P.S. Maybe if they put the knowledge center at Morchit northern bus station they would remember that a huge fraction of Bangkok’s population, those who can’t stretch their salaries into an automobile purchase, including me, have to pass through this hell hole to visit their familes in the provinces, if they can even get to it, since it is not connected to the subway. and the small roads around it often can’t handle the traffic. In the rainy season rain sweeps over the people waiting for buses since the rooves barely cover them. That it clearly can’t handle the capacity is evidenced by two weeks before Songkran people had to wait in the bus parking places, shiffting around when buses came in, because the platform was jam-packed like sardines. People have to arrive early to buy the tickets they reserved so everyone is waiting all over the floors.
The knowledge center would give them to do during the 2 to 3 hour wait.
“Since this government has cut back on Thaksin’s/Pansak’s knowledge center stuff, they might turn their offices at the Emporium into rice granaries in case any famine develops here.”
Maybe I shouldn’t laugh at my own analogy, but this comment sent me into laughter for several moments. I live down the street in Klong Toey from the Emporium and walking through there makes you realize how small most of our salaries are in Thailand. I used to regularly shop at the Emporium growing up in California but now it’s only a place to go gawk at the luxury goods!
More evidence that the Sonthi quote merely indicates that soldiers have to acquire PR skills, is that Chalongphob is planning fiscal stimulus measures (Keynesian government spending multiplier) after realisation that suddenly cutting back Thaksin’s populist program spending, apart from rural-urban equity issues, is contractionary fiscal policy.
[P.S. Build better roads and then maybe we can get more factories in Chiang Rai.]
I suppose the use of a statistical model might be needed by government agencies to quantify what most capable observers should be able to note: having a road to a village is better for poor villagers than having no road. And building a dry season road should give you a bigger bang for the baat/buck than the expense of an all-season road as even in the rainy season, a dry season road will be passable much of the time.
I have lived extended periods of time in two different isolated villages in northern Thailand. Back in the 1980s both were served by roads that were fairly crude, one a dry season road as defined by Warr and one a road intermediate between no road and a dry season road as lack of adequate bridges severely limited travel even in the dry season. The transportation costs for using these roads was quite high, not simply because of the poor quality, but because of the time it would take to get from point A to point B.
The dry season road had regular song thaaw (pickup truck) service, but at the cost of 10 Baat per trip for all of 10km. This trip would take over an hour on a good day when the passengers did not have to get out and push. Compare that to about the same cost, at that time, for travel by bus from Fang to Chiang Mai, a distance of about 150km. It was very expensive if not prohibitive for the locals to travel to the nearest market either to sell produce or to purchase goods. And only those with traumatic injuries might find be taken to seek medical care at a hospital. Food was grown locally, rice was milled locally or manually in the home each morning, clothes were woven locally, and western observers might conclude that there was a high poverty level.
Today that same village has a paved road. Locals wear inexpensive store-bought clothing and one no longer sees naked children playing about. Access to medical care is far easier with much less costs. Western observers might conclude that there was now less poverty. But at some point it becomes a subjective decision as to where poor people hit the poverty level. For all the improvements that the road brings, and one does not need equilibrium modeling to attest to the improvements, the road also brings exploitation and sorrow ranging from con artists to pimps. Certainly western observers like myself or Warr would be quick to note a reduction in perceived poverty and improvements in healthcare in the village above and argue for roads. Yet after all the changes over the past 25 years, all I see now are friends who are still poor but a lot less happy than 25 years ago. The road took away the laughter and song, something the statistical analysis does not capture.
I’d rather have a republican strongman than an “Xerxes–I am a god and am above criticism” type.
This is from the King’s 2005 birthday speech: “Actually, I must also be criticised. I am not afraid if the criticism concerns what I do wrong, because then I know. Because if you say the king cannot be criticised, it means that the king is not human”
ThaiTruth: Is your prefered strongman a Thaksin type?
(accepting criticism, apologising or even admitting mistakes were not his strong points)
HMK once told students around October 1973 to “study. That is your duty, leave politics alone.” While military men were refusing to stay in their barracks. Then again, in the 90s, he said, “They can say I am political. Even though I am King, I am also a Thai, I have my right to say my opinion.” Hardly fulfilling the duty of a constitutional monarch, and not to mention, using double standards. I think he spoke about double standards later on, but not in an apologetic way. I’d rather have a republican strongman than an “Xerxes–I am a god and am above criticism” type.
Since this government has cut back on Thaksin’s/Pansak’s knowledge center stuff, they might turn their offices at the Emporium into rice granaries in case any famine develops here.
I also want to add that I fully agree with Alice, we do “need to rethink outside strategies on Burma”, also I agree with Thant Myint-U. “Isolating one of the most isolated countries in the world … is both counterproductive and dangerous,” ( I have writen about this on my blog a few times). Constructive engagement and diplomacy far outweighs isolation.
I think the key is highly constructive diplomacy with Burma’s life line, China.
But I also can’t think of any situation in which such a level of diplomacy has been taken. So at this point I think this talk is just theorectical. I don’t think the UN, US or UK or prepared to take such steps and for many reasons.
Protect from contraction? From the effect, might be; from causing it, might not.
Refer to ISLM model, assume people do have saving, Saving could relate to Investment; thus, still contribute to growth…blah blah blah… you get the point.
But that would need climate where saving equal investment. And in this time, I doubt domestic investment are high.
So in theory, “Sufficiency-type policy” might work well in curbing growth and put a reign on consumer-over spending. But that should be in rapid growth economy with high inflation and goal for contraction. Not a third-world economy with more than 50 GDP from export.
State co-op granaries and “sufficiency philosophy” are different things.
God, what I said above was boring. Wait, did I hear an indirect admission from the fuhrer that the economy is actually “contracting”? I just hope he does not take recession as a benchmark for successfully promoting “sufficiency philosophy”.
Perhaps what Sonthi was trying to say is that even though the economy is contracting, the sufficiency economy will protect us from this contraction. (Sometimes translations are wrong or people are quoted out of context)
In China public granaries used to store rice for public distribution during famines (i.e. economic contraction). This kind of social insurance, in the wake of the 1997 crisis, is a good thing.
…but “People have money but they aren’t spending it” means a decrease in consumption which all things equal causes economic contraction. This Keynesian multiplier is the first thing you learn in your first macroeconomics class. There are some facts about modern economies that all economists agree on.
I suppose I will have to track down a copy of this compendium of work on ethnicity and the Karen. Not that I fully understand the direction that anthropology and sociology have taken since I bid adieu to academia two decades ago. (Any suggestions on introductions to the newer paradigms would be appreciated). I guess I remain to be convinced that there are Karen who are not “Kariang tok doi” (Karen who have come down from the mountains and no longer live a traditional lifestyle) who are environmentalists, benign or otherwise, in the more modern sense or that there are traditional Karen who are political. I see more “ethnic representation and political objectives” amongst the observers than amongst the observed. But again, the focus of the current academic thought remains a bit alien to me.
But hey, I am old school, and see the traditional Karen villagers in Thailand retaining “subsistence oriented lifestyles” because of relatively concrete impacts such as lack of education and opportunity, lack of access to credit, and outright racism when they try alternatives options, limited as they may be. I can’t begin to emphasize the degree of prejudice encountered by my Karen family and friends.
Maybe I can someday hope to understand what is meant by “socio-cultural emphasis on ‘indigeny’ and ‘many strandedness”, and maybe someday those terms too will not be underlined in red by MS Word. Hopefully at that point I can decide whether my decade of life amongst, not to mention my two decades of marriage to, what I affectionately call the Thai Hillbillies ( I also like Jonathan Falla’s equally affectionate term of “bloody pawgenyaw”) mesh with the observations of the slightly younger generation of observers.
Well, the first two sentences make some economics sense. But the last one kinda negate it all.
If sufficiency philosophy prevent people from spending (circulation of money), does that not mean it is not a good economics principle (Assuming country’s goal is for growth in economy, not contraction)?
dear singers larger in bottle,
side effects could include irrational, emotional outbursts. bringing up memories long repressed or even buying a red tuk-tuk.
however, there can be positive side effects where he becomes very sociable, jolly and happy that you are around him. yes, he might possibly sing.
be aware that larger bottles usually do larger damage to the liver and take note that he should soon get over this phase.
Clearly, the limits of British colonial rule placed a “geographical” limit on a hybrid Karen/western culture, but there were also a few outliers. If I remember my Karen Christian history correctly, the first Karen converts and church in Thailand were actually from around Chiang Rai. I forget the exact circumstances, but they were converted by Karens from Burma.
At Mae Sariang there was a school set up by the Karen Baptist church in the very early 1900s. The Karens in that area had been visited by a wondering Anglican priest who was ministering to the British working in the teak business along the border, who informed Karen Christians in Burma about the situation in Thailand. They sent Karen missionaries to the area and hence the church. Now this is all taking place close to Burma, but when the school opened, they taught Karen, Burmese, English and Thai classes, and the initial Thai teacher was a Karen from Chiang Rai. It wasn’t until he got to the school that they realized he knew Northern Thai, not Central Thai, so they had to replace him. Incidentally, there was a similar Karen school (then) outside of Chiang Mai, close to CMU where the Catholic center is (or was when I was there). Both schools were closed by the Thais during WWII.
Nganadeeleg, photograph copyright shouldn’t have been too much of an issue. The Royal Household licenses all photographs that it takes of the King and his family with a very progressive Creative Commons license.
Note that you can read a translation of chapters 1 and 15 of the book (the title of which is translated to р╕кр╕зр╕гр╕гр╕Др╣Мр╣Гр╕Щр╕нр╕Б р╕Щр╕гр╕Бр╣Гр╕Щр╣Гр╕И) at TKNSthai.googlepages.com.
please could you tell me if you have any reports of side effects after drinking this bottle larger that my father has had for two weeks in thailand. would be very greatfull if you have any information on this. he,s became very depressed and low and l really don,t understand as he never had this before, thank you
Thanks for this paper. I was always amazed at the speed and ubiquity of Thai fruits such as Durian which are available even late at night at the furthest north point in Thailand, Maesai. In Yangon buy a Durian coming from nearby Moulmein (like Rayong near Bangkok) and the price jumps incredibly.
It would be interesting to see such a general equilibrium model for Burma, but I guess data collection/survey is problematic?
please allow me to explain why LKY was a “tyrant”. During his regime, Singapore was NOT A SAFE COUNTRY.. there are riots (malaysia + singapore), strike, communism threat, british control, starvation, economy unrest, etc etc… in order for this country to survive, the only way out is to have a well organized government… there is NO democracy at that point of time… do you want a communism country or a strict ruler who can lead well? and furthermore, he does not really rule singapore as prime minister for so many years, he should not be blamed primarily for the current affairs of singapore..
protests in singapore is against the law.
also, we voted for PAP not because that he forces us, but there is no competitive opposition TEAM. pardon me for saying… because PAP had be active for so long and maintained a good record.. some opposition members are good too and PAP does not object to that.
Chee, has far as i can remember, uses oppose PAP tactics only, I don’t even know what are his plans for future singapore at all..
“Warr’s argument is one that will make a lot of sense to many observers of local development in the region.” Indeed, Warr’s insight is not exactly knew, but maybe one needs to refresh it from time to time.
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Exhibition: The King – “Father of Thai Innovation”
But the King’s statement was only aimed at publicly criticizing Thaksin, not at opening up the King for criticism!
Sonthi on sufficiency economy
P.S. Maybe if they put the knowledge center at Morchit northern bus station they would remember that a huge fraction of Bangkok’s population, those who can’t stretch their salaries into an automobile purchase, including me, have to pass through this hell hole to visit their familes in the provinces, if they can even get to it, since it is not connected to the subway. and the small roads around it often can’t handle the traffic. In the rainy season rain sweeps over the people waiting for buses since the rooves barely cover them. That it clearly can’t handle the capacity is evidenced by two weeks before Songkran people had to wait in the bus parking places, shiffting around when buses came in, because the platform was jam-packed like sardines. People have to arrive early to buy the tickets they reserved so everyone is waiting all over the floors.
The knowledge center would give them to do during the 2 to 3 hour wait.
Sonthi on sufficiency economy
“Since this government has cut back on Thaksin’s/Pansak’s knowledge center stuff, they might turn their offices at the Emporium into rice granaries in case any famine develops here.”
Maybe I shouldn’t laugh at my own analogy, but this comment sent me into laughter for several moments. I live down the street in Klong Toey from the Emporium and walking through there makes you realize how small most of our salaries are in Thailand. I used to regularly shop at the Emporium growing up in California but now it’s only a place to go gawk at the luxury goods!
More evidence that the Sonthi quote merely indicates that soldiers have to acquire PR skills, is that Chalongphob is planning fiscal stimulus measures (Keynesian government spending multiplier) after realisation that suddenly cutting back Thaksin’s populist program spending, apart from rural-urban equity issues, is contractionary fiscal policy.
[P.S. Build better roads and then maybe we can get more factories in Chiang Rai.]
Roads and riches
I suppose the use of a statistical model might be needed by government agencies to quantify what most capable observers should be able to note: having a road to a village is better for poor villagers than having no road. And building a dry season road should give you a bigger bang for the baat/buck than the expense of an all-season road as even in the rainy season, a dry season road will be passable much of the time.
I have lived extended periods of time in two different isolated villages in northern Thailand. Back in the 1980s both were served by roads that were fairly crude, one a dry season road as defined by Warr and one a road intermediate between no road and a dry season road as lack of adequate bridges severely limited travel even in the dry season. The transportation costs for using these roads was quite high, not simply because of the poor quality, but because of the time it would take to get from point A to point B.
The dry season road had regular song thaaw (pickup truck) service, but at the cost of 10 Baat per trip for all of 10km. This trip would take over an hour on a good day when the passengers did not have to get out and push. Compare that to about the same cost, at that time, for travel by bus from Fang to Chiang Mai, a distance of about 150km. It was very expensive if not prohibitive for the locals to travel to the nearest market either to sell produce or to purchase goods. And only those with traumatic injuries might find be taken to seek medical care at a hospital. Food was grown locally, rice was milled locally or manually in the home each morning, clothes were woven locally, and western observers might conclude that there was a high poverty level.
Today that same village has a paved road. Locals wear inexpensive store-bought clothing and one no longer sees naked children playing about. Access to medical care is far easier with much less costs. Western observers might conclude that there was now less poverty. But at some point it becomes a subjective decision as to where poor people hit the poverty level. For all the improvements that the road brings, and one does not need equilibrium modeling to attest to the improvements, the road also brings exploitation and sorrow ranging from con artists to pimps. Certainly western observers like myself or Warr would be quick to note a reduction in perceived poverty and improvements in healthcare in the village above and argue for roads. Yet after all the changes over the past 25 years, all I see now are friends who are still poor but a lot less happy than 25 years ago. The road took away the laughter and song, something the statistical analysis does not capture.
Exhibition: The King – “Father of Thai Innovation”
I’d rather have a republican strongman than an “Xerxes–I am a god and am above criticism” type.
This is from the King’s 2005 birthday speech:
“Actually, I must also be criticised. I am not afraid if the criticism concerns what I do wrong, because then I know. Because if you say the king cannot be criticised, it means that the king is not human”
ThaiTruth: Is your prefered strongman a Thaksin type?
(accepting criticism, apologising or even admitting mistakes were not his strong points)
Exhibition: The King – “Father of Thai Innovation”
HMK once told students around October 1973 to “study. That is your duty, leave politics alone.” While military men were refusing to stay in their barracks. Then again, in the 90s, he said, “They can say I am political. Even though I am King, I am also a Thai, I have my right to say my opinion.” Hardly fulfilling the duty of a constitutional monarch, and not to mention, using double standards. I think he spoke about double standards later on, but not in an apologetic way. I’d rather have a republican strongman than an “Xerxes–I am a god and am above criticism” type.
Sonthi on sufficiency economy
Since this government has cut back on Thaksin’s/Pansak’s knowledge center stuff, they might turn their offices at the Emporium into rice granaries in case any famine develops here.
Liberating Burma with $2 million a year?
I also want to add that I fully agree with Alice, we do “need to rethink outside strategies on Burma”, also I agree with Thant Myint-U. “Isolating one of the most isolated countries in the world … is both counterproductive and dangerous,” ( I have writen about this on my blog a few times). Constructive engagement and diplomacy far outweighs isolation.
I think the key is highly constructive diplomacy with Burma’s life line, China.
But I also can’t think of any situation in which such a level of diplomacy has been taken. So at this point I think this talk is just theorectical. I don’t think the UN, US or UK or prepared to take such steps and for many reasons.
Sonthi on sufficiency economy
Protect from contraction? From the effect, might be; from causing it, might not.
Refer to ISLM model, assume people do have saving, Saving could relate to Investment; thus, still contribute to growth…blah blah blah… you get the point.
But that would need climate where saving equal investment. And in this time, I doubt domestic investment are high.
So in theory, “Sufficiency-type policy” might work well in curbing growth and put a reign on consumer-over spending. But that should be in rapid growth economy with high inflation and goal for contraction. Not a third-world economy with more than 50 GDP from export.
State co-op granaries and “sufficiency philosophy” are different things.
God, what I said above was boring. Wait, did I hear an indirect admission from the fuhrer that the economy is actually “contracting”? I just hope he does not take recession as a benchmark for successfully promoting “sufficiency philosophy”.
Sonthi on sufficiency economy
Perhaps what Sonthi was trying to say is that even though the economy is contracting, the sufficiency economy will protect us from this contraction. (Sometimes translations are wrong or people are quoted out of context)
In China public granaries used to store rice for public distribution during famines (i.e. economic contraction). This kind of social insurance, in the wake of the 1997 crisis, is a good thing.
…but “People have money but they aren’t spending it” means a decrease in consumption which all things equal causes economic contraction. This Keynesian multiplier is the first thing you learn in your first macroeconomics class. There are some facts about modern economies that all economists agree on.
Living at the edge
I suppose I will have to track down a copy of this compendium of work on ethnicity and the Karen. Not that I fully understand the direction that anthropology and sociology have taken since I bid adieu to academia two decades ago. (Any suggestions on introductions to the newer paradigms would be appreciated). I guess I remain to be convinced that there are Karen who are not “Kariang tok doi” (Karen who have come down from the mountains and no longer live a traditional lifestyle) who are environmentalists, benign or otherwise, in the more modern sense or that there are traditional Karen who are political. I see more “ethnic representation and political objectives” amongst the observers than amongst the observed. But again, the focus of the current academic thought remains a bit alien to me.
But hey, I am old school, and see the traditional Karen villagers in Thailand retaining “subsistence oriented lifestyles” because of relatively concrete impacts such as lack of education and opportunity, lack of access to credit, and outright racism when they try alternatives options, limited as they may be. I can’t begin to emphasize the degree of prejudice encountered by my Karen family and friends.
Maybe I can someday hope to understand what is meant by “socio-cultural emphasis on ‘indigeny’ and ‘many strandedness”, and maybe someday those terms too will not be underlined in red by MS Word. Hopefully at that point I can decide whether my decade of life amongst, not to mention my two decades of marriage to, what I affectionately call the Thai Hillbillies ( I also like Jonathan Falla’s equally affectionate term of “bloody pawgenyaw”) mesh with the observations of the slightly younger generation of observers.
Sonthi on sufficiency economy
Well, the first two sentences make some economics sense. But the last one kinda negate it all.
If sufficiency philosophy prevent people from spending (circulation of money), does that not mean it is not a good economics principle (Assuming country’s goal is for growth in economy, not contraction)?
Thailand’s climate of repression
dear singers larger in bottle,
side effects could include irrational, emotional outbursts. bringing up memories long repressed or even buying a red tuk-tuk.
however, there can be positive side effects where he becomes very sociable, jolly and happy that you are around him. yes, he might possibly sing.
be aware that larger bottles usually do larger damage to the liver and take note that he should soon get over this phase.
sincerely,
Mr P. Latin
Living at the edge
Clearly, the limits of British colonial rule placed a “geographical” limit on a hybrid Karen/western culture, but there were also a few outliers. If I remember my Karen Christian history correctly, the first Karen converts and church in Thailand were actually from around Chiang Rai. I forget the exact circumstances, but they were converted by Karens from Burma.
At Mae Sariang there was a school set up by the Karen Baptist church in the very early 1900s. The Karens in that area had been visited by a wondering Anglican priest who was ministering to the British working in the teak business along the border, who informed Karen Christians in Burma about the situation in Thailand. They sent Karen missionaries to the area and hence the church. Now this is all taking place close to Burma, but when the school opened, they taught Karen, Burmese, English and Thai classes, and the initial Thai teacher was a Karen from Chiang Rai. It wasn’t until he got to the school that they realized he knew Northern Thai, not Central Thai, so they had to replace him. Incidentally, there was a similar Karen school (then) outside of Chiang Mai, close to CMU where the Catholic center is (or was when I was there). Both schools were closed by the Thais during WWII.
The King Never Smiles?
Nganadeeleg, photograph copyright shouldn’t have been too much of an issue. The Royal Household licenses all photographs that it takes of the King and his family with a very progressive Creative Commons license.
Note that you can read a translation of chapters 1 and 15 of the book (the title of which is translated to р╕кр╕зр╕гр╕гр╕Др╣Мр╣Гр╕Щр╕нр╕Б р╕Щр╕гр╕Бр╣Гр╕Щр╣Гр╕И) at TKNSthai.googlepages.com.
Thailand’s climate of repression
please could you tell me if you have any reports of side effects after drinking this bottle larger that my father has had for two weeks in thailand. would be very greatfull if you have any information on this. he,s became very depressed and low and l really don,t understand as he never had this before, thank you
Roads and riches
Thanks for this paper. I was always amazed at the speed and ubiquity of Thai fruits such as Durian which are available even late at night at the furthest north point in Thailand, Maesai. In Yangon buy a Durian coming from nearby Moulmein (like Rayong near Bangkok) and the price jumps incredibly.
It would be interesting to see such a general equilibrium model for Burma, but I guess data collection/survey is problematic?
Sonthi on sufficiency economy
Thank goodness he has a real economist on the staff, namely Finance Minister Chalongphob, who is quite clear and doesn’t
say things that contradict economic commonsense. Here is Chalongphob’s statement from Tokyo Club Foundation for Global Studies.
“Lee Kuan Yew – ANU is not for you!”
well, i saw the news and it was really shocking…
please allow me to explain why LKY was a “tyrant”. During his regime, Singapore was NOT A SAFE COUNTRY.. there are riots (malaysia + singapore), strike, communism threat, british control, starvation, economy unrest, etc etc… in order for this country to survive, the only way out is to have a well organized government… there is NO democracy at that point of time… do you want a communism country or a strict ruler who can lead well? and furthermore, he does not really rule singapore as prime minister for so many years, he should not be blamed primarily for the current affairs of singapore..
protests in singapore is against the law.
also, we voted for PAP not because that he forces us, but there is no competitive opposition TEAM. pardon me for saying… because PAP had be active for so long and maintained a good record.. some opposition members are good too and PAP does not object to that.
Chee, has far as i can remember, uses oppose PAP tactics only, I don’t even know what are his plans for future singapore at all..
Roads and riches
“Warr’s argument is one that will make a lot of sense to many observers of local development in the region.” Indeed, Warr’s insight is not exactly knew, but maybe one needs to refresh it from time to time.