Thai Finance says it cannot pay rice farmers by January 15

[^_^]

Oh, I think they are and they would. And if it all goes to pots, they would probably blame the Dems, Suthep or the mysterious "third hand" - anyone other than themselves.

Last month, words among the Reds here in my village in Chiang Mai, was that the Dems are blocking the government from making payment to farmers.

This month, words spreading around is that the Dems has already bankrupted the country before the current government took office.

Saddest part is..the Reds here believed it.

So...yes...I believe that they will be voted back again in the next election.

Democracy has already been totally twisted in Thailand.

Classic. I guess if they believe it then they deserve everything the get/don't get.

I think the Reds are so blinded by their own hatred for the Dems that they are totally oblivious to what's going on with the current government they voting in.

[phuketrichard]

citing complicated administrative procedure

the branch were there account is, is one of the ones closed

[DLock]

To stop the rice scam is only half the story/problem.

PTP has basically destroyed the market for Thai rice, sliding from leading supplier the world to 4th place.

They also have warehouses of rice that they have to dump before the millers and government will consider buying more rice from Farmers again.

So, when the scam does stop, there is huge oversupply, no demand and the millers will be offering low, low prices for Farmers rice....who will have no income for possibly years to come.

All those shiny new Vigo's, smartphones and farm equipment that are on finance will soon be gone, along with the land to loan sharks that circle the drowning farmers.

This story has a few more chapters to go...but I think we know how the last page ends. It's a modern tragedy that will destroy millions, all in the aim to bring one man home.

Edited January 15, 2014 by DLock

[SOTIRIOS]

....from the Government's promise it is now twisted to the Farmers' demand......

....I think the farmers demanded to be paid several times already because most of them have not been paid at all....

....plan...program...scheme.....

...don't try to twist it around and blame the farmers who do backbreaking work and barely make ends meet.....sometimes never even owning a pair of shoes...

...pathetic.....

[inzman]

Who didn't see this coming, but the end is near, this scheme will eventually be the straw that broke the camels back. The greedy pigs don't know when to back off the trough.

[MJP]

To stop the rice scam is only half the story/problem.

PTP has basically destroyed the market for Thai rice, sliding from leading supplier the world to 4th place.

They also have warehouses of rice that they have to dump before the millers and government will buy before they consider buying from Farmers again.

So, when the scam does stop, there is huge oversupply, no demand and the millers will be offering low, low prices for Farmers rice....who will have no income for possibly years to come.

All those shiny new Vigo's, smartphones and farm equipment that are on finance will soon be gone, along with the land to loan sharks that circle the drowning farmers.

This story has a few more chapters to go...but I think we know how the last page ends. It's a modern tragedy that will destroy millions, all in the aim to bring one man home.

This is exactly right.

Also the externalised costs of environmental damage due to a sudden intensity of farming. No cash flow now and none for possibly years to come.

I still think this was a longer term plan to prevent the poor from rising. Bust them out and get hold of all those Sor Nor Sam's and Chanotes on the cheap. Disenfranchise the lower orders (whose wealth had been rising and giving them ideas) and at the same time increase your holdings of agricultural land and future production.

To fix this . . . .

Short term: Quantitative easing to pay farmers, close the scheme now.

Medium/longer term: Convert the rice to liquid fuels and biogas to get rid of the stockpiles to get some sort of economic benefit from this mess whilst not disrupting future supply and demand stability.

[poisonus]

But the deadline of 15th January was repeatedly promised, by the panicking caretaker-Government, not at all "as earlier demanded by the rice farmers".

And so now, it's not the rice farmers who were unreasonable, but the Ministers who failed to keep their word.

Why on earth did the government deliberately cause this confrontation, with some of their core-supporters, just before an election ?

Let us not forget... first promise was end of October, then 15th November, then end of November, then 15th December, then end of 2013, then 15th November, then yesterday end of Jan....

The rice farmers are now currently blocking the Asia Highway and last week were asking to be paid, now they are demanding the ousting of the government.

Oh how things are changing fast.... the next step will be RIOT!!!

[chainarong]

Is anybody actually surprised? Well barring the rice farmers that is.

Nothing costed, no modelling , no debate, just mouthing off to get votes and the sad fact , they fell for it

[Katipo]

This could really be a game changer.

The rural voters had unwavering faith in the PTP because they thought Thaksin had tons of money and would never let them down.

Now it's (finally) becoming apparent to them that while he has tons of money, he isn't going to share it (even if a lot of it was made at the expense of the people of Thailand through corrupt deals).

[djjamie]

good advice would be to exercise extreme caution in voicing any outrageous position on this topic

Good advice would be to feel the wind of change... who knows the new rulers might read this forum too.

That remark is similar to yours and is of equally stupid and only used to try to instill fear as normal arguments wont win your case.

I post on a few Thai political forums and beyond a shadow of a doubt this forum, as much as I enjoy it and respect it, astounds me with some of the misguided logic and gullible comments by supporters of only 1 of the 15 principles of democracy. I cringe reading comments like "If the govt can't do the job get the rice farmers to find the corruption" "I will eat wevils in rice because it means there is no chemicals in it" "Use FX currency reserves to bail our prawn farmers" "We respect elections"….Nothing about democracy though. and last but not least "The DEM supporters burnt Central World down" I still have a laugh when I read that one. Prbkk looks like a PHD graduate compared to some of the muppets I have read.

[Big Pinkie]

too far out. any one want to bet they will all have there money before the election, the closer the better as far as the govt is concerned.

[Gweiloman]

The shutdown bangkok plan is clearly not achieving its objectives of shutting the govt down and forcing the resignation of YL. What it is achieving however is losing Thailand millions and millions of baht daily, money that could have gone to paying the rice farmers.

[djjamie]

Yesterday they blamed the supporters fighting for all 15 principles of democracy for the delay in payment. Today it is all too complicated. What will be the excuse tomorrow. The calculator needs batteries!

[DLock]

The shutdown bangkok plan is clearly not achieving its objectives of shutting the govt down and forcing the resignation of YL. What it is achieving however is losing Thailand millions and millions of baht daily, money that could have gone to paying the rice farmers.

You poor misguided fool.

The shutdown has no bearing on whether there was money to pay farmers or not. There was and is no money.

That's why someone had to make a stand.

Think.

[Gone]

I know who would be willing to pay it if they let him back.

[Gweiloman]

The shutdown bangkok plan is clearly not achieving its objectives of shutting the govt down and forcing the resignation of YL. What it is achieving however is losing Thailand millions and millions of baht daily, money that could have gone to paying the rice farmers.

You poor misguided fool.

The shutdown has no bearing on whether there was money to pay farmers or not. There was and is no money.

That's why someone had to make a stand.

Think.

Fortunately, I am neither poor nor misguided nor a fool. My accounting and economics degree from Melbourne University, Victoria, Australia taught me that a dollar earned is a dollar extra in my account and a dollar lost is.... well, a dollar lost 5555

[fullcave]

The shutdown bangkok plan is clearly not achieving its objectives of shutting the govt down and forcing the resignation of YL. What it is achieving however is losing Thailand millions and millions of baht daily, money that could have gone to paying the rice farmers.

You poor misguided fool.

The shutdown has no bearing on whether there was money to pay farmers or not. There was and is no money.

That's why someone had to make a stand.

Think.

Fortunately, I am neither poor nor misguided nor a fool. My accounting and economics degree from Melbourne University, Victoria, Australia taught me that a dollar earned is a dollar extra in my account and a dollar lost is.... well, a dollar lost 5555

PHD?

[zydeco]

The shutdown bangkok plan is clearly not achieving its objectives of shutting the govt down and forcing the resignation of YL. What it is achieving however is losing Thailand millions and millions of baht daily, money that could have gone to paying the rice farmers.

Yea, because any "lost" money would just magically appear in the rice subsidy budget. BTW, they're going to need billions, not millions.

[bigbamboo]

As long as they get their money by Feb 2 everything will be peachy.

[ratcatcher]

The shutdown bangkok plan is clearly not achieving its objectives of shutting the govt down and forcing the resignation of YL. What it is achieving however is losing Thailand millions and millions of baht daily, money that could have gone to paying the rice farmers.

You poor misguided fool.

The shutdown has no bearing on whether there was money to pay farmers or not. There was and is no money.

That's why someone had to make a stand.

Think.

Fortunately, I am neither poor nor misguided nor a fool. My accounting and economics degree from Melbourne University, Victoria, Australia taught me that a dollar earned is a dollar extra in my account and a dollar lost is.... well, a dollar lost 5555

The rice pledging scheme has been an unmitigated disaster from day one with Mr Thaksin's idea of trying to control world rice prices. The BAAC is in very serious trouble and now the farmers are rising against the 'government'. Your extensive financial education will enable you to appreciate this.

The protests and their collateral damage to the economy are indeed serious, but money lost by businesses from this shutdown would have no business being used to pay farmers were it actually available.

That is why the PTP CT gov't is desperate to get their hands on any large amount of money that they can. It is sad for the farmers to be left in this position but they only have one person to thank, and we all know who that is.

[aimbc]

good advice would be to exercise extreme caution in voicing any outrageous position on this topic

There were those of us who saw this scheme for exactly what it was from day one. Buying votes and condemned to massive financial failure.

Yingluck exacerbated things by not following the cue. The policy was for 15,000B per tonne which was bad enough but when the crowd called for 20,000, she bent over.

Corruption was flagged up in the house, the DSI and YS undertook to investigate thoroughly then swept it under the carpet.

When the numbers were brought up displaying the massive cost and massive corruption, the PTP said they would publish the figures. They never did.

Even during the current protests the PDRC said they would call off the rallies if the government made the figures public

This massive waste of taxpayers money is a fuc_king disgrace and heads should roll. That they haven't is skin to the unpunished cheating in the house. Its why the people are on the street.

Eventually it will bite the perpetrators up the are and see them incarcerated

Roll on Suthep

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

I don't disagree about the rice pledging. It is very bad policy . It needs to go. I'm not sure anyone has ever argued in its favour, at least not on this site. Maybe the govt does have some short-term liquidity issues. However, the country can pay its debts. The bank IS NOT insolvent, nor is there any chance the govt would allow it to become so. Another poster has suggested some change in monetary policy. I agree.I suspect it would be a modest shift..

Whatever the question, Suthep is not the answer ( or partial answer). The sun is still coming up tomorrow.

I think no one is opposed to helping the farmers. The fact that the money taxpayers allow to use is suppose to got to the farmers are going straight into the politicians pockets. And the way in which they executed the program was poorly done. This will be small compared to even more damage this administration has done to the industry. The farmers will have a hard times ahead.

Just to let you know. Of the 4 million rice farmers only 1.8 million are able to take advantage of this scheme. This makes the scheme prone for corruption. It would not surprise me that the ones getting paid are those connected to the govt. So those program doesn't really help the small farmers as this administrators has lead the public to believe. A double and possibly triple wammy. Great going YS and PT, your greed has hurt the ones that need help the most. But again, you don't care, as they are just pawns to you. I am sure all you PT got their payday but not these farmers. So when you spend your days in jail, you only have yourself to blame.

[davejones]

You get what you vote for, and this is apparently what most rice farmers voted for. At least they have now learnt a valuable lesson.

[Robby nz]

AFET prepares measures for next round of rice auction despite political rallies

BANGKOK, 14 Jan 2014 (NNT) – The Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET) has reportedly prepared measures for organizing a new round of auction for pledged rice in government stocks regardless of the political protest in Bangkok.

The AFET clarified that it would use the price offered by bidders from the previous round of auction last year as a guideline for setting the default prices for the next auction scheduled for January 22nd from 9 AM to midday.

It said the rice on offer comprises about 110,000 tons of white rice with 5% water content from silos in Saraburi, Lopburi and Phitsanulok , and 38,000 tons of second grade Jasmine fragrant rice from Ubon Ratchathani and Nakhon Ratchasima barns. All of the rice to be auctioned has been pledged to the government during the 2013-2014 season.

According to AFET statistics, the number of bidders increased at each time of the three previous biddings as entrepreneurs have gained greater confidence in the AFET's operations.

The AFET suggested that bidders study last auction activities as their guideline for the next round. It also pointed out that this round of auction has wider varieties of rice than the previous ones, making the bidding more interesting.

The organization has already established its Business Continuity Plan and a Data Recovery Center to ensure that all transactions will be carried out as planned regardless of the current political rally in Bangkok.

-- NNT 2014-01-14

So now they are going to have another auction.

If I remember correctly they did not get a lot of bids in the previous two, sold only a fraction of what was on offer and the last I heard was that they had to negotiate with the winning bidders.

Never did hear what the final results were as in how much was actually sold or at what price.

This round is only for new seasons rice so will have no effect on the rice mountain.

Even if they manage to sell all the 148K tons they still have to get the money as presumably they will have to negotiate again.

No good to the farmers they want their money today as they were promised.....again.

[gabruce]

I hope nobody of you has any money in the BAAC, else I would withdraw it ASAP for sure. Remember the Bankok Bank of Commerce? The going down of that bank was one of the first steps for the financial crisis in 1997, if my memory serves me right.

What makes this so bad is, that it is the farmers, who will be robbed twice. OTOH this is not the first time the Shin government does this. I recall some years ago they ordered the Krung Thai Bank to pay out for some scheme. Being a government bank they had to comply. But at some point they simply refused, as it was endangering the future existience of the bank.

And the farmers, what can they do? They had to participate in the rice pledging scheme as long as it was paying above market price. Not to do would be loosing money. So they participated and hoped for the best while fearing the worst. They have/had no choice...

No you can't just print new money, just because the government says so. It is up to the central bank to decide.

I guess, the Shin folks want the elections yesterday, if that were possible. To dissolve the parliament was a major f**k_up on their side. Now even if they get an election on February 2nd, no new government comes into being for the lack of MPs. But the farmers will have cast their vote by then, so they are up for grabs by the same people, who screwed them before.

And all this because of th stubbornness of a single magalomaniac...

I'd add to this that they've been selling rice (the ones that could) at an inflated price for 2.5 years? now. A prudent person would have saved money from this windfall and still be able to plant this season. At the same time, they are in a hard place now, they've sold the rice from the last harvest and have NOTHING to show for it now. I am sure they are all thinking that they would have been better off selling at market rates, even if they will probably be paid someday.

[Baerboxer]

If the 2.2 trillion loan had been secured, and taken off budget and away from parliamentary accountability, and the 350 billion water management budget released. PTP would be covering all this up nicely.

They must rue the day they screwed it all up and tried to ram the whitewash through. The final straw the broke the camel's back.

Now they're in that horrible position. They must cling on and hope to win any election as being in power is the only way to avoid the consequences of previous actions.

[Gweiloman]

The shutdown bangkok plan is clearly not achieving its objectives of shutting the govt down and forcing the resignation of YL. What it is achieving however is losing Thailand millions and millions of baht daily, money that could have gone to paying the rice farmers.

You poor misguided fool.

The shutdown has no bearing on whether there was money to pay farmers or not. There was and is no money.

That's why someone had to make a stand.

Think.

Fortunately, I am neither poor nor misguided nor a fool. My accounting and economics degree from Melbourne University, Victoria, Australia taught me that a dollar earned is a dollar extra in my account and a dollar lost is.... well, a dollar lost 5555

The rice pledging scheme has been an unmitigated disaster from day one with Mr Thaksin's idea of trying to control world rice prices. The BAAC is in very serious trouble and now the farmers are rising against the 'government'. Your extensive financial education will enable you to appreciate this.

The protests and their collateral damage to the economy are indeed serious, but money lost by businesses from this shutdown would have no business being used to pay farmers were it actually available.

That is why the PTP CT gov't is desperate to get their hands on any large amount of money that they can. It is sad for the farmers to be left in this position but they only have one person to thank, and we all know who that is.

I don't disagree with you but the fact remains that the continued "shutdown" is costing both businesses (sales, revenue) and the country (VAT, other taxes).

Edited January 15, 2014 by Gweiloman

[Basil B]

But did the farmers really believe them anyway?

Yes...

And they believe in Farther Christmas too

Now is the time for Suthep to offer "new for old" shirt deal "Yellow for Red"

I bet Thanusak hopes he is on Suthep's abduction list as at least the Yellow shirts will probably not lynch him.

[thaigolfer]

At the end it will be all the damned farangs fault.

Mark my words.

[Ulic]

Not really sure what kind of bank this is and who its customers are. Would any regular guy/public have

an account here or is it a bank for the government and agricultural programs?

[LivinLOS]

I hope they do not drive the bank into bankruptcy as there must be millions of country people who have savings with them which are now being used to pay for the rice.

I am sure that would not happen, because the PTP would never ever win an election if they did. They would touch private saved money of their own. They can't be that stupid can they ?

Someone needs to understand how banks work.. Fractional reserve banking means that the bank creates money based on deposits, there is no big vault of customer money somewhere, its already out invested in the economy as loans, such as this one being requested.

If 1 from 10 people pulls their account, theres a run on the bank and its over.

Thai capital ratios are a lot higher than western ones too.