Baht Won’t Strengthen Until Economy Is Affected

[manutoo]

pork Loin was 75 baht now it is 100 baht at th market.

at least one guy who knows prices other than the ones for bargirls..!

If it was at 75b 5 years ago, it's a 5.9% yearly inflation rate... Kinda high...

[kangeroo]

Yeah those inflation nos are completely off target...

My guess would be in the 5-10% range with "expat-purchase-style" (more travel, buying foreign goods and specialities Etc.) being even higher. Cheers!

[kangeroo]

"the Thai economy next year is projected to grow 3.9 per cent with an inflation rate of 2 per cent"

*****

2% inflation? whom is Khun Kittirat Na Ranong trying to bullsh*t? some farang tourist who spends a two week vacation in Thailand?

thai economy is on the skids

[ovenman]

pork Loin was 75 baht now it is 100 baht at th market.

at least one guy who knows prices other than the ones for bargirls..!

If it was at 75b 5 years ago, it's a 5.9% yearly inflation rate... Kinda high...

Maybe somebody could ring up Bernard Trink and inquire as to the five-year pricing trends for a tin of Dinty Moore beef stew?

[mitrapaap]

"the Thai economy next year is projected to grow 3.9 per cent with an inflation rate of 2 per cent"

*****

2% inflation? whom is Khun Kittirat Na Ranong trying to bullsh*t? some farang tourist who spends a two week vacation in Thailand?

According to the Asian Development Bank:

Inflationary pressure is expected to ebb. The moderate tightening of monetary policy should slow consumer spending, which could also be affected by political uncertainty. In addition, the Ministry of Commerce enforced stringent price controls on a range of consumer goods in early 2006. Oil prices are projected to rise more moderately. In view of these factors, the inflation rate for 2006 is forecast at 4.0%, decelerating further to about 3.0% in 2007 (Figure 2.28.9).

Economic forecasts are obviously never all that accurate, whether in Thailand or UK or USA and, depending on who's doing the predicting, there is likely to be a political component in the calculations.

One thing that is predictable with almost 100% accuracy is that no matter what a Thai official says, the Carry-On-Farang Troupe will start foaming at the mouth declaring they know better based on ... based on...golly what would it be that their supreme certainty could be based on? Maybe Divine intervention?? It's hard to believe they kept some price records on the whole range of things which go into the THAI consumer index (as opposed to farang liquor and condom purchases). I guess when your white, you just know better about everything.

You should be commended on your tolerance based on skin color.

Forgive me but I thought the subject was actually economic not racial. By the way the baskets of consumable items includes "consumables". (as opposed to farang liquor and condom purchases) = consumables. Consumables are things that go away when used. I assume most of us understand these are actually consumables.

What you seem to miss is that Thai officials are often inaccurate. That is also true of YOUR so called "farang" officials but the subject here is not about farang officials. Its about Thai officials. Each of us in our respective countries frequently call BS on our own people as well. You apparently haven't looked around much.

Cheers.

No doubt, I'm sure you do critizise your own people and officials as well. What YOU seem to miss is that while notorious, justified or unjustified critizising is most common in western societies, it is not seen as very smart nor is it welcome in Thai culture. Imagine you are british in Britain and a turkish guy starts critizising your government, your economy, your officials, whatever a Britain says, not says, does or not does. Would be interesting to know whether you would consider his comments as value adding positive critizism or whether you'd rather tell him to get back to where he came from and clean up the shit that happens there.

Sorry for being off subject, just felt the need to further illustrate Kaojai's point.

[Naam]

As trade between the two countries (two currencies) is large, the Chinese include the baht in its basket.

Cuntries generally try to have their "currency basket" as an approximation of their trade and investmet with those countries.

*****

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!

[mitrapaap]

Depemdimg on which "standard basket" is used, two major factors that might be in there (or not) are the price of petrol and the price of housing

Both have surged ober the last few years, but I'm starting to hear that house prices are collapsing in the same way as Condo prices have done this year.

Perhaps that negative factor is suppressing the increases in in other items?

Then again, their daily essentials basket might only contain Tesco-Lotus "Roll back" priced groceries?

You can tell me all the B.S you want about inflation growth etc the truth is the thai baht is over valued why they are buying up usd the euro and the brit/pound and then the truth comes to play they dump the thai baht and buy it back at huge profit I am no economist but I am not stupid I am street kid born in brooklyn N.Y. and know when a scam is being played I am also white and we wrote the book on scams sadly I am here and losing money every month when I transfer my pension money to live here if things don't change I will go to a neighboring country were I will be treated well sadly I will lose what I have bought in thailand and possibly my g/f will lose the cash cow when I depart along with many other white boys from around the world who have been supporting thai girls and there families along with there husbands and there children and neigbors children and distant families that do not exist AMEN

"....I am no economist but I am not stupid...." okay,

".....who have been supporting thai girls and there families along with there husbands and there children and neigbors children and distant families that do not exist...." You did? That at least doesn't sound very intelligent.

When I came here 11 years ago I got 20 Baht for a swiss franc. It went up to 32 Baht for a franc. I was happy and I haven't seen anybody complaining. Now it went down a bit 29, 28 something... Do I have to emigrate to a neighbouring country now?

[z9999]

I don't know about 5 years ago but 34 years ago, a short-time was loi baht, (long-time song loi baht.) Gooteo 3 baht, kow-pot 7 baht, Sukhumvit to Patpong via tuktuk - 12 baht, .....

39 years ago - 0 baht short or long time. Dinner and/or a movie, friendship. At least that was the case if you were a long time resident. Things have changed.

[Martin]

The rise in the price of pork loin reflects the rise in the price of natural gas and oil, because they are the major costs in the production of the fertiliser that grows the grain that makes the pig food.

Expect many food prices to keep going up now that there is less oil available from the wells than there are buyers wanting it.

The component in production costs that, in percentage terms, is going down is labour costs. If a wage rate remains the same, but there is 5% inflation, the worker has 5% less purchasing power from his/her wages.

There is a lot of manipulation going on, so politicians can obscure the reality that the purchasing power of our pensions is dropping, too---like "cost-of-living" adjustments that are based on an index that excludes the rises in energy and housing costs!

The real crunch will come soon, when the private pension schemes start paying out to the baby-boomer retirees. They will be selling so much stock that stock prices will go down a lot and the Second Great Depression will set in. Also, the Western Governments will have to print money to pay the public pensions, and that will boost inflation.

Whether we get back to pensioners eating pork loin from the pig that they raised on the household scraps (like my grandparents did, in the days before oil got cheap) remains to be seen.

[kevbap]

Friday, November 3, 2006

1 British Pound = 70.05165 Thai Baht

1 Thai Baht (THB) = 0.01428 British Pound (GBP)

Nice round figure for today.....

from Oanda.

Is there a website for this information, Rinrada? with daily or weekly updates?

thanks

[technocracy]

Friday, November 3, 2006

1 British Pound = 70.05165 Thai Baht

1 Thai Baht (THB) = 0.01428 British Pound (GBP)

Nice round figure for today.....

from Oanda.

Is there a website for this information, Rinrada? with daily or weekly updates?

thanks

www.xe.com is the fount of all knowledge for currency exchange.

As for the comments about the dollar not being weak - in short yes it is!

Living in Laos the dollar is an everyday currency here currently in the banks you get 9870kip for 1 dollar which is the weakest I've ever seen the dollar has been for a long time. It always used to hover around 10,500 or I saw it at 11,000 at one point. The £ is still about the 18,700 mark which is what it's been for a long time - although I do remember it touching nearly 20,000kip the other year.

Now when I transfer money over to my USD account in Laos from the UK we are currently getting $1.90 to the £. Which is the highest for a year or more - I remember it about 4 years ago being $1.50 to the £.

The US dollar is weak - no two ways about it.

[robhudd]

Inflation is not necessarily bad for an economy. Japan has been complaining about minus inflation for years.

[Heng]

"....I am no economist but I am not stupid...." okay,

".....who have been supporting thai girls and there families along with there husbands and there children and neigbors children and distant families that do not exist...." You did? That at least doesn't sound very intelligent.

When I came here 11 years ago I got 20 Baht for a swiss franc. It went up to 32 Baht for a franc. I was happy and I haven't seen anybody complaining. Now it went down a bit 29, 28 something... Do I have to emigrate to a neighbouring country now?

[Nemo.]

I think that without Thaksin's family greedy "sticky fingers in the till" prices will come down a bit. In Malaysia satelite is 880 Baht a month for the same package that costs 2,155 Baht a month here! and there teachers earn twice as much. Oil prices though are very important in the cost structure of foods and transport

As for TEFL job requirements the most important to most Thais is WHITE SKIN!

My wife (asian but 7 years an English teacher AND a native speaker) is always going to be behind the que for Thailand TEFL jobs to the likes of one girl she met who was placed....white blue eyes Ukranian! who could say "hello, goodbye and how are you?" and nothing else. Well thats at "language schools". Luckily we ended up at a proper school/agent (very few in Thailand)

[pap]

"the Thai economy next year is projected to grow 3.9 per cent with an inflation rate of 2 per cent"

*****

2% inflation? whom is Khun Kittirat Na Ranong trying to bullsh*t? some farang tourist who spends a two week vacation in Thailand?

According to the Asian Development Bank:

Inflationary pressure is expected to ebb. The moderate tightening of monetary policy should slow consumer spending, which could also be affected by political uncertainty. In addition, the Ministry of Commerce enforced stringent price controls on a range of consumer goods in early 2006. Oil prices are projected to rise more moderately. In view of these factors, the inflation rate for 2006 is forecast at 4.0%, decelerating further to about 3.0% in 2007 (Figure 2.28.9).

Economic forecasts are obviously never all that accurate, whether in Thailand or UK or USA and, depending on who's doing the predicting, there is likely to be a political component in the calculations.

One thing that is predictable with almost 100% accuracy is that no matter what a Thai official says, the Carry-On-Farang Troupe will start foaming at the mouth declaring they know better based on ... based on...golly what would it be that their supreme certainty could be based on? Maybe Divine intervention?? It's hard to believe they kept some price records on the whole range of things which go into the THAI consumer index (as opposed to farang liquor and condom purchases). I guess when your white, you just know better about everything.

You should be commended on your tolerance based on skin color.

Forgive me but I thought the subject was actually economic not racial. By the way the baskets of consumable items includes "consumables". (as opposed to farang liquor and condom purchases) = consumables. Consumables are things that go away when used. I assume most of us understand these are actually consumables.

What you seem to miss is that Thai officials are often inaccurate. That is also true of YOUR so called "farang" officials but the subject here is not about farang officials. Its about Thai officials. Each of us in our respective countries frequently call BS on our own people as well. You apparently haven't looked around much.

Cheers.

No doubt, I'm sure you do critizise your own people and officials as well. What YOU seem to miss is that while notorious, justified or unjustified critizising is most common in western societies, it is not seen as very smart nor is it welcome in Thai culture. Imagine you are british in Britain and a turkish guy starts critizising your government, your economy, your officials, whatever a Britain says, not says, does or not does. Would be interesting to know whether you would consider his comments as value adding positive critizism or whether you'd rather tell him to get back to where he came from and clean up the shit that happens there.

Sorry for being off subject, just felt the need to further illustrate Kaojai's point.

For what its worth, I got his point. I also don't think the Thai officials quoted sit down and come up with those numbers themselves. Teams do. Inflation, economic growth or any other number trying to account for something with so many variables on such a scale is often going to be off. Garbage in Garbage out.

Many western politicians and government officials have earned their disdain from many of our view points and because of the openess of our cultures we often assume criticism everywhere is justified. I am definitely not saying western ways with respect to this are better because at some point when nothing is respectable or sacred you start to have real problems.

When in Rome...etc. You will always see more criticism than compliments on Forums. Basic human nature. Well...western nature....our continual complaining is something I hope the Thais never inherit. They seem mostly content to talk about things they enjoy. A gift.

What many forum members view as progress often comes with hidden consequences which is why I hope the Thais are careful in the values they learn from the west. Money isn't everything and if you have to give up your basic values for it than maybe it isn't worth it. Thats a lot easier to say when you have money though.

I also understand this kind of criticism is not the Thai way. It provokes conflict instead of avoids it. This is both a benefit of Thai culture and a problem for it. To improve things you have to be able to criticise them and point out the failures. Westerners (not all) tend to take critism past being constructive. Thais tend to fall short of constructive critism (except with close friends). Neither work well and each has different consequences. But I happen to love Thai culture and Thailand for what it is.

Cheers.

[Martin]

"But I happen to love Thai culture and Thailand for what it is."

Thailand and its many cultures, possibly. But the rural cultures descended from the Tai-people rice growers and the urban cultures, particularly the trader culture descended from the Chinese merchants, can hardly be lumped together as one.

If there was one dominant culture, there would be no coups or constitutions---but as it is.......

[cutter007]

The Thai govenment has a nice little scam going when it comes to inflation reporting. You see they use a price basket on a number of goods and services to report inflation, but they also control the price through govenment policy on a lot of these goods, so basically they are artifically deflating inflation. Scam actually isn't a right word, it should be described as dek nai tua yai, len ra ta baan.............which might translate to "children in big bodies playing government"

[helicoptor]

We all complain and yet, some of us prefer to be here in Thailand rather than at home, where tax and social security suck the last drop of blood out of our body (and that's after emptying the pockets and the bank accounts).

It is certain that Thais do mistakes and do make false statements in order not to loose face, but keep in mind that the country is developing, and doing it fast.

Widespread corruption everywhere..its just other countries are better at hiding it than others, some countries don't even bother to try to hide it

[cclub75]

The Thai govenment has a nice little scam going when it comes to inflation reporting. You see they use a price basket on a number of goods and services to report inflation, but they also control the price through govenment policy on a lot of these goods, so basically they are artifically deflating inflation. Scam actually isn't a right word, it should be described as dek nai tua yai, len ra ta baan.............which might translate to "children in big bodies playing government"

You're right. But to be fair.... many other governments do the same trick !

It's true in the US and EU for instance.

We would speak about the delicious concept of "core inflation", basically : it's a calculation where you remove all... the goods that are subject to price increase ! Pretty cool. And also : the change in the calculation of the index itselft (the US did it during Clinton presidency). Works great too, to artificially deflate the inflation if I may say.

Last but not least : the "usage value" concept.

For instance : a hard disk. Costs 100 with a capacity of 100 GB. Next year, it still costs 100, but its capacity went up to 150 GB. So the government will consider that the "quality" has improved (you have more for the same price). So, its "price" will be lowered within the index calculation !

Great again to deflate the inflation.

Which of course doesn't make any sense : because customer don't have choice (all hardisks have 150 GB, the 100 GB capacity is not available anymore). It's just "technical progress", that's all.

It's an example of course, but you get the idea...

I could speak about the "weightening" of the goods within the basket too.

For instance, government decides that "housing expenses" should represent 15 % of the statistical basket. Or gasoline, 10 %.

True in the US where rents have more weight within the index than house prices. So, when the houses prices go crazy on a national scale, no problem "index inflation" remains flat... Great, huh ?

The big question now is : why ? Why it's so important to make up inflation figures ? And why all the governments play this game ?

-1-keep interest rates low (that the main issue : to keep fueling the economy with ever cheap money)

-2-reduce some expenses (for instance pensions that might be indexed on inflation numbers)

-3-surevaluate the "real" GDP growth.

Add 1, 2 and 3 and you start to understand that from an economic point of view, we are living in wonderland.

[backflip]

"For instance : a hard disk...It's an example of course, but you get the idea."

I'm afraid that I don't get the idea. Explaining a country's economy, it's fiscal policy, and the central banking system using a hard disk as an example is too funny. Thanks for the laugh.

[PeaceBlondie]

I think the examples such as a hard disk were about the economy, fiscal policy, etc. Inflation (and you'll have economists defining that term completely differently) as the change in prices, is manipulated by governments who issue the figures.

It would be silly to keep comparing today's PC with the PC of ten years ago. Then again, maybe it's silly to include a PC in the cost of living index. Or a new BMW. Or, a new house, since most people live in used homes.

[cclub75]

I'm afraid that I don't get the idea. Explaining a country's economy, it's fiscal policy, and the central banking system using a hard disk as an example is too funny. Thanks for the laugh.

Put your glasses.

My message was a reply to cutter07 about :

-inflation reporting

-calculation methods for inflation index (or cost living index or Consumer Price Index whatever you call it)

Since CPI is a crucial data, it's important to try to understand how it is calculated.

To go further (for the CPI in the US) :

(list of the "weight" for the differents items of the CPI)

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiri_2005.pdf

(a detail about house owners versus rent expenses)

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifact6.htm

Edited November 13, 2006 by cclub75

[rken]

Some people are just not happy unless there bitchen. If you don't like it here leave.

The way I see it if the dollars looses ground about 41 baht to 1 when I first came hear and now its 36to 1. I just made about 10% on all my investments. Lets see that comes to about 750,000 baht in the last year. Either way the dollar moves I win. My dollars in the states are worth more here if the dollars strengthens and my investments here are worth more if the dollar weakens. Well Thanks I've have enjoyed all of you guys comments and dissertations and believe it or not I've learned a few things. Thank again

[Indifferent]

Read that statement as it's meant: Talking the currency down.

I would be interested to know more about why the Thai Baht is in the "basket" of Yuan currencies - how come? China surely is big and strong, but what does it have to do with Thailand, which, by all accounts, is nowhere near the booming Chinese economy in either size or growth rate.

Indeed. I agree. This is to play down the Baht. This is addition with the release last week of a newsletter to curb speculation in the Thai baht (don't give any to foreigners is the gist)

Revision of Measures to Prevent Thai Baht Speculation

This explains why its in the "basket".

Composition of currency basket revealed

Edited November 14, 2006 by Indifferent