reality it is just me misconstruing the overall figures.

That can't be true, Yingluck promised a 20 Baht flat rate for the Bangkok MRT and BTS as part of her election campaign.

To be clear, to who-ever of the fellows above that stated that Tesco was more expensive but not elsewhere - the prices at the local outside market of meat and vegetables are clearly higher.

So one get 'hit' there too, even if I prefer to shop at Tesco or Big C.

I wonder if she'd say the price of going siam to bang chak on the bts with a smartpass has also gone down (despite the fact that it has risen from ~20 to 35 baht). I think I understand, I am paying 75% more just for living one stop past on nut, but in reality it is just me misconstruing the overall figures.

That can't be true, Yingluck promised a 20 Baht flat rate for the Bangkok MRT and BTS as part of her election campaign.

The 20 baht flat rate was only when 10 transit lines were completed, and there was only a promise to get the contracts signed for the new lines by the next election, which means that the earliest that the 20 baht flat rate would apply would be about 2020 (more likely 2025).

I notice the prices are a lot cheaper in areas where there are less farangs. That would obviously skew some of the opinion here. Buying some fruit or a street food dish, you can see up to a 50% decrease simply going from on nut to say udom suk. Unfortunately, many Thais are "stuck" in there areas with growing farang populations.

I notice the prices are a lot cheaper in areas where there are less farangs. That would obviously skew some of the opinion here. Buying some fruit or a street food dish, you can see up to a 50% decrease simply going from on nut to say udom suk. Unfortunately, many Thais are "stuck" in there areas with growing farang populations.

Nonsense, this article isn't about prices in general being higher but the prices increasing.

I live in an area with absolutely mostly Thai people and the price increase is clear for everyone around me.

This government can't deny responsibility for rising fuel prices, screwing the Oil Fund was their first act upon taking the office.

Back then, when world oil price was cheap, they decided to cut contributions to Oil Fund traditionally used to stabilize local prices in the future, they put the Find in red when it was supposed to be collecting money for "rainy" months like this.

They had completely overwritten country's long standing fuel price policies and messed with fuel taxes. Some of it was subsequently rolled back but the part where they now don't have funds to keep local prices stable in times of world volatility is there to bite them on the ass.

Anyone remember the reason cited by Yingluck for dropping oil fund contributions and reducing local prices when they were cheap on the world market, too? To say thank you to her red supporters.

They got what they have voted for.

I'm not sure what size eggs we get, but our eggs are 105 Baht/tray,

Class 1 (largest) are 87bht where I buy. Look elsewhere for your eggs.

Not that easy in the sticks, nearest supermarket is a 70km round trip.

I live about 65km from my nearest supermarket (BigC, Makro etc) in Khampaeng Phet but I mainly use it for bulk shopping of toilet rolls, laundry products and most other consumeables but for fresh food which we mainly eat we go to the local markets 3 times a week, Monday afternoon, Wednesday morning and Saturday afternoon and yes the prices are higher there as well.

The difference is that I pay the same price as the local Thais and most of the stalls have their prices marked out for all to see.

The ministry of commerce is saying prices are rising but Yingluck is saying they are falling.

Maybe Yingluck should talk to her ministers occasionally.

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Maybe, Ms. Yingluck should do some shopping for essentials at the nearest BigC or Tesco rather than going to Emporium for her weekly clothes-shopping tour.

Yingluck: Product prices on downward trend

BANGKOK, 5 May 2012 (NNT) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has asked the public to remain confident in the government’s effort to bring prices of consumer goods down thanks to signs that prices at upstream areas are on a downward trend.

In the government weekly talk show, Yingluck admitted that product prices in midstream and downstream areas were still high as operation costs had not gone down in accordance with the drop in raw material costs. However, the premier affirmed that all related agencies were working hard to keep the prices affordable.

Chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce Olarn Chaipravat who joined this Saturday talk show disclosed that weather and global oil prices had strong influence on the economic growth. Unfavorable weather and high oil prices may push the inflation rate up to five percent. If the two factors are favorable to the country, the inflation rate could lower to two percent.

Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom also confirmed that the Commerce Ministry did carry out inspection of markets. The survey has shown that fresh food prices are declining.

The Commerce Ministry has targeted the inflation rate at 3.8 percent this year.

-- NNT 2012-05-05