Thaksin Boasts Tremendous Successes During Five-year Rule

[ColPyat]

you could argue that making consumer credit available to farmers is bad thing, you could also argue that farmers have no right to own a pick-up and t.v. because they wouldnt know how to pay for it. these are not issues i'm ready to argue because there will be no end to it.

Only that this is one of the issues where present government has not just completely failed, but has also set the stage for a future catastrophy. I am sorry, but in a country with 50% plus of the population being those farmers that is the PRIME ISSUE to argue about.

Nobody in his right mind tries to deny those farmers owning "a pick up truck and TV", and other benefits of modern life. Only that those things have to come from the results of socio-economically sound policies and NOT from populistic easy loan schemes that the government/tax payer has to finance in the end.

I don't really want to repeat myself, so i wish you would go back a few posts of mine where i have written about some of the agricultural scemes and their grave shortcomings, read them, and answer on them, please.

You may not like to argue those issues. Nevertheless, those are the issues where Thaksin' mismanagement will have the most dire consequences in the future.

[dan10400]

Have you ever wondered why under this government, not a single track for any new mass transit projects in the city has been laid (the subway that opened in '04 doesn't count, it was started in '99 by the PREVIOUS government)? They've had 5 years in power, and Bangkok traffic just keeps getting worse, but the Suriya and Pongsak factions can never seem to agree on a plan! Just today, the government missed an important deadline for delivering the TOR for the new lines that will be part of the "mega-projects". So much for "decisive leadership".

You certainly have a point with the factions game... But there is another factor to explain this amazing standstill : no cash, no money.

That's the main issue : the gvt is unable to finance its grandiose "1500 billions THB" investment master plan to create "hundreds kilometers" of train, subway, skytrain lines...

The whole issue is flawed. And the deadline of april to get all the nice and sweet foreigns companies to present their projects is a non sense.

have to wonder about what other than 'nationalistic pride' was the

real benefit if paying off the IMF loans early. especially if some of

these infrastructure projects were started in a timely fashion.

surely the loan terms of the IMF would be better than that provided

by a consortium of banks (unless of course it is easier to default on

a consortium of banks than the IMF...).

[haha]

my 2 cents...

a lot of people here like to complain about things in this country. but few propose constructive solutions to the problems.

all people seem to be focus on is getting rid of the pm. with no thought as to what to do next.

many of the problems currently existing are due to the forces beyond the control of the pm. he is just trying his best to deal with them.

you mock the 30 baht medical plan, and the loan programs to farmers. yet, weren't these programs approved by a group of politicians? pm thaksin is just one man, right?

people should be united in discovering solutions to the problems instead of whining constantly.

...might I suggest people start thinking of ways to bring in more foreign investors?

and some more thought be put into the question, "why are so many thais so paranoid about being conquered or controlled by foreigners?"

as I see it, this singapore deal was a great boom to thailand. more money coming into the country to the benefit of the country overall. frankly, more deals like this would help put this country above third world status.

it worked for china and india.

yeah. I hear you guys in the back... china is in a bubble. that may be true. and yes, they may fall in their attempts at prosperity. but I would argue their journey towards prosperity now is better than their previous preoccupation with starvation, and isolation from the rest of the world.

[thedude]

Wasn't he the guy who claimed he could solve Bangkok's trffic congestion in 3 months?

No comment necessary...

In 2003 he declared Thailand would be drug-free at the end of the year.

Result: around 2000 killed without arrest or trial, prices have gone up dramatically. I do believe there are less illegal drugs consumed in LOS now, though I haven't come across any figures or stats at all...

These are just the most annoying claims I remember.

There were far more killed than 2000, the government only stopped giving out numbers after the 1st month. the killings went on for a bit more than one more month untlil the national human rights commission started making a big stink.

The drugs, especially amphetamines are back again. Not as bad as before, but give it time. You can get them almost anywhere again. During the height of the drugwar a pill went up from around 40 to 50 baht to almost 400 baht in Bangkok, up to a 1000 upcountry. Now the street price per pill is about 200 baht, upcountry between 300 and 500 baht.

Additionally the last three years since the drug war Thailand has seen a tremendous rise in violent crime. In most industrial suburbs of Bangkok gang violence is out of hand.

Cost of basic necessities such as food has almost doubled since Thaksins rule, which somehow relativises alleged rise of income.

Per household debt has increased from 20 000 baht to 100 000 baht (according to the statistics i have read). A recent study in 20 something changwats out of 76 in Thailand has shown that 54 percent of the people who took advantage the easy loans can not pay them back. In none of the loan schemes sound economical advice was given before handing out the loan, neither did farmers have to present a proper business plan.

Thaksin has changed the law that landowners with sor por kor 401 papers (originally reserved for the poor, depending on area, but generally maximum of 50 rai per person. Well, as long as you are not a well connected politician/businessman, then you can hold 10 000s of rai) can now use their land as collateral for loans. Expect to see as a future result massive reposession of land.

Large scale agricultural schemes such as the rubber scheme in the north have failed, or are in the process to fail. Thaksin has promised that theat the moment high rubber prices will not fall, which is a blatant lie as rubber is a world market commodity, and momentary high prices are because of the demand in china. It is well known that at the moment cash rich china is buying more than it can consume. And china's economical future is far from certain. Also many areas in the north where rubber planting is heavily promoted simply do not have enough water. Other than Thaksin's promises there is nothing that protects especially small scale farmers from the losses in case of failure.

See more of that with the cow scheme...

Just another form of bubble economy - massive short term gains for a few, huge long term losses that the next after-crises government has to deal with.

Sorry Colpyat, i didn't mean to ignore your post, i have been inundated with responses and had little time to answer everyone.

Regarding drug deaths...try as i do, i am limited in the sympathy and outrage i can summon. And those in the trade can continue slaughtering each other for all i care. Remember that innocent lives were saved too. I remember a time when drugs were so popular, the only way to avoid them is to lock your kids at home. How many thousand young lives were saved by the inaccesibility of drugs these past 2 years? no one knows. Having said that, the government should understand that the war on drugs is an ongoing campaign beyond the deployment of bullets. Following the big cleanup, they need to continually fund public education, have outreach programs for addicts, improve border controls, control venues where the drugs are distributed. They have taken a hard line by shutting down early some venues where control is an issue, good on them.

i'm not aware of the changing of the sor por kor 401 rules. but why should poor land owners be shielded from mortgaging their land? they have a right to raise money with their assets like anyone else. i think the danger is in being cheated of their land or perhaps in the owner not understanding the nature of the risks involved in mortgages. but is this a public education issue which i think needs urgent attention. perhaps some poor owners will be burnt before society learns to deal with it. also, banks are not stupid, if they expect a high default rate, they will charge a very high interest, in the end, everyone will need to do the sums and weigh their risks, this is not free money. i think the principle behind it is good, people who cannot generate value out of the land may use its value for other purposes. in case you haven't noticed, thailand has some of the most inefficient urban landscapes in the world. this is because so much of the land is illiquid, you get massive populations stuck in traffic jams in urban environments where empty land can be seen everywhere. i know that the land liquidity issue is due mainly to rich landowners not being taxed for their land holdings (the government has been talking about a land tax for years without result), but i suppose this also helps in its small way.

regarding the costs of food items doubling, i think it was due to the dual effect of the drought as well as the high oil prices, which drove storage and transpotation costs through the roof. as far as i know, thaksin was not responsible for the droughts, nor the high oil prices.

regarding the farm credit issue, in the end, if millions of farmers are unable to pay off their debts, i think it will be a banking crisis and the millions of affected farmers will vote the government out of office. more likely, the government will sweep them under the carpet. thailand's poor farmers deserve access to capital like everyone else. do you honestly think large agricultural organisations will help these farmers get rich anytime soon? thailand is one of the biggest exporters of rice in the world. i think thai rice is the best rice the world has. how many millionaire rice farmers do you know?

i'm not informed about the large scale agri schemes or about the rubber scheme so i cannot comment on it. by the way i am interested to read that you have a somewhat bleak outlook on china's economic prospects. what is your prognosis?

Edited February 17, 2006 by thedude

[ColPyat]

The theory behind the drugwar was that at the same time the trade was punished heavily, consumption began to be decriminalised. Reality though was that Thai specifics were completely ignored. The Thai drug trade was pyramidically - the most visible dealers were the heaviest addicts. Those who should have benefitted from ptograms were the majority of the murdered.

So far not one single death in the drugwar has been properly investigated. Innocent bystanders were regularly put into danger, such as my wife who had the misfortune to witness one assassination by police officers.

The second problem was that police officers were/still are heavily involved in the trade. Some of Thaksin's most favoured officers are well know to be drug dealers themselves.

Nobody in his right mind denies that Thailand had (still has) a huge drug problem, but the root causes were not touched. That is why the drugs are coming back heavily.

It's not only a question of compassion, but about the rule of law. There is no law that allows deathsquads to kill alleged drudealers. The only precedent the drug war killings have set was that violence is acceptable (see how the poster named "Heng" argues...).

Regarding the change of the sor por kor 401 rules. Problem is that it is too late now to educate the farmers about proper investment. The loans have been given already, the money has been spent. We own a farm with sor por kor 401 papers. The days when the huge loans were given almost everybody in the village took up the opportunity. They came to our house every month for over a year trying to persuade us taking up the offers. No business plan was required, no advice was given, just stupid amounts of money were given out. We were offered more than 100K Baht loans on a selfsufficiuent farm worth on paper 400K, that just maked enough money so they inhabitants can survive. There is no way that this loan could have been paid back.

It sounds nice to give poor farmers access to loans, only that the money management skills are almost non-existent. You can't repair the damage of 40 years social and economical mismanagement within one or two legislative periods.

The TRT grass roots workers, when asked about economic feasablity only said not to worry - Thaksin will help. On village level TRT politics are very different than what you read in the papers or see in the city. Like vote buying. I have never seen vote buying with bigger budgets, and more brutality than the last elections. One TRT canvasser of our area we spoke with told us about his budgets - 1 mio baht for a few mu bans, 200K for him to keep, 50K for each or-bor-dor and puyai. The ones who accepted the 50K were required to bring the votes, and if not they got 24 hours to leave their post or were killed. No other party even came close in budget or brutality.

Of course only moaning and whinging does not help. There are things that could have been done better, but weren't done. To stop the trend of farmers losing their land already properly researched programs should have been implemented. Poor farmers should have been given more incentitives to switch to the "sittajit por pueang" sythem, a selfsufficiency sythem perfect for small plots of land, perfect for farmers with low educational levels. Problem though is that the mills and exporters would lose some of their profits, and especially CP group. The TRT government is made up almost entirely of those vested interests.

The much publicised landreform should have been carried through. I have family members who have already three years ago qualified for free land, but the only offer they have got so far was another government scheme - get land, and pay it in 100 baht a day installments. Impossible for them.

And the most important thing is the huge agri-schemes. Try to get some information what has happened there, please. Unfortunately not much about them was publicised in the english language papers, but in parliament a few years ago they were already slammed by the opposition. Of course not much use.

I am not sure about this, but i have not seen this government doing much about decentralising industries. I have not seen anything in the way of trying to built up employment in structurally poor areas of the country. You still have a massive migration into the few industrial centres, with all its related problems. The government has to give incentitives to foreign and Thai investors to help building up factories in the north and isaarn. Transport and energy supply to those areas have to be made available.

What i see with the present government is mainly populistic schemes, and most of them not even thought through further than the votes they might bring in the short term. Which enables the same ruling clique to keep going as they did before the crises, which led to the last crises, which will lead to the next crises, which will lead to another IMF involvement.

The fault, as i have argued in another thread, is entirely with the opposition, which has failed, continues to fail, to build up grass roots support in the villages. There is only one party that is consistently visible in the villages: TRT.

The Sondhi crowd is see as even more dangerous than Thaksin. More nationalistic, and no plans for the future other than getting rid of Thaksin.

As to china, i fear discussing it would lead rather far now, but i am rather pessimistic. My progosis is that within a few years China will have a huge economical collapse, and the same time social conflicts that will bring China close to civil war. Countries such as Thailand will suffer heavily from its side effects.

My bet is on India, a far more regulated opening, investor security and far better educational sythem. And proper checks and balances, and a free press.

[marquess]

The theory behind the drugwar was that at the same time the trade was punished heavily, consumption began to be decriminalised. Reality though was that Thai specifics were completely ignored. The Thai drug trade was pyramidically - the most visible dealers were the heaviest addicts. Those who should have benefitted from ptograms were the majority of the murdered.

So far not one single death in the drugwar has been properly investigated. Innocent bystanders were regularly put into danger, such as my wife who had the misfortune to witness one assassination by police officers.

The second problem was that police officers were/still are heavily involved in the trade. Some of Thaksin's most favoured officers are well know to be drug dealers themselves.

Nobody in his right mind denies that Thailand had (still has) a huge drug problem, but the root causes were not touched. That is why the drugs are coming back heavily.

It's not only a question of compassion, but about the rule of law. There is no law that allows deathsquads to kill alleged drudealers. The only precedent the drug war killings have set was that violence is acceptable (see how the poster named "Heng" argues...).

Regarding the change of the sor por kor 401 rules. Problem is that it is too late now to educate the farmers about proper investment. The loans have been given already, the money has been spent. We own a farm with sor por kor 401 papers. The days when the huge loans were given almost everybody in the village took up the opportunity. They came to our house every month for over a year trying to persuade us taking up the offers. No business plan was required, no advice was given, just stupid amounts of money were given out. We were offered more than 100K Baht loans on a selfsufficiuent farm worth on paper 400K, that just maked enough money so they inhabitants can survive. There is no way that this loan could have been paid back.

It sounds nice to give poor farmers access to loans, only that the money management skills are almost non-existent. You can't repair the damage of 40 years social and economical mismanagement within one or two legislative periods.

The TRT grass roots workers, when asked about economic feasablity only said not to worry - Thaksin will help. On village level TRT politics are very different than what you read in the papers or see in the city. Like vote buying. I have never seen vote buying with bigger budgets, and more brutality than the last elections. One TRT canvasser of our area we spoke with told us about his budgets - 1 mio baht for a few mu bans, 200K for him to keep, 50K for each or-bor-dor and puyai. The ones who accepted the 50K were required to bring the votes, and if not they got 24 hours to leave their post or were killed. No other party even came close in budget or brutality.

Of course only moaning and whinging does not help. There are things that could have been done better, but weren't done. To stop the trend of farmers losing their land already properly researched programs should have been implemented. Poor farmers should have been given more incentitives to switch to the "sittajit por pueang" sythem, a selfsufficiency sythem perfect for small plots of land, perfect for farmers with low educational levels. Problem though is that the mills and exporters would lose some of their profits, and especially CP group. The TRT government is made up almost entirely of those vested interests.

The much publicised landreform should have been carried through. I have family members who have already three years ago qualified for free land, but the only offer they have got so far was another government scheme - get land, and pay it in 100 baht a day installments. Impossible for them.

And the most important thing is the huge agri-schemes. Try to get some information what has happened there, please. Unfortunately not much about them was publicised in the english language papers, but in parliament a few years ago they were already slammed by the opposition. Of course not much use.

I am not sure about this, but i have not seen this government doing much about decentralising industries. I have not seen anything in the way of trying to built up employment in structurally poor areas of the country. You still have a massive migration into the few industrial centres, with all its related problems. The government has to give incentitives to foreign and Thai investors to help building up factories in the north and isaarn. Transport and energy supply to those areas have to be made available.

What i see with the present government is mainly populistic schemes, and most of them not even thought through further than the votes they might bring in the short term. Which enables the same ruling clique to keep going as they did before the crises, which led to the last crises, which will lead to the next crises, which will lead to another IMF involvement.

The fault, as i have argued in another thread, is entirely with the opposition, which has failed, continues to fail, to build up grass roots support in the villages. There is only one party that is consistently visible in the villages: TRT.

The Sondhi crowd is see as even more dangerous than Thaksin. More nationalistic, and no plans for the future other than getting rid of Thaksin.

As to china, i fear discussing it would lead rather far now, but i am rather pessimistic. My progosis is that within a few years China will have a huge economical collapse, and the same time social conflicts that will bring China close to civil war. Countries such as Thailand will suffer heavily from its side effects.

My bet is on India, a far more regulated opening, investor security and far better educational sythem. And proper checks and balances, and a free press.

An excellent and well informed post!

[cclub75]

Another -factual- proof of the very successfull policies instigated by our Great Leader.

I can summarize it for you :

a generous "idea" (to buy more votes)

+absolutly no plan to sustain the application of this "idea" on the longer term

+no financing

= a big debt

= a failure

Voila ! Nice, huh ?

http://203.154.97.18/breaking/read.php?lang=en&newsid=114575

Thammasat hospital to exit Bt30 healthcare scheme

Financially-strapped Thammasat University Hospital is to pull out of the government’s low-cost healthcare scheme, saying it had gone into the red by Bt105 million since the service started five years ago.

From the beginning of the next fiscal year on October 1, the Pathum Thani hospital will cease providing services to about 75,000 people registered with it under the Bt30 healthcare scheme, Thammasat rector Surapol Nitikraipoj said.

Only critical or specific patients referred from a smaller hospital will be accepted under the scheme where they are normally treated free of charge, he said.

Those Bt30 scheme patients who want to receive treatment at Thammasat University Hospital after September 30 will have to pay for it themselves, Surapol said.

[zzap]

Thank you all, I really enjoyed reading this thread.

Lots of reasoned comments by posters who have some background knowledge.