Yingluck's rice-pledging scheme damages rise to 549 billion baht – says TDRI

[sjaak327]

Everyone knows Thaksin was a crook, the problem is he was an elected crook. The people currently running the show are crooks too, they are stealing and have stolen from the Thai people for decades, but other than Thaksin, never actually received a mandate. Their mandate is a few guns and blatant human rights abuses. Ironic is people like you who still haven't figured that one out ! Utterly naieve.

Incredible that you are naive enough to seemingly believe being elected puts you above the law and you can do whatever you want. Sadly true of politicians and bureaucrats around the world these days.

This post is about Yingluck, Thaksin's pretty little relative and stooge and her brother's rice scheme scam. Nice try at diversion though. Let's discuss others on appropriate threads, then you might understand what I've figured out and not jumped to conclusions that suit your purpose.

And no, not everyone does appear to know. There are several posters on TVF who regularly plead his innocence, presumably believing his CNN statement when he claimed he'd never ever done anything wrong.

He quite clearly wasn't above the law, neither were his 'proxy' PM's Samak, Somchai and his sister. There were ample (some would argue too much) checks and balances in place to deal with misbehaviours.

Again you take a point which is poorly chosen, as the current lot is indeed above the law, article 44 and an amnesty that absolves past and future crimes and that will be part of any constitution that will be enacted by this bunch.

If there is a diversion to be seen, you started it, I merely reacted to your post, nothing more and nothing less.

As to the rice scheme, it might not have been a very smart scheme, but it was a scheme introduced by a government with 300 out of 500 seats in parliament, or a large majority.

So far I have seen no evidence of corruption by the politicians who introduced it, and the amount of losses have only increased, indicating that the current administration hasn't done enough to minimize those, which also is indicated in the OP.

"........a scheme introduced by a government with 300 out of 500 seats in parliament, or a large majority."

And how did they get so many seats? By offering a scheme that has cost the country nearly B600 billion, and based upon lies about its chances of success.

Perhaps you don't have a problem with a party lying to voters and wasting the country's wealth.

Yes you are stating the obvious. Democracy and populist policies aren't exclusive to Thailand, such policies costing a shitload of money isn't typical to Thailand either.

To put it into perspective, the current government managed to run a budget deficit of over 500 billion in just six months....

I like to compare it with the mortgage tax deduction in the Netherlands, which cost us 14 billion Euro each and every year,the parties that continue this money drain get seats, the once that want to abolish it get considerably less seats.

Stop being so dramatic.

Edited July 28, 2016 by sjaak327

[mike324]

The OP contains a recommendation to sell rice quicker, logically it would indicate that the current government has not been fast enough selling the rice. Logically the longer it is kept in warehouses, the higher the storage costs and the more the quality will get worse, and the more chance rice ends up missing.

Well a lot of things are easier said than done....so the main point is that the government has been trying to sell the rice. The reason why they can't just dump it on the market for a big loss is due to anti-dumping regulations set forth by WTO. I think we all know that the longer it is in the warehouse, the quality will reduce, and in the end the warehouse cost might even catch up with the cost of rice!

The only logical solution other than selling it is to do something with the rice in the domestic market such as making ethanol. I don't know how much money the government will be losing by doing this, but at the current pace, the costs keep on stacking up with no end in sight.