Thailand To Seize Thaksin's Assets

[Tony Clifton]

Getting the ill-gotten part of his assets from Thaksin would be a windfall.

It would be more than just a gesture if that windfall was earmarked for the pump-priming of partial-sufficiency projects at the level of individual families, rather than going into elitist-organised megastructure projects. By their deeds, ye shall know them.

No need to wait for Toxin's money for this. Why doesn't the gov't just start a new kind of project to offer one million baht to every village and let the village administer the money how they see fit with the intent being to invest small amounts in new enterprises? There would be alot of failures but there would be some success too. It would help to prime the local and national economies and it would at least help in sufficiency a bit with the few new enterprises that would develop.....of course the detractors would only focus on the failures but I think its best to not worry about whatever the detractors would say and just do it for the benefit of the country....even if it made the politicians who supported it very unpopular.

Chownah

Doomed to 99 % failure if you keep letting the local administrations handle the money again.

Edited October 4, 2006 by Tony Clifton

[Martin]

"Doomed to 99 % failure if you keep letting the local administrations handle the money again."

Upon what evidence is that prediction based??

[Tony Clifton]

Evidence? I don't have any, my comment is based on what happened at the local level for the past 6 years, not much. There are 10,000 cases pending, I'm sure you'll find more evidence than needed as they go along with probing such projects and show how much money somehow disappeared by the time and once it reached the local administrations and not only upcountry.

[chownah]

do you have a link talking about the 10,000 cases pending?

[Tony Clifton]

NCCC member Jaidet Pornchaiya said he would try to speed up the graft proceedings in light of the huge backlog of over 10,000 cases.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/09/24...cs_30014492.php

[John K]

Martin, I have to agree with Tony. There is a huge deliberate backlog because the defendants knew they were guilty and Thaksin put the breaks on. They will find a way to make the cases fall apart.

The only way I can see is to have some new temporary courts and other related supporting whatever to make it happen is short order. The longer it takes the more chance things will fall apart. There are still TRT people in and about with access to critical things.

Perhaps they should start on the new TRT wing of the local prison. It would be ironic if it was funded with Thaksin money.

[Tony Clifton]

It would be even funnier if the TRT headquarters were to become their own prison.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

It would be even funnier if the TRT headquarters were to become their own prison.

It's a bit too flash

[the swagman]

No need to wait for Toxin's money for this. Why doesn't the gov't just start a new kind of project to offer one million baht to every village and let the village administer the money how they see fit with the intent being to invest small amounts in new enterprises?

Excuse me. I thought that was what Taksin was doing. Spreading the money out to the provinces for them to build infrastructure and other related projects for their village.

[chownah]

NCCC member Jaidet Pornchaiya said he would try to speed up the graft proceedings in light of the huge backlog of over 10,000 cases.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/09/24...cs_30014492.php

I looked at this link and there is nothing in it that indicates that the 10,001 cases were charged against local administrators.....which is what we were discussing when you brouight this up.

Chownah

[Martin]

Yes, 'chownah', I looked at the link. It is concerned with things totally different from in-village capitalisation on the lines you wrote about.

Thailand seems to have a long history of Bangkok being parasitic upon the rural areas. And in recent decades it has not only blocked off the villages getting access to monetary capital, but also sucked them dry of social capital.

[Plus]

Thaksin's one million baht and other easy loan schemes were not monitored at all. He just gave the money away. How they managed it? What did they spend it on? Who knows.

It's not a bank, there are no accountants and no auditors.

Banks have developed all those formalities for granting loans because they are in business while Thaksin tried to reinvent it. If he tried this in any bank he'd be fired.

In which bank you can give away money from a back of a pickup truck and the only benchmark for your "easy loan scheme" is how many people want more????

With ideas like that you'll never get a job at the bank, only at the government.

[Old Man River]

Thaksin's one million baht and other easy loan schemes were not monitored at all. He just gave the money away. How they managed it? What did they spend it on? Who knows.

Analysts estimate that the proceeds from the rise in consumer debt upcountry were mostly used to purchase cell phones and motorcycles. As I know you are well aware, many are worried about rising bad debts upcountry should the economy weaken. Given the TRT's policies of debt forgiveness, it is likely that many will again seek similar protection from whoever is in power.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Forget anything like that scheme again EVER. Economic nonsense

[chownah]

That scheme was a good one. Alot was learned about how local gov'ts. function (or don't).....if the lessons learned from the first go-round were incorporated into a similar program with better oversite or narrower guidelines then maybe it would be even better the second time around than the first time. When I first mentioned this idea in this thread I said that the detractors would focus on the failures and clearly that is what is happening.

If you want to make good things happen then you need to focus on the positve things....so all you naysayers what postive things would you do to help develop the rural economy....aside from moving people to Bangkok to work and send the money home?

Chownah

[womble]

Use some of Thaksins money to pay off their debts, it was him that threw the money at them and he got a large portion of it back when they spent it on his goods and services.

Ofcourse I don't believe people should be bailed out as it teaches people nothing, it's very dangerous when the poor think they will be constantly bailed out.

The trouble is when they are asked to pay back this money and they fail, when their farms and land are taken they will blame whoever is in power and say that if thaksin was in power he would have helped them.

[surin]

Forget anything like that scheme again EVER. Economic nonsense

But, it got them re-elected...Good economics for TRT.

[chownah]

Use some of Thaksins money to pay off their debts, it was him that threw the money at them and he got a large portion of it back when they spent it on his goods and services.

Ofcourse I don't believe people should be bailed out as it teaches people nothing, it's very dangerous when the poor think they will be constantly bailed out.

The trouble is when they are asked to pay back this money and they fail, when their farms and land are taken they will blame whoever is in power and say that if thaksin was in power he would have helped them.

Were farmers required to put up land as collaterol for the loans? I was under the impression that this was not the case....If I am right then the loans will not result in any such hardships as you are imagining. If I am wrong then let's wait and see how many farmers actually lose their land...it might turn out to be none at all...why expect the worst? As to your imagined crisis and your imagined "he would have helped us"....they might be right, he might have helped them....but we'll never know for sure as that opportunity seems to have disappeared permanently.

Chownah

[Martin]

For 'chownah', re post #285, where you say:

"If you want to make good things happen then you need to focus on the positve things....so all you naysayers what postive things would you do to help develop the rural economy....aside from moving people to Bangkok to work and send the money home?"

I agree about focussing on the positive things. And on accepting that some will stumble on their way up the learning curve.

But "moving people to Bangkok to work and send the money home" is now at an end. Bangkok can't produce enough work for all it has in residence now, and it is on the downslope.

As the money gets spread thinner and thinner in Bangkok, there will be less and less to send home.

As urban to rural movement ('reverse migration') grows, it will be those who can increase village output who will have a safe port, and they will have been the most-recent migrants to the urban areas.

The others left in Bangkok will presumably become a very disaffected urban working (actually, barely working) populace.

The danger, as I see it, is that the attention is going to be concentrated on easy things like looking into Thaksin's doings and deciding how much he should pay back, as a TAD (Thinking-Avoidance Distraction).

It will take very hard thinking, and well-organised action, to look after the important things (food and shelter, work and fun). I can foresee the villages coping as the returnees will bring with them rural abilities, good average IQ, and social capital.

But Bangkok may well be a very sorry story.

[Plus]

Thaksin wasn't the first one to provide informal bannking services to the poor. He used the Bangladeshi model where "people's bank" was hugely successful.

There's nothing wrong with communities managing their own funds per se. Unfortunately Thaksin used the scheme mainly as a vote getter. How old is it? Five? Six years? After all this time, is it possible to find any statistics about how the money was used? Any evaluation at all? He didn't care as long as the votes kept pouring in.

[chownah]

Plus,

I think you are correct in saying that the votes were the primary issue for Toxin. I would like to point out that a lack of analysis of the impact of a gov't program seems to be the norm here in Thailand and the fact that none exists for this program probably has no meaning specific to this program but probably just reflects the lack in an across the board fashion for gov't projects....but I could be wrong on this. To have an analysis that shows failure would cause a loss of face and so would, if possible, be avoided.

Chownah

[Martin]

"To have an analysis that shows failure would cause a loss of face and so would, if possible, be avoided."

Is it likely that there has been an analysis, but it is not being published so as not to show something that would cause such a loss of face?

In that case, if the lessons have been learnt from the results of that analysis, there doesn't seem to be so much dis-benefit, to 'saving face', as there would be if the analysis wasn't done in fear of it causing loss of face.

Which do you think is happening?

[hammered]

For 'chownah', re post #285, where you say:

"If you want to make good things happen then you need to focus on the positve things....so all you naysayers what postive things would you do to help develop the rural economy....aside from moving people to Bangkok to work and send the money home?"

I agree about focussing on the positive things. And on accepting that some will stumble on their way up the learning curve.

But "moving people to Bangkok to work and send the money home" is now at an end. Bangkok can't produce enough work for all it has in residence now, and it is on the downslope.

As the money gets spread thinner and thinner in Bangkok, there will be less and less to send home.

As urban to rural movement ('reverse migration') grows, it will be those who can increase village output who will have a safe port, and they will have been the most-recent migrants to the urban areas.

The others left in Bangkok will presumably become a very disaffected urban working (actually, barely working) populace.

The danger, as I see it, is that the attention is going to be concentrated on easy things like looking into Thaksin's doings and deciding how much he should pay back, as a TAD (Thinking-Avoidance Distraction).

It will take very hard thinking, and well-organised action, to look after the important things (food and shelter, work and fun). I can foresee the villages coping as the returnees will bring with them rural abilities, good average IQ, and social capital.

But Bangkok may well be a very sorry story.

However, there is a massive shortage of labor at all educational levels on the Eastern Seaboard resulting in pay that is often better than in Bangkok, so they will just head in another direction. The industrial areas of places as divers as Authaya and Lampang are still employing too. The change from inner Bangkok as a destination for urban migration is more about industry and all that goes before it and with it being better served by being located outside of Bangkok.

[Old Man River]

Use some of Thaksins money to pay off their debts, it was him that threw the money at them and he got a large portion of it back when they spent it on his goods and services.

Ofcourse I don't believe people should be bailed out as it teaches people nothing, it's very dangerous when the poor think they will be constantly bailed out.

The trouble is when they are asked to pay back this money and they fail, when their farms and land are taken they will blame whoever is in power and say that if thaksin was in power he would have helped them.

Were farmers required to put up land as collaterol for the loans? I was under the impression that this was not the case....If I am right then the loans will not result in any such hardships as you are imagining. If I am wrong then let's wait and see how many farmers actually lose their land...it might turn out to be none at all...why expect the worst? As to your imagined crisis and your imagined "he would have helped us"....they might be right, he might have helped them....but we'll never know for sure as that opportunity seems to have disappeared permanently.

Chownah

A good bit of the rise in consumer debt upcountry came from the sharp increase in credit cards that were issued. People don't normally buy land on a credit card, but they do use it for a myriad of different consumer related goods (mobile phones, down payments on motorcycles etc.). It is the rise in this type of unsecured debt that has analysts most worried (including those at the BOT), because should the economy weaken, when people can't pay or refuse to pay, the ultimate loser will be the banks that issued the cards.

[pete_r]

Thaksin's one million baht and other easy loan schemes were not monitored at all. He just gave the money away. How they managed it? What did they spend it on? Who knows.

It's not a bank, there are no accountants and no auditors.

Banks have developed all those formalities for granting loans because they are in business while Thaksin tried to reinvent it. If he tried this in any bank he'd be fired.

In which bank you can give away money from a back of a pickup truck and the only benchmark for your "easy loan scheme" is how many people want more????

With ideas like that you'll never get a job at the bank, only at the government.

Banks and governments are two distinct entities.

The objective of a bank is to make profits. So when they give loans, they want a high rate of repayment (> 80% ? not sure about the exact number).

The objective of a government is to develop the country. So a governement may find acceptable a low repayment rate, *IF* the money is used to improve the equipement and production capability of a village. In the case considered here, a repayment rate of 30% would be pretty good already, that would mean at least 30% success, one village in three all across Thailand.

But the IF is a big one: Because there was no monitoring, we don't know if production capability has really improved or not in the last 5 years.

[Martin]

Each week, early in the morning on 'Buddha Day", as I drive towards the little forest temple at the foot of the hills, I meet youngsters coming in to our brand-new vocational-training college on their little motorbikes, with a mobile phone held to one ear.

I wonder how many of these youngsters would have just finished with education at a younger age and gone off seeking unskilled 'sweat shop' work, if it hadn't been for the motorbike, mobile phone and new college. Now we need the next government to set things up so that a factory relocates. There is an excellent site, on the highway and close to the railway, beside the vocational college.

The next government is no different from any other group of people---by their deeds shall we know them.

When I was a young lecturer in Cambridge, the UK had Industrial Training Boards. Each levied its industry's employers with a tax-deductible levy. Employers who took on trainees and sent them to college were given a grant for each one, out of the levies collected. The firms gave a 'travel allowance' to their trainees, provided their progress at college in the college periods and in the firm during the on-the-job periods was satisfactory. Lots of lads used that 'travel allowance' to make their monthly payments on a motorbike, or a couple of brothers would go shares in a car etc.

It doesn't particularly matter how it is done, but youngsters should have incentives to achieve an increase in their human capital, mobility, and inter-communications.

That way, Thailand will manage de-industrializing reasonably successfully.

I see all those who feel outraged at the idea of 'peasants' (actually 'yeomen') having motorbikes or pickups and mobile phones as the natural successors of those in my youth who felt it was outrageous that miners were starting to come to the pit in motor cars.

Thaksin did some right things, though maybe for wrong reasons. His assets should be taken back judiciously, not punitively.

[Martin]

"we don't know if production capability has really improved or not in the last 5 years."

I agree that we don't know the overall picture, but I know of many men and women who live near me who have increased their productivity by 200%. They now take six cows with their followers out to graze, whereas they were only taking two before.

That has to be good for them and for Thailand.

[Plus]

When a government develops the country and spends money, there's a budget, there are policies to pursue, projects to finance. Village Fund was to give money to people without any strings attached.

70 billion giveaway. Even if they expect only 30% repayed, acceptable rate for government's investment, it's the absense of purpose that makes it more of a banking proposition than country development.

In several other cases the government ordered the banks to underwrite its own projects. Debt suspension or cheap credits for city folks, for example. They of course lost money on that. Who's responsible for that?

It's estimated that Thailand debt stands at well over 60% GDP if all these off-books schemes are counted. On paper it's below 50%. I believe. I don't know where to find these numbers, I just remember them from Newsline program, given by BOT governor's own son.

It has been reported several times that Thailand is facing a severe human resource shortage in several strategic industries. Those farmer boys have jobs waiting for them, if only they learn how to work.

Services and industry are two sectors that will suck people away from agriculture without any serious impact, provided farmers get their act together. Only 4% of US population is in agriculture, and the US is the world's biggest producer and exporter of food. In Thailand its still just under 60%, urbanisation has just started.

[Martin]

"Services and industry are two sectors that will suck people away from agriculture without any serious impact, provided farmers get their act together. Only 4% of US population is in agriculture, and the US is the world's biggest producer and exporter of food. In Thailand its still just under 60%, urbanisation has just started."

To say the above in 2006 is akin to telling Americans to invest in property stocks now.

Two generations ago, or even one generation ago, it held water as it would 'see out the time' of those who followed the advice.

But times are a'changing.

Those 4% are not in sustainable agriculture, but in a chain that feeds Americans and its food-exports-recipients on oil.

And it is a rapidly-weakening chain.

"Food from exosomatic energy" has peaked. "Food from endosomatic energy" is, increasingly, the way forward.

[chownah]

Great!!!! The good old US of A is being used by some here as a model for Thai development....I can't wait!!!!! It will all happen when the farm boys get some smarts and start to sell their souls to the factory bosses around Bangkok. If we are really lucky it might even happen in our own lifetime and we can see Thailand become the home of supersized everything...big houses, big cars, big malls.....hahhahahahahaha...I hope those farm boys get some smarts really soon and start working to make Thailand into every expats dream!!!!

Chownah