Govt continues to strengthen economy in all dimensions

[lewy67]

Govt continues to strengthen economy in all dimensions

You see a headline like that and you just gotta click and see how totally and utterly

delusional and divorced from reality this military government is.

[Srikcir]

The government's economy-strengthening plans include more dementia.

[williamgeorgeallen]

anyone notice the chinese have gone? the normally extreamly busy chinese hotel at the end of my street and other chinese businesses around pattaya are empty. it is supposed to be some chinese holiday as well golden week or something. hope it is not from the bombing.

[farangmick]

Times might be a bit tough, but the famous Thai smile will still be here for the world to see. Unless they want to find themselves in a military camp undergoing "Facial Expression Adjustment".

[farangmick]

Times might be a bit tough, but the famous Thai smile will still be here for the world to see. Unless they want to find themselves in a military camp undergoing "Facial Expression Adjustment".

[Muirton]

anyone notice the chinese have gone? the normally extreamly busy chinese hotel at the end of my street and other chinese businesses around pattaya are empty. it is supposed to be some chinese holiday as well golden week or something. hope it is not from the bombing.

Please keep your ignorance to yourself. It adds zilch to the OP.

[williamgeorgeallen]

anyone notice the chinese have gone? the normally extreamly busy chinese hotel at the end of my street and other chinese businesses around pattaya are empty. it is supposed to be some chinese holiday as well golden week or something. hope it is not from the bombing.

Please keep your ignorance to yourself. It adds zilch to the OP.

ignorance of what champ? you lost me on this response.

ignorance of what exactly? everyone knows where the chinese have gone except me?

this discussion was about the govt expanding the economy. tourism is perhaps the most important part of the economy in my area, a fair part of which is chinese based. govt said this week there were large numbers of chinese tourists in thailand now due to some chinese holiday. my comment was about the tourist industry not doing so well due to seeing a lack of chinese tourists. hope this helps you understand my post, i thought it was fairly relavent to the topic.

not entirely sure what your reply was about. maybe you can help me out on an explanation.

i sense alot of pent up anger and frustration in this chat forum and i wonder if it a fair representation of westerners in thailand or just of people using this forum.

[elgordo38]

anyone notice the chinese have gone? the normally extreamly busy chinese hotel at the end of my street and other chinese businesses around pattaya are empty. it is supposed to be some chinese holiday as well golden week or something. hope it is not from the bombing.

Please keep your ignorance to yourself. It adds zilch to the OP.

ignorance of what champ? you lost me on this response.

ignorance of what exactly? everyone knows where the chinese have gone except me?

this discussion was about the govt expanding the economy. tourism is perhaps the most important part of the economy in my area, a fair part of which is chinese based. govt said this week there were large numbers of chinese tourists in thailand now due to some chinese holiday. my comment was about the tourist industry not doing so well due to seeing a lack of chinese tourists. hope this helps you understand my post, i thought it was fairly relavent to the topic.

not entirely sure what your reply was about. maybe you can help me out on an explanation.

i sense alot of pent up anger and frustration in this chat forum and i wonder if it a fair representation of westerners in thailand or just of people using this forum.

Its the night of the long knives. A lot of posters are getting feisty because of the amount of BS flying around. If you could see their eyes you would see that they full up with the brown stuff and overflowing. My eyes are brown to.

[bill1369]

Gonna take off now, after 19 mos. Those BiG know what they're doing and any day now a world economy.......

[digibum]

Delusional nonsense. The GDP forecast is down. The EU is threatening sanctions unless the junta restores human rights. Tourism has been badly hit.

Sounds like somebody needs a bit of attitude adjustment to get into the real world.

But tourism is a bit of Thailand razzle dazzle. TAT has increased the number of visitors by aggressively going after China and India but the average amount spent per person has been declining as the Chinese and Indians spend far less (and spend more of it with junket/tour operators) than tourists from western countries.

So TAT can proudly proclaim tourism is up while hotels, businesses, etc see declining revenues.

I used to work in a publicly traded company where the CFO would come into my office about two or three times a year and desperately proclaim that we needed to tweak some number. We needed to show more volume or we needed to increase profitability per customer or . . . whatever. And I would show him how we could influence those numbers in the short term but:

1) It was only short-term

2) It came at a cost of another metric (i.e. you can increase volume of customers but profitability per customer declines)

3) Long-term, it hurts the business as customers get angry that you keep changing your focus.

I eventually quit because the pressure to constantly change the focus of the business based on what the CFO had promised investors and analysts every quarter just seemed like insanity. It felt like we were playing around with a time bomb that would eventually blow up in our faces (mine in particular) when we angered too many customers and couldn't recover.

I was replaced with someone who was more amenable to doing whatever he was asked and within five years the company had lost 60% of its market share, nearly a same amount in revenues, and was ultimately sold to another company who broke up the company and sold off the pieces.

It reminds me so much of the Thai economy. Everything they announce is merely a short-term initiative intended to manipulate some specific metric that they can claim victory for improving. There is no long-term planning or vision.

For instance, household debt in Thailand is beyond troubling. Officially, household debt is running close to 100% of GDP. Unofficially, it's likely much, much higher. Yet the government has yet another plan for lending more money to people so they can buy more stuff they can't afford just so the government can point to a single economic metric and claim success.

[digibum]

Wasn't there an article written by the IMF the other day, down grading the economic growth in Thailand? Furthermore it was discussed that the junta's short term solutions were not sustainable. Until Thailand upgraded technology and quality of goods, the outcome was dire. It further mentioned that Thailand was behind the rest of the ASEAN countries.

I really have a hard time understanding these so called positive domestic prognosis, when the rest of the international community says the opposite!

Exactly, nearly every economist outside of Thailand has a pessimistic outlook for Thailand. I guess they don't understand the Thai way. :-)

Thailand has very real structural problems that the current government can't fix because the fix will take several decades. Thailand used to enjoy the benefits of cheap labor but there are cheaper places to obtain the same exact things. Worse (for Thai economy, not the Thai people), is that there is actually upward pressures on wages right now. Yingluck's government started the 300 baht a day min wage and now you are starting to hear rumblings that 300 baht a day isn't enough for some sectors and they want more. So the problem is only going to get worse as Thailand's economy depends on cheap labor but the cost of living is rising in Thailand and people are demanding more money just to live on (plus keep up with all of the debt incurred by the Thai government promoting that people borrow so they can buy more stuff).

If Thailand wants sustained high value tourists, they're going to have to build stuff for those tourists to come see and do other than temples and go-go bars. They've never had the best beaches or the best anything. Thailand was always attractive because of its relative cheapness compared to better locations. Now that prices are increasing and sometimes even exceed their competition, they need to create more value for tourists.

If Thailand wants foreign investment, they're going to have to scrap a lot of their protectionist rules and educate the populace so that there is an educated workforce for the foreign businesses to hire.

If Thailand wants to continue enjoying favorable trade agreements, they're going to have to come to the harsh realization that they are not unique in the region any longer. There are other stable governments in SEA that are far more willing to meet international standards on things like human trafficking, IP rights, corruption, and making sure all the nuts have been tightened on their airplane engines.

Thailand has enjoyed nearly four decades as being the go-to country in the region for western countries. Vietnam was off-limits because it was communist, Laos same thing, Cambodia had an entire generation of educated people wiped out and was in shambles, Burma was on a blacklist.

Thailand was the oasis in a sea of countries that western countries didn't get along with. It allowed them to trade in the region and keep China and other Asian countries in check. So everyone kept their mouths shut when it came to Thailand. Nobody wanted to rock the boat.

But Vietnam has opened up, Burma is reaching out, Cambodia is improving, etc and how Thailand is no longer the only country in the region willing to play ball. And now, western countries seem less and less prone to simply allowing Thailand to do whatever it wants. They have more options and can demand higher standards.

And in a brilliant (sarcasm intended) move, Thailand has decided to throw a tantrum and cozy up to China as a way of showing its displeasure with the new levels of scrutiny. But that has only served to alienate the country even more and convinced western countries that Thailand is unstable and that the smart move is to hedge one's bets in the region and divert investment elsewhere.

Now the US and Europe are using the trade levers to get the changes they want. Thailand can't switch to being dependent on China quickly enough to stave off an economic implosion so they're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

All of these rosy economic predictions are pure fantasy.

[speedtripler]

Anyone have any idea what any of these reforms are? Only 18 months and counting........

Stay in charge as long as possible is probably the #1 objective of this reform..

Attitude adjust anyone who complains..

[elgordo38]

Delusional nonsense. The GDP forecast is down. The EU is threatening sanctions unless the junta restores human rights. Tourism has been badly hit.

Sounds like somebody needs a bit of attitude adjustment to get into the real world.

But tourism is a bit of Thailand razzle dazzle. TAT has increased the number of visitors by aggressively going after China and India but the average amount spent per person has been declining as the Chinese and Indians spend far less (and spend more of it with junket/tour operators) than tourists from western countries.

So TAT can proudly proclaim tourism is up while hotels, businesses, etc see declining revenues.

I used to work in a publicly traded company where the CFO would come into my office about two or three times a year and desperately proclaim that we needed to tweak some number. We needed to show more volume or we needed to increase profitability per customer or . . . whatever. And I would show him how we could influence those numbers in the short term but:

1) It was only short-term

2) It came at a cost of another metric (i.e. you can increase volume of customers but profitability per customer declines)

3) Long-term, it hurts the business as customers get angry that you keep changing your focus.

I eventually quit because the pressure to constantly change the focus of the business based on what the CFO had promised investors and analysts every quarter just seemed like insanity. It felt like we were playing around with a time bomb that would eventually blow up in our faces (mine in particular) when we angered too many customers and couldn't recover.

I was replaced with someone who was more amenable to doing whatever he was asked and within five years the company had lost 60% of its market share, nearly a same amount in revenues, and was ultimately sold to another company who broke up the company and sold off the pieces.

It reminds me so much of the Thai economy. Everything they announce is merely a short-term initiative intended to manipulate some specific metric that they can claim victory for improving. There is no long-term planning or vision.

For instance, household debt in Thailand is beyond troubling. Officially, household debt is running close to 100% of GDP. Unofficially, it's likely much, much higher. Yet the government has yet another plan for lending more money to people so they can buy more stuff they can't afford just so the government can point to a single economic metric and claim success.

Its easy to figure out just stand outside the door in any big city and count the number of new cars going by. By my count 8 out of 10 are new and 90% financed. Second hand info but one of my friends told me that close to CM there are fields of cars repro's. I look at all the young girls well dressed with mobiles dyed hair and painted nails parading around or riding on the back of new motorbikes all costs money and where is it coming from. Your eyes are a window onto the world.

[Senechal]

If governments could legislate growth there would never be anything else.

[speedtripler]

Delusional nonsense. The GDP forecast is down. The EU is threatening sanctions unless the junta restores human rights. Tourism has been badly hit.

Sounds like somebody needs a bit of attitude adjustment to get into the real world.

But tourism is a bit of Thailand razzle dazzle. TAT has increased the number of visitors by aggressively going after China and India but the average amount spent per person has been declining as the Chinese and Indians spend far less (and spend more of it with junket/tour operators) than tourists from western countries.

So TAT can proudly proclaim tourism is up while hotels, businesses, etc see declining revenues.

I used to work in a publicly traded company where the CFO would come into my office about two or three times a year and desperately proclaim that we needed to tweak some number. We needed to show more volume or we needed to increase profitability per customer or . . . whatever. And I would show him how we could influence those numbers in the short term but:

1) It was only short-term

2) It came at a cost of another metric (i.e. you can increase volume of customers but profitability per customer declines)

3) Long-term, it hurts the business as customers get angry that you keep changing your focus.

I eventually quit because the pressure to constantly change the focus of the business based on what the CFO had promised investors and analysts every quarter just seemed like insanity. It felt like we were playing around with a time bomb that would eventually blow up in our faces (mine in particular) when we angered too many customers and couldn't recover.

I was replaced with someone who was more amenable to doing whatever he was asked and within five years the company had lost 60% of its market share, nearly a same amount in revenues, and was ultimately sold to another company who broke up the company and sold off the pieces.

It reminds me so much of the Thai economy. Everything they announce is merely a short-term initiative intended to manipulate some specific metric that they can claim victory for improving. There is no long-term planning or vision.

For instance, household debt in Thailand is beyond troubling. Officially, household debt is running close to 100% of GDP. Unofficially, it's likely much, much higher. Yet the government has yet another plan for lending more money to people so they can buy more stuff they can't afford just so the government can point to a single economic metric and claim success.

Its easy to figure out just stand outside the door in any big city and count the number of new cars going by. By my count 8 out of 10 are new and 90% financed. Second hand info but one of my friends told me that close to CM there are fields of cars repro's. I look at all the young girls well dressed with mobiles dyed hair and painted nails parading around or riding on the back of new motorbikes all costs money and where is it coming from. Your eyes are a window onto the world.

There are dealers with huge yards full of repossession pickups near ratchada court

Don't think the banks have stopped lending though, plenty of red plates about

[FangFerang]

Silliest article I read in a long time.

[williamgeorgeallen]

anyone notice the chinese have gone? the normally extreamly busy chinese hotel at the end of my street and other chinese businesses around pattaya are empty. it is supposed to be some chinese holiday as well golden week or something. hope it is not from the bombing.

Please keep your ignorance to yourself. It adds zilch to the OP.

ignorance of what champ? you lost me on this response.

ignorance of what exactly? everyone knows where the chinese have gone except me?

this discussion was about the govt expanding the economy. tourism is perhaps the most important part of the economy in my area, a fair part of which is chinese based. govt said this week there were large numbers of chinese tourists in thailand now due to some chinese holiday. my comment was about the tourist industry not doing so well due to seeing a lack of chinese tourists. hope this helps you understand my post, i thought it was fairly relavent to the topic.

not entirely sure what your reply was about. maybe you can help me out on an explanation.

i sense alot of pent up anger and frustration in this chat forum and i wonder if it a fair representation of westerners in thailand or just of people using this forum.

Its the night of the long knives. A lot of posters are getting feisty because of the amount of BS flying around. If you could see their eyes you would see that they full up with the brown stuff and overflowing. My eyes are brown to.

i dont get it. i put something relavant to this discussion. guy calls me ignorant, i ask him for an explanation, no reply. why do alot of people seem to be so angry on this forum? thailand is the most liveable country in the world, despite some shortcommings. i assume everyone on here lives or frequently visits this great country so why the negativity. still waiting for that explanation.

[mikemac]

I mentioned on another thread how everything is going wrong for the head of the current administration and that that can be measured by how long is Friday yaks are. There is a better measure which is: How many ThaiVisa trolls defend him? Fewer by the day -- and they change their identity once they are laughed off the field.

There never was a lot of posters defending him. They were all in your mind, you created them to justify your many posts attacking the Junta, which is actually against forum rules. But you were not the only one who imagined all these so-called "junta lovers".

"How many ThaiVisa trolls defend him?"................you better be careful labeling anyone you disagree with a "troll".

And as far as posters changing their identities goes, you are right, there is a lot of that going on. But they are mostly red/Shin supporters who changed identities because they were banned, not because they were laughed off the field.

Please let the PM know how you measure how "everything is going wrong for the head of the current administration" as I am sure he will be interested in that !

[mikemac]

Silliest article I read in a long time.

You must have missed the one about the half croc / half buffalo !

[Muirton]

anyone notice the chinese have gone? the normally extreamly busy chinese hotel at the end of my street and other chinese businesses around pattaya are empty. it is supposed to be some chinese holiday as well golden week or something. hope it is not from the bombing.

Please keep your ignorance to yourself. It adds zilch to the OP.

ignorance of what champ? you lost me on this response.

ignorance of what exactly? everyone knows where the chinese have gone except me?

this discussion was about the govt expanding the economy. tourism is perhaps the most important part of the economy in my area, a fair part of which is chinese based. govt said this week there were large numbers of chinese tourists in thailand now due to some chinese holiday. my comment was about the tourist industry not doing so well due to seeing a lack of chinese tourists. hope this helps you understand my post, i thought it was fairly relavent to the topic.

not entirely sure what your reply was about. maybe you can help me out on an explanation.

i sense alot of pent up anger and frustration in this chat forum and i wonder if it a fair representation of westerners in thailand or just of people using this forum.

"everyone knows where the chinese have gone except me?" Yes.

[Muirton]

I mentioned on another thread how everything is going wrong for the head of the current administration and that that can be measured by how long is Friday yaks are. There is a better measure which is: How many ThaiVisa trolls defend him? Fewer by the day -- and they change their identity once they are laughed off the field.

There never was a lot of posters defending him. They were all in your mind, you created them to justify your many posts attacking the Junta, which is actually against forum rules. But you were not the only one who imagined all these so-called "junta lovers".

"How many ThaiVisa trolls defend him?"................you better be careful labeling anyone you disagree with a "troll".

And as far as posters changing their identities goes, you are right, there is a lot of that going on. But they are mostly red/Shin supporters who changed identities because they were banned, not because they were laughed off the field.

Please let the PM know how you measure how "everything is going wrong for the head of the current administration" as I am sure he will be interested in that !

Words fail.

[mikemac]

Wasn't there an article written by the IMF the other day, down grading the economic growth in Thailand? Furthermore it was discussed that the junta's short term solutions were not sustainable. Until Thailand upgraded technology and quality of goods, the outcome was dire. It further mentioned that Thailand was behind the rest of the ASEAN countries.

I really have a hard time understanding these so called positive domestic prognosis, when the rest of the international community says the opposite!

As regards tourism, who the heck is happy being on a towel in the sand on the beaches. Sorry, but people over a certain age (even young people) are not happy not having a comfortable sun bed, being able to read or whatever. They don't come here to lay by the pool, they want to relax in a sun bed on the beach, read, get up and take a long walk and return to their comfortable sun bed and watch the waves. They also like a cold glass of water or a light lunch served. Are not even hotels allowed to have sun beds on the beach? There is no beach resort I know of in the south of France, Italy, Dubai, Africa, Spain, Portugal or the carrabean that does not offer comfortable sun lounges on the beach. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe hotels here in Thailand are allowed to have loungers on the beach. If not, I think Thailand will lose a lot of so called quality tourists.

Since when did any Thai Government take notice of the IMF ?

Back in Jan 2014 the IMF were concerned with what was going on in Thailand -

"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for the curtailing of rice pledging in its annual review of Thailand’s economy published in November. “The staff sees clear merit in replacing the rice pledging scheme with budgetary transfers targeted at low-income agricultural households,” said the IMF report, warning that otherwise overall public debt could rise to 53% of GDP by the end of 2018."

http://time.com/1035/the-nightmare-gets-worse-for-embattled-thai-pm-yingluck/

But what would they know ?

If the sun bed crackdown is like any other crackdown they will soon creep back onto the sand then everything will be back to the way they were.

[i claudius]

" Jam yesterday ,jam tommorow ,but never jam today"

[sambum]

i dont get it. i put something relavant to this discussion. guy calls me ignorant, i ask him for an explanation, no reply. why do alot of people seem to be so angry on this forum? thailand is the most liveable country in the world, despite some shortcommings. i assume everyone on here lives or frequently visits this great country so why the negativity. still waiting for that explanation.

"why the negativity"? Most ex pats who live here do so because of the weather, and the cheap cost of living, and for the most part enjoy life here - or we wouldn't be here.

However, the negativity comes from seeing how great the country could be if certain aspects of life here were improved, and the frustration that comes from the constant lack of remedial action.

For instance, corruption seems to be is an accepted way of life here, "loss of face" can literally mean "loss of life", and while none of our home countries are perfect, there are other certain aspects to "Thainess" that a lot of us can not understand, or agree with :-

The "dual pricing system" where "farangs" are charged up to 20 times more (!) than Thais, the farce that constituted an investigation into the Koh Tao murders, and the ongoing trial that would have been thrown out of court in most Western countries, the "motor bike helmet" rule or lack of it depending on where you are/live, where "No have" often means "Can't be bothered to look". etc etc.

I agree with you when you say that you deserve a reply, and this is only IMHO, but it is in human nature to complain about things that aren't right, but less so to make positive comments about when things are OK.

[williamgeorgeallen]

i dont get it. i put something relavant to this discussion. guy calls me ignorant, i ask him for an explanation, no reply. why do alot of people seem to be so angry on this forum? thailand is the most liveable country in the world, despite some shortcommings. i assume everyone on here lives or frequently visits this great country so why the negativity. still waiting for that explanation.

"why the negativity"? Most ex pats who live here do so because of the weather, and the cheap cost of living, and for the most part enjoy life here - or we wouldn't be here.

However, the negativity comes from seeing how great the country could be if certain aspects of life here were improved, and the frustration that comes from the constant lack of remedial action.

For instance, corruption seems to be is an accepted way of life here, "loss of face" can literally mean "loss of life", and while none of our home countries are perfect, there are other certain aspects to "Thainess" that a lot of us can not understand, or agree with :-

The "dual pricing system" where "farangs" are charged up to 20 times more (!) than Thais, the farce that constituted an investigation into the Koh Tao murders, and the ongoing trial that would have been thrown out of court in most Western countries, the "motor bike helmet" rule or lack of it depending on where you are/live, where "No have" often means "Can't be bothered to look". etc etc.

I agree with you when you say that you deserve a reply, and this is only IMHO, but it is in human nature to complain about things that aren't right, but less so to make positive comments about when things are OK.

all good points but calling me ignorant because i ask people if they notice if there arent many chinese tourists around? idiotic.

anyway thailand is the best country to live and if people are so negative they should leave. we are foreigners, we always will be, there is nothing we can do to change anything and it pisses thais off when we try. good thing too if everyone here had their way we would be living in an anal uptight western style country. i am happy with thaialnd the way it is. ok it will probably be better if the army goes back to doing its normal job but militay take overs are a pert of life here. there will be another within 4 or 5 years of the next election. no point getting pissy about it.