There are many nominees that hold the share in the name of CPB; SCB (0.76%)and Royal Treasury (1.29%) for example. Moreover, with free float standing at 67.86%, owning 30% shares is as good as owning majority actually.
The net worth of the 40 richest people in Thailand is $20 billion as of 2006. Only $ 10 billion behind the royal conglomerate, does anyone else get the impression that maybe the odds are tilted slightly in the favour of the CPB, when it comes to making money in Thailand.
Might there be a correlation between the wealth and the continued archaic lèse majesté laws? I’d guess the last thing the top folks want to see is a ‘public debate’ about the wealth factor.
I just wanted to remind everybody that New Mandala posted an excellent analysis of the 2010 Supreme Court case against Thaksin back in February. It addresses an issue similar to Larsson’s in comment # 25 – namely, that the justices might have based their decision on faulty economics (willfully or unwittingly, I can’t say). Here is the post: http://www.newmandala.org/2010/02/27/making-sense-of-the-verdict/
Generous like Abraham in olden days? Ishmael and mother Hagar/Egyptian slave/minor wife were lucky. They will always believe they are the havenots. The gray matter too. This explains the Malays’ uncanny ability to run tour bus services on a few passengers. Sharing the blessings of their birthrights with ‘visitor’ citizens? NO WAY! That’s dream on dream! Remember the spread of the good will have to trickle down to the grassroots in a booming Malay populace.
GL, is PAS the extreme muslim political groupings of Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis, and Kedah? Shariah pusher? I have been away from Malaysia too long.
Small wonder the Thai separatists are doing well along the border. I skipped these fanatic states as a literature evangelist on bike during my younger days. Pioneer days along the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. I made quite a bit of money pushing health books to the Malay schools. They bought everything I had that were appropriate for a Malay school.
Re #22: The “shameless April elections fraud” was an accusation against the Election Commission that concerned the positioning of voting booths. It was not about Thaksin or TRT.
Re: #26: BoT and FIDF are institutions independent from the government. It was not a government auction.
Thaksin was found guilty for helping his wife to buy the land at a “heavily discounted” price. And this is obviously not true.
Well, years back I did a short article on Burma using a pseudonym, that dealt with the issue of sexual violence by the military, involving a very recent (at that time) crime near a small city. Had my real name been used (and someone in authority wanted to find out) it could have been, considering the location, easily correlated with the time I was in Burma, where I stayed, and could have led to who ferried us about, which villages were visited and so on. Sometimes anonymity is done for reasons of access (getting a visa, and in many cases there fair enough) but I believe it “should” be done, when really necessary, to protect others. I have not often used a pseudonym for writing etc., but sometimes it is a no-brainer.
May be even more interesting may be the annual contribution of the taxpayer to the royal houshold. As far as I remember it was about 120 Million US-Dollar, if one include the helicopter services (excluded the Airplanes which are under Thai Airforce) May be someone has more reliable information.
And now we remember, that the Military in Thailand says, the first and most important task to fulfill is to protect the monarchy. This means, that a big part of the military budget needs to be taken into consideration too. So the question should not be how much the royal family “owns”, because most of it is not the personal wealth of the royal family, but the royal family is only taking care of it because it belongs to the country, and need to be given back to the country one day, but how much the royal family costs the country per year.
David Brown #18: “so, you are frightened, dont know what to do,” yes I am nervous, although my sympathies are much more with the rank-&-file Redshirts than with the Yellow Peril. The problem, as I have stated, is with the Red leadership, who are overly emotional, erratic, and seem to have very little to say about how they would reconstruct Thailand in the event of winning the election – always assuming that there is one eventually.
It seems to me that it would be much more constructive all around if they put some energy into developing some coherent policies, encompassing all regions of this divided nation, rather than wasting it with polarising & negative rhetoric.
It appears that everyone is coming to an understanding of the nature of the current government that could be helpful to the Reds in their bid for government. This understanding is the outcome of what everyone can see. It is not necessary for the Reds to be screaming it out. However, it is necessary for the Reds to articulate some coherent and workable policies, so that the pseudo-Yellows, who are now losing faith in the govt will get on side. In short, they need to move Thaksin out of the picture – the middle-classes & quite a few others are not going to support his reinstatement; he is a dead issue – and they need to come up with a leader who is clearly clean, intelligent, and able to communicate with the South and Bangkok on the basis of what he can do for them, as well as with those who are already on side.
They need to take notice of Abhisit. Whatever support he has is because of his ‘squeaky-clean’ image, and his articulateness, his ability to say what the people want to hear. That he is alienating so many of his former supporters is due to the fact that they can now see that his government is just as corrupt as any other (& he can’t do much about it), his rhetoric is hollow and blatantly mendacious, and he is dismally weak due to the composition of his coalition. Those who support him now are Facebook airheads & the radically blinkered. The time for a leader to emerge has never been better.
re. “you…don’t know what to do.” I don’t have to “do” anything; I’m a farang, with no vote, &, although I comment on NM and listen to what my many Thai friends of all sides have to say, I am not an active participant in Thai politics; I’m an observer. To be more than that would be delusional & improper, in my view. When I do participate in discussions it is mainly to point out the superiority of rational processes over violent & emotional ones, & the value of civil society organisations engaged in any constructive projects whatever in local areas as a way of beginning a more democratic approach to running the country, because this is ‘doing’ democracy, rather than waiting for it to be done by someone else.
In your post #18, you seem to be talking about a hypothetical-to-delusional situation, in the final paragraph. I will agree that the country needs to get back to elections & full-term governments as soon as possible, having only had one such govt in the past. But I am not so naiive as to imagine that the next election will automatically lead to plain sailing in that direction.
Well, I definitely agree that Siam Cement is one of the best-run, most accountable corporations in Thailand. (They also happen to the only Thai stock I own that’s worth more than I paid for it, but never mind…) But I sense an implication from Mr fernquest that the CPB’s 35% (not majority) sharehold of Siam Cement is somehow causal to its excellent corporate practices? I don’t see evidence of that. Equally plausible is that Siam has benefited from its CPB connections to get favorable contracts.
I think the Korean (and Taiwan) examples are very useful for the current general discussion, because they avert the “Western v Eastern” argument, and because both states emerged from military governments into parliamentary systems roughly concurrent to their transition from agrarian-industrial to tech-industrial economies. Why not Thailand? Note that both Korea and Taiwan also have primary capital cities, lots of coastline, and dominant non-state religions. Why not Thailand?
Some cynics would say “the royal family” but I think that’s a limited and myopic answer. The biggest difference is that Korea, Japan, and Taiwan all have a culture of shame to counterweight their culture of face. They’re obsessed with image but the deal is that when you screw up, you fall on your sword. You go on TV, even if you’re the Minister of Finance or the CEO of Hyundai, and you apologize and hang your head in shame and you resign and accept legal punishment. This never happens in Thailand.
Sadly, the best leader Thailand has had in terms of potentially developing Chaebol-like development here and extending the opportunities thereof to the working classes was Thaksin. He always worshiped the Singapore model, but the Korea one was always the better bet. His corruption, cronyism, and legacy-egotism would have also fit the Korean/Japanese model for mega-business insider dealing. But the absence of a Thai culture of shame/accountability/justice would likely have derailed it anyway.
Whether the King has $1Billion or $60 Billion is irrelevant, apart from the fact that it emphasises the fact that in Thailand there are those that have “it” and those that don’t. The major economic problem facing Thailand is a lack of investor confidence associated with the unfinished political unrest and the sharp decline in tourist numbers. Despite the beat up by the Thai press the current tourist numbers are dismal. The hotel management, tailors, taxi drivers and whoever you talk to in Bangkok decry the lack of foreign tourists. It is anyone’s guess how long this may go on for but it is hurting so many of the population who depend on the tourist dollar for a living. This of course has a domino effect for all in the country from silk weavers in the north to fishermen in the south.
Prime Minister and his family cannot go shopping at government auctions, period. Doesn’t matter how much they pay.
The old case on FIDF being the state agency is comparing apples and oranges. That was about government’s financial liability for operating losses. Land case was about political supervision which isn’t the same thing at all, and the court ruled 9-0 on that account.
Ralph and R.N, go slug it out between themselves the role of big business in fascism, whether they were in bed by mutual consent or under the threat of communism.
Registered lobbying in the US is as undeniable as every politician’s promise not to bow to “special interests”. That’s what they get elected on, not on public announcements of the list of their lobbyists.
Prior to Thaksin the process of legislation was controlled by bureaucrats, not businesses. Under Thaksin businessmen were drafting the laws themselves and bureaucrats were forced to toe the line, that was a big change.
Chris Beale,
look at this definition by Griffin
“Fascism is a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti conservative nationalism…”
Red movement, anyone?
Or this by Paxton
“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion..”
Yeah, the humiliation and victimhood talk.
“uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites” – that’s Thaksin’s relationship with them prior to the coup in a nutshell, or reds with Thaksin himself and his network of tycoons and mandarins.
“redemptive violence without ethical or legal restraints” – isn’t it exactly how reds tried to come to power?
Or this from Passmore:
“Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. ”
We all heard how under Thaksin Thailand had put itself on the map and became the hub of all hubs.
If you emotionally disassociate fascism from Hitler and the Holocaust it doesn’t sound like the worst thing that can ever happen and it has many attractive proposition like modernization and reform and even raw energy of the movement itself.
I agree that building “nation-religion-monarchy” unity was essentially fascist , too, but now Abhisit is practically begging the people, including the opposition, to contribute to reform and reconciliation process, something completely alien to a fascist mindset.
The purchase price of the land was about 10% (or 72 million baht) above the appraisal value.
The purchase price was still about one third below its book value. This was because Bank of Thailand bought the land for a very high price in 1995 from a company in financial difficulties.
Is it possible that judges do not understand the difference between appraisal value and book value, even when it is explained clearly to them?
It’s also worth adding that two plots, adjacent to the land Pojaman purchased, were sold by BoT during the same period for a lower price per raj. These cases have not resulted in any legal processes.
I remember you admonishing “non-Thais” for daring to have a view against LM.
Then, in the same posting, you attacked Giles. Who is, unlike you, a Thai citizen.
Oooppps.
A “non-Thai” criticising a “Thai”.
Funny that.
I’ve met plenty in the Democrat Party who are more switched on, more able to comprehend the need to repeal LM and more able to understand that Thailand’s political and wealth distribution needs to be reappraised that you.
If I was you I’d get out more Jon.
Talk to a few more Thais than that group of PAD fanatics and ex-pat fruit cakes who seem attracted to you like flies to … ahem… fly paper.
Regarding CPB rental practice, my parents are among the long-time tenants who have seen the rent increasing each year, without fail. Although the monthly rental is quite low compared to the value of the land or property, they still had to pay a significant sum upfront (the word in Thai, borrowed from Chinese/Taechiew, is “Seng” equivalent to a leasehold I think). After 30+ years I still don’t know to whom that initial Seng money went.
If I’m not mistaken, there is also a court case against the CPB by the tenants in Rajprasong (yes ! that famous area). I don’t recall what was the charge but seems like something to do with wrongful eviction/breach of contract? I’m not sure on this point.
Anyway, CPB seems charitable as long as it is not too ‘expensive’ for them to do so.
So jonfernquest, give us a shred of evidence for all of your assertions. Anti-intellectualism is no safe haven from providing evidence for beliefs. I trust that you have stopped writing articles published in ivory-tower-entrenched hyper-specialized shielded-from-the-real-world cradle-to-grave-in-the-academy academic journals.
Thanks for your enthusiasm. We have plans to get the remainder of this series subtitled and up online as soon as possible. Beyond that I expect that we may produce a DVD with the 6 episodes, which would probably include some extra (previously unseen) footage. We will be sure to announce any developments right here on New Mandala.
And plans are currently evolving for future vodcast and podcast projects. There should be announcements on that front in the weeks and months ahead. As ever, I’m open to suggestions about what viewers, listeners and readers think would work best.
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Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
WLH – 10
CPB’s 35% (not majority)
There are many nominees that hold the share in the name of CPB; SCB (0.76%)and Royal Treasury (1.29%) for example. Moreover, with free float standing at 67.86%, owning 30% shares is as good as owning majority actually.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
@ Sebastian
http://us.asiancorrespondent.com/bangkok-pundit-blog/2008/03/expenditure.html
BP shows us the royal expenditure from taxpayer for 2008 is 6 billion baht.
Interesting comparison to make is to Thailand’s top 40 richest people from forbes
http://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0724/045.html
The net worth of the 40 richest people in Thailand is $20 billion as of 2006. Only $ 10 billion behind the royal conglomerate, does anyone else get the impression that maybe the odds are tilted slightly in the favour of the CPB, when it comes to making money in Thailand.
King Bhumibol’s billions
Might there be a correlation between the wealth and the continued archaic lèse majesté laws? I’d guess the last thing the top folks want to see is a ‘public debate’ about the wealth factor.
Thai Institutions: Judiciary
I just wanted to remind everybody that New Mandala posted an excellent analysis of the 2010 Supreme Court case against Thaksin back in February. It addresses an issue similar to Larsson’s in comment # 25 – namely, that the justices might have based their decision on faulty economics (willfully or unwittingly, I can’t say). Here is the post: http://www.newmandala.org/2010/02/27/making-sense-of-the-verdict/
Malays should not fear!
Generous like Abraham in olden days? Ishmael and mother Hagar/Egyptian slave/minor wife were lucky. They will always believe they are the havenots. The gray matter too. This explains the Malays’ uncanny ability to run tour bus services on a few passengers. Sharing the blessings of their birthrights with ‘visitor’ citizens? NO WAY! That’s dream on dream! Remember the spread of the good will have to trickle down to the grassroots in a booming Malay populace.
GL, is PAS the extreme muslim political groupings of Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis, and Kedah? Shariah pusher? I have been away from Malaysia too long.
Small wonder the Thai separatists are doing well along the border. I skipped these fanatic states as a literature evangelist on bike during my younger days. Pioneer days along the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. I made quite a bit of money pushing health books to the Malay schools. They bought everything I had that were appropriate for a Malay school.
Help us profile Thailand’s national reform committees
And next week boys and girls,if you are good,we will look at the argument that questions if proffesional wrestling is fixed or not.
Thai Institutions: Judiciary
@StanG
Re #22: The “shameless April elections fraud” was an accusation against the Election Commission that concerned the positioning of voting booths. It was not about Thaksin or TRT.
Re: #26: BoT and FIDF are institutions independent from the government. It was not a government auction.
Thaksin was found guilty for helping his wife to buy the land at a “heavily discounted” price. And this is obviously not true.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
John Fernquest: “So many Thais have been taught to have a knee jerk reaction against anything large and commercial like CP Group or Siam Cement”
They have? By who exactly? Sounds very different from the education system I know about.
I like the idea that Siam Cement are “setting standards in the country’s industrial development”. Is that what they were doing at Map Ta Phut?
And out of the seven projects allowed to continue there, six belonged to Siam Cement. Yup, that was an eductaion all right.
Selth on anonymity in political analysis
Well, years back I did a short article on Burma using a pseudonym, that dealt with the issue of sexual violence by the military, involving a very recent (at that time) crime near a small city. Had my real name been used (and someone in authority wanted to find out) it could have been, considering the location, easily correlated with the time I was in Burma, where I stayed, and could have led to who ferried us about, which villages were visited and so on. Sometimes anonymity is done for reasons of access (getting a visa, and in many cases there fair enough) but I believe it “should” be done, when really necessary, to protect others. I have not often used a pseudonym for writing etc., but sometimes it is a no-brainer.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
May be even more interesting may be the annual contribution of the taxpayer to the royal houshold. As far as I remember it was about 120 Million US-Dollar, if one include the helicopter services (excluded the Airplanes which are under Thai Airforce) May be someone has more reliable information.
And now we remember, that the Military in Thailand says, the first and most important task to fulfill is to protect the monarchy. This means, that a big part of the military budget needs to be taken into consideration too. So the question should not be how much the royal family “owns”, because most of it is not the personal wealth of the royal family, but the royal family is only taking care of it because it belongs to the country, and need to be given back to the country one day, but how much the royal family costs the country per year.
Thai Institutions: Judiciary
David Brown #18: “so, you are frightened, dont know what to do,” yes I am nervous, although my sympathies are much more with the rank-&-file Redshirts than with the Yellow Peril. The problem, as I have stated, is with the Red leadership, who are overly emotional, erratic, and seem to have very little to say about how they would reconstruct Thailand in the event of winning the election – always assuming that there is one eventually.
It seems to me that it would be much more constructive all around if they put some energy into developing some coherent policies, encompassing all regions of this divided nation, rather than wasting it with polarising & negative rhetoric.
It appears that everyone is coming to an understanding of the nature of the current government that could be helpful to the Reds in their bid for government. This understanding is the outcome of what everyone can see. It is not necessary for the Reds to be screaming it out. However, it is necessary for the Reds to articulate some coherent and workable policies, so that the pseudo-Yellows, who are now losing faith in the govt will get on side. In short, they need to move Thaksin out of the picture – the middle-classes & quite a few others are not going to support his reinstatement; he is a dead issue – and they need to come up with a leader who is clearly clean, intelligent, and able to communicate with the South and Bangkok on the basis of what he can do for them, as well as with those who are already on side.
They need to take notice of Abhisit. Whatever support he has is because of his ‘squeaky-clean’ image, and his articulateness, his ability to say what the people want to hear. That he is alienating so many of his former supporters is due to the fact that they can now see that his government is just as corrupt as any other (& he can’t do much about it), his rhetoric is hollow and blatantly mendacious, and he is dismally weak due to the composition of his coalition. Those who support him now are Facebook airheads & the radically blinkered. The time for a leader to emerge has never been better.
re. “you…don’t know what to do.” I don’t have to “do” anything; I’m a farang, with no vote, &, although I comment on NM and listen to what my many Thai friends of all sides have to say, I am not an active participant in Thai politics; I’m an observer. To be more than that would be delusional & improper, in my view. When I do participate in discussions it is mainly to point out the superiority of rational processes over violent & emotional ones, & the value of civil society organisations engaged in any constructive projects whatever in local areas as a way of beginning a more democratic approach to running the country, because this is ‘doing’ democracy, rather than waiting for it to be done by someone else.
In your post #18, you seem to be talking about a hypothetical-to-delusional situation, in the final paragraph. I will agree that the country needs to get back to elections & full-term governments as soon as possible, having only had one such govt in the past. But I am not so naiive as to imagine that the next election will automatically lead to plain sailing in that direction.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
Well, I definitely agree that Siam Cement is one of the best-run, most accountable corporations in Thailand. (They also happen to the only Thai stock I own that’s worth more than I paid for it, but never mind…) But I sense an implication from Mr fernquest that the CPB’s 35% (not majority) sharehold of Siam Cement is somehow causal to its excellent corporate practices? I don’t see evidence of that. Equally plausible is that Siam has benefited from its CPB connections to get favorable contracts.
I think the Korean (and Taiwan) examples are very useful for the current general discussion, because they avert the “Western v Eastern” argument, and because both states emerged from military governments into parliamentary systems roughly concurrent to their transition from agrarian-industrial to tech-industrial economies. Why not Thailand? Note that both Korea and Taiwan also have primary capital cities, lots of coastline, and dominant non-state religions. Why not Thailand?
Some cynics would say “the royal family” but I think that’s a limited and myopic answer. The biggest difference is that Korea, Japan, and Taiwan all have a culture of shame to counterweight their culture of face. They’re obsessed with image but the deal is that when you screw up, you fall on your sword. You go on TV, even if you’re the Minister of Finance or the CEO of Hyundai, and you apologize and hang your head in shame and you resign and accept legal punishment. This never happens in Thailand.
Sadly, the best leader Thailand has had in terms of potentially developing Chaebol-like development here and extending the opportunities thereof to the working classes was Thaksin. He always worshiped the Singapore model, but the Korea one was always the better bet. His corruption, cronyism, and legacy-egotism would have also fit the Korean/Japanese model for mega-business insider dealing. But the absence of a Thai culture of shame/accountability/justice would likely have derailed it anyway.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
Whether the King has $1Billion or $60 Billion is irrelevant, apart from the fact that it emphasises the fact that in Thailand there are those that have “it” and those that don’t. The major economic problem facing Thailand is a lack of investor confidence associated with the unfinished political unrest and the sharp decline in tourist numbers. Despite the beat up by the Thai press the current tourist numbers are dismal. The hotel management, tailors, taxi drivers and whoever you talk to in Bangkok decry the lack of foreign tourists. It is anyone’s guess how long this may go on for but it is hurting so many of the population who depend on the tourist dollar for a living. This of course has a domino effect for all in the country from silk weavers in the north to fishermen in the south.
Thai Institutions: Judiciary
Prime Minister and his family cannot go shopping at government auctions, period. Doesn’t matter how much they pay.
The old case on FIDF being the state agency is comparing apples and oranges. That was about government’s financial liability for operating losses. Land case was about political supervision which isn’t the same thing at all, and the court ruled 9-0 on that account.
Big questions for Thailand
Ralph and R.N, go slug it out between themselves the role of big business in fascism, whether they were in bed by mutual consent or under the threat of communism.
Registered lobbying in the US is as undeniable as every politician’s promise not to bow to “special interests”. That’s what they get elected on, not on public announcements of the list of their lobbyists.
Prior to Thaksin the process of legislation was controlled by bureaucrats, not businesses. Under Thaksin businessmen were drafting the laws themselves and bureaucrats were forced to toe the line, that was a big change.
Chris Beale,
look at this definition by Griffin
“Fascism is a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti conservative nationalism…”
Red movement, anyone?
Or this by Paxton
“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion..”
Yeah, the humiliation and victimhood talk.
“uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites” – that’s Thaksin’s relationship with them prior to the coup in a nutshell, or reds with Thaksin himself and his network of tycoons and mandarins.
“redemptive violence without ethical or legal restraints” – isn’t it exactly how reds tried to come to power?
Or this from Passmore:
“Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. ”
We all heard how under Thaksin Thailand had put itself on the map and became the hub of all hubs.
He also made trains run on time.
Just go to wiki and have fun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
If you emotionally disassociate fascism from Hitler and the Holocaust it doesn’t sound like the worst thing that can ever happen and it has many attractive proposition like modernization and reform and even raw energy of the movement itself.
I agree that building “nation-religion-monarchy” unity was essentially fascist , too, but now Abhisit is practically begging the people, including the opposition, to contribute to reform and reconciliation process, something completely alien to a fascist mindset.
Thai Institutions: Judiciary
@shadow
Just some clarifications.
The purchase price of the land was about 10% (or 72 million baht) above the appraisal value.
The purchase price was still about one third below its book value. This was because Bank of Thailand bought the land for a very high price in 1995 from a company in financial difficulties.
Is it possible that judges do not understand the difference between appraisal value and book value, even when it is explained clearly to them?
It’s also worth adding that two plots, adjacent to the land Pojaman purchased, were sold by BoT during the same period for a lower price per raj. These cases have not resulted in any legal processes.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
Fernquest,
What’s with all the ad hominem?
You’re not losing the argument again, are you?
I remember you admonishing “non-Thais” for daring to have a view against LM.
Then, in the same posting, you attacked Giles. Who is, unlike you, a Thai citizen.
Oooppps.
A “non-Thai” criticising a “Thai”.
Funny that.
I’ve met plenty in the Democrat Party who are more switched on, more able to comprehend the need to repeal LM and more able to understand that Thailand’s political and wealth distribution needs to be reappraised that you.
If I was you I’d get out more Jon.
Talk to a few more Thais than that group of PAD fanatics and ex-pat fruit cakes who seem attracted to you like flies to … ahem… fly paper.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
Regarding CPB rental practice, my parents are among the long-time tenants who have seen the rent increasing each year, without fail. Although the monthly rental is quite low compared to the value of the land or property, they still had to pay a significant sum upfront (the word in Thai, borrowed from Chinese/Taechiew, is “Seng” equivalent to a leasehold I think). After 30+ years I still don’t know to whom that initial Seng money went.
If I’m not mistaken, there is also a court case against the CPB by the tenants in Rajprasong (yes ! that famous area). I don’t recall what was the charge but seems like something to do with wrongful eviction/breach of contract? I’m not sure on this point.
Anyway, CPB seems charitable as long as it is not too ‘expensive’ for them to do so.
Forbes on King Bhumibol’s billions
So jonfernquest, give us a shred of evidence for all of your assertions. Anti-intellectualism is no safe haven from providing evidence for beliefs. I trust that you have stopped writing articles published in ivory-tower-entrenched hyper-specialized shielded-from-the-real-world cradle-to-grave-in-the-academy academic journals.
Thailand in Crisis: Episode 2 (р╣Бр╕Ыр╕ер╣Ар╕Ыр╣Зр╕Щр╕ар╕▓р╕йр╕▓р╣Др╕Чр╕в)
WLH,
Thanks for your enthusiasm. We have plans to get the remainder of this series subtitled and up online as soon as possible. Beyond that I expect that we may produce a DVD with the 6 episodes, which would probably include some extra (previously unseen) footage. We will be sure to announce any developments right here on New Mandala.
And plans are currently evolving for future vodcast and podcast projects. There should be announcements on that front in the weeks and months ahead. As ever, I’m open to suggestions about what viewers, listeners and readers think would work best.
Best wishes to all,
Nich