Trillian
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Posts posted by Trillian
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On 7/13/2020 at 3:13 PM, jackdd said:
In case you paid by credit card just tell them that they have two weeks to return the money.
In case it's not returned within the two weeks contact your bank and tell them to make a charge back.
I was ticketed on BA for BKK/LHR in mid May but it was cancelled once month prior. The BA refund line went unanswered or the line closed so I gave the problem to Barclaycard. BC said they were dependent on the goodwill of the airlines bank but they did give me a temporary credit on my credit card. Now, two months on, there's still no sign of a refund.
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7 minutes ago, faraday said:
"Between 2015 and 2018, the poverty rate in Thailand grew from 7.21% to 9.85% and the absolute number of people living in poverty increased from 4.85 million to more than 6.7 million."
Yes agreed, the causes being:
- Over the past few years, Thailand’s growth rate has been lower than other large economies in the developing East Asia and Pacific region. In October 2019, Thailand had one of the lowest GDP growth rates in the region, at 2.7%.
- Growth has been moderating across the region as trade and economic growth have also weakened globally, affecting exports.
- Droughts have affected the livelihoods of farmers who are already typically the poorest.
- Tourism has experienced declines.
Except Thailand did not suffer from drops in tourism and exports.
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24 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:
Yet you forget the majority of the information is from those gainfully employed and reporting income. There is a very large percentage of this population that lives on a daily wage where there are no taxes or SS taken out and it is cash under the table. These are the people who the government has left out of any meaningful assistance be it from handouts or policies. Policies for income equality and then reporting those employed need to be fixed so that just a policy of a daily minimum wage is not left up in the air. Many households have maids, housekeepers, drivers and such, do you think that this income is reported either by the employer or by the individuals and where will you find the documentation if you believe so. I know it is a lot to digest Trillian, but Stats can be manipulated and only show those that are actively gainfully employed and reported as such.
There is a regulated and an unregulated employment market in Thailand and the unregulated segment is about 60% of the total. There's an interesting report that I'll try to locate and post that talks about these things. The unregulated segment is as you suggest, cash in hand and doesn't pay taxes or Social Security (SSc) although there is nothing to prevent those people from making the THB 432 per month that would give them SSc coverage which would also give them medical insurance. But they don't, they take the money and run during the good times and in the bad times they stand there with their hand out, such as now.
As I say on my about me page I work part time for an NGO/charity that supports young adult females, many of them have been earning upwards of 30k per month cash in hand but didn't pay tax or SSc. When they come to grief and we get sight of them they have no benefits to fall back on, that's why we always tell them to find that 432 baht per month from somewhere each month and that it's a priority, most don't think it's a priority but it is.
EDIT TO ADD: Please see the ILO link below, section 6.7 refers to informal employment which is what I call unregulated:
https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_205099.pdf
I forgot to add, the numbers from the unregulated market are included in the stats, it's not as though the government doesn't know about them, they feature in most statistical data.
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27 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:
How do you service public debt?
By tax revenue of course.
Unlike some nanny states where tax revenue is 50% of GDP, in a good year Thailand only collect about 15% of GDP.
So yes, most governments would already be dead if they had Thailand's revenue department, but at the moment it is Thailand's private sector that is being killed.
Trim the budget and/or operate a bigger budget deficit, that debt was issued at super low interest rates and of course the BOT portion was even lower yet. And promissory notes don't have to make coupon payments, the interest is due with repayment. All in all the cost of servicing that 1.9 trill. will be quite low and I guess easily manageable, if nothing else that buys time.
Your point about 15% of GDP is well taken, expect a surge of people being caught in the tax net very soon.
Private Sector: my jury is still out on this, we need some more data on exports and consumer spending.
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39 minutes ago, Destiny1990 said:
Why they had to leave?
Political pressure from other parties, criticism of the poor performance of the economy. Resurrecting the economy is a process that takes time and it doesn't matter who is in charge it can't be done overnight hence it's a perfect political opportunity to score points.
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34 minutes ago, Trillian said:
I thought I'd give this 24 hours to see if anyone picked up on it by they haven't:
Government borrowed THB 1.9 trillion or about USD 60 bill. as part of the covid19 bailout program which is about 11% of GDP. Government spending is also a component of GDP but we don't know how much of that money was actually spent, only how much was borrowed. Theoretically, it's easily possible for International tourism to come in at -10% and for GDP not to fall at all.
Just to add, the theoretical GDP picture I set out above would mean a debt to GDP ratio of 53%, even in a normal environment most governments would kill to have the similar numbers, in a post covid19 environment they are almost unimaginable for most countries.
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3 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:
Now I know who our former poster Saengd has become. Welcome back as Trillian.
It's fascinating that two (now three) posters have said something very similar, I'm not sure if that's an honor or a slur but I'm not going to dwell on it. What I would say to you is, more often than not, a thing is what it appears to be rather than what you would like it to be. It's probably better for your mental well being if you focus on economics rather than on who a person might be that's writing posts!
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That's good, educate the masses and provide soft loans and debt restructuring, a practical approach I reckon.
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46 minutes ago, faraday said:
I think you don't
I shall add this to my list of stet TVF answers by the herd:
The Baht is too strong - forget what FOREX says, THB is being manipulated by the elites;
The covid response is inappropriate - never mind the low death toll, it's government's fault;
GDP growth is too low - it's not the trade war or the global economy, it's government's fault;
Crop prices are too low - it's government's fault;
Some rural people are impoverished - it's the fault of government policies.
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13 hours ago, Trillian said:
If that's correct:
GDP = US 535 bill., x 11.5% that is Int. Tourism, = USD 61 bill
8 million tourists is 20% of prior year total (40 mill.) or USD 12 bill.
They would be giving up USD 49 bill or 9% of GDP on international tourism alone.
That doesn't include domestic tourism or exports, one of which would have to surge to meet the -8.1% forecast for Y/E GDP.
I thought I'd give this 24 hours to see if anyone picked up on it by they haven't:
Government borrowed THB 1.9 trillion or about USD 60 bill. as part of the covid19 bailout program which is about 11% of GDP. Government spending is also a component of GDP but we don't know how much of that money was actually spent, only how much was borrowed. Theoretically, it's easily possible for International tourism to come in at -10% and for GDP not to fall at all.
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If I get this right: some of you guys live amongst people who are very poor and you feel sorry for them. You want someone to blame for their plight so you've decided to make government economics policies the scapegoat which somehow has miraculously impoverished some rural people but not others! When asked to describe what those policies are you can't!
Some farmers have received 5k gifts which is the same as citizens in the official workforce, the amount is 50% of the local wage but some posters think this is not enough, even though the crops are still growing and the sales price of those crops is subsidised by government in most cases. Once again, government policies are to blame.
Citizens who were not in the workforce and did not make social security payments did not receive the 5k x 3 month handout, this is because those people don't pay SSc, don't pay tax and work cash in hand. At least one poster thinks this is unfair.
I think I get the picture!
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1 hour ago, faraday said:
Says one MP....right!
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1 hour ago, faraday said:
This was answered in post #35
Your reply was to talk about the middle classes, in your post #36
I live in Issan, & I see the poor people struggling even more.
Many of the farmers were given 5000 baht: Wow!
Should they "eat cake"?
Ok, na?
1 hour ago, faraday said:This was answered in post #35
Your reply was to talk about the middle classes, in your post #36
I live in Issan, & I see the poor people struggling even more.
Many of the farmers were given 5000 baht: Wow!
Should they "eat cake"?
Ok, na?
No it wasn't answered! the claim is that the government has made the rural poor even more poor, presumably by their economic policies, I've asked the question three times now, what policies? It's a simple enough question but posters want to keep bleating on about this and that and nobody has answered the question, if you can't just say so.
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Just now, billd766 said:
There is a small factory in the big village near to me in rural Khampaeng Phet that used to employ about 100 women that closed in March and has not reopened yet. There are a few shops and even the Vet have closed down. The local markets don.t have so many customers lately. A good friend who is a masseuse has been out of work for 3 months, and is staying with a friend who does have a job and living on friendship.
All of this is in a few small villages in rural Thailand where I live. Repeat that for hundreds of other villages across rural Thailand, and yes the is a big problem in Thailand.
Just because YOU cannot see them doesn't mean that they aren't there.
I'm not interested in things resulting from the covid19 response, I'm interested to know what government economic policies have caused rural poverty the earlier poster described.
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And I still didn't get an answer to my question, which policies?
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8 minutes ago, edwinchester said:
The number of poor living in poverty has increased more than 30%, economic growth is lagging all its regional competitors, minimum wage increased a paltry 25bht since the junta came to power.
All the Govt has done is make the poor poorer and the rich richer. There has been no policies to provide extra well paying jobs rather a few cash handouts that do nothing to improve overall incomes.
Education is in a dreadful state so the same sorry state of low quality low paid jobs looks set to continue for at least another generation.
That's not quite true, the middle classes in Thailand have grown hugely from 9 million to over 49 million in the past three decades, that out of a population of 70 million, according to The World Bank, all of that has taken place over the past three decades.
Yes, minimum wage remains low but there again so does inflation which has averaged under 1% for years. And agricultural subsidies have increased in the past five years faster than at any time previously, as has small local lending facilities for rural farmers.
https://www.pattayamail.com/thailandnews/seven-million-thai-farmers-receive-subsidies-303191
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11 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:
The shut down of provinces, and closures of bars and restaurants, the policies where establishments must meet certain requirements as far as spacing in order to open. I could add a few more but these have kept people from working. My GF had to rent a larger space to employ her 4 stylists and allow for pedicure and manicures to be done with the proper social distancing and screens added. Many shops could not afford to do this and never have re-opened. Take a look at the upper floors in the MBK mall, the upper beauty floor at the Union Mall at Phahonyothin. Then tell me how policies have not affected the local people.
Right...so these policies are all to do with the government's handling of the covid19 crisis, is that the case? If that's true the best I can offer is that sometimes things happens and it could be a lot lot worse, some of them could have died from the virus. But please, let's not turn this into yet another virus thread, when that posters said policies I imagined he was referring to economic policies that pertained to the topic of the thread, not that it was covid19 related.
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- Popular Post
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8 minutes ago, Isaan sailor said:Another interesting comparison:
Vietnam stands up to China, while Thailand seems content to placate China, and sell them rice, rubber and fruit.
Perhaps the fact that there is immense dislike between Vietnam and China has something to do with it, maybe because China invaded Vietnam and there have been order wars between them until 1990 might be a reason.
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- Popular Post
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You'll need to earn 10%, inflation in Vietnam is very unpredictable and is prone to spikes. It's similar to Laos where deposit accounts earn 7% but after one year you're out of pocket because the currency is not stable.
Other aspects to consider are that Vietnam has poor infrastructure and doesn't have rule of law, both essential to business.
https://tradingeconomics.com/vietnam/inflation-cpi
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2 minutes ago, gameyey said:
I like the idea of opening up completely internally like Vietnam did, as there is no community transmission
What you've written is confusing, Vietnam is closed to foreigners:
https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/covid-19-vietnam-travel-updates-restrictions.html/
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5 hours ago, edwinchester said:
You're definitely a member alright.
Come to our village where incomes and livelihoods have been decimated by your hero's policies and find out what the vast majority of the working population think of him.
Another poster who lives amongst and supports the impoverished rural poor.
For my benefit, can you please tell me what exactly what policies this government has enacted that has decimated the incomes and livelihoods of your neighbours because I personally can't identify them?
And you guys can give me sad emoji's all day long if that's the extent of your debating skills, the question stands.
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2 minutes ago, barney42bb said:
We are often reminded that Thailand is not reliant on Tourism and foreign Investment.... Have I missed something folks?
The country is not reliant on those things in a much as terrible things would happen to the entire population if they didn't exist! But no sensible economy gives up elements that they have worked hard to develop and have grown, unless they have an extremely good reason. The country may feel that savings the population from a pandemic and a high death toll is one of those reasons.
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13 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:
Even the all optimistic TAT gave up on the 15 million target long ago, now they are hoping for 8.2 million.
Only 6.7 million entered the kingdom during the first 3 months, as it stands now it will be a cliffhanger if we make it to 7 million by December.
If that's correct:
GDP = US 535 bill., x 11.5% that is Int. Tourism, = USD 61 bill
8 million tourists is 20% of prior year total (40 mill.) or USD 12 bill.
They would be giving up USD 49 bill or 9% of GDP on international tourism alone.
That doesn't include domestic tourism or exports, one of which would have to surge to meet the -8.1% forecast for Y/E GDP.
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1 hour ago, ExpatOilWorker said:
Your otherwise clear crystal ball is getting a bit hazy. European borders stared closing March 13th and China had already banned international group tours. As a result arrivals in Thailand were down by 75% in March 2020, so:
International Tourism - 2 1/2 months good, 4 months down the drain, 5 1/2 months looking bleak.
March 2020: 898,485 tourist arrivals (down 75.1% from 2019)
By number the biggest arrivals are (Change from March 2019):
Laos: 152,379 down 34.0%
Russia: 118,583 down 39.3%
Malaysia: 98,575 down 73.6%
China: 55,047 down 94.4%
Germany: 48,774 down 53.6%
Cambodia: 42,208 down 59.1%
UK: 42,100 down 53.4%
France: 39,385 down 49.5%
Japan: 22,468 down 84.0%
Vietnam: 23,683 down 73.8%
USA: 23,054 down 78.8%
Australia: 18,457 down 66.9%
Sweden: 14,181 down 53.5%
Singapore: 14,145 down 83.7%
India: 12,709 down 91.9%
Indonesia: 11,005 down 82.3%
Myanmar: 10,484 down 71.0%
HK: 9,953 down 86.8%
Philippines: 9,792 down 73.7%
Finland: 9,422 down 40.1%
Holland: 9,003 down 47.3%
Denmark: 8,536 down 50.5%
South Korea: 8,019 down 94.7%
Canada: 7,567 down 74.2%
Poland: 6,178 down 57.7%
Norway: 5,035 down 53.4%
Yes, fair enough, I wasn't as precise as I should have been. But it still looks like almost 7 mill. int. tourists during the first three months, that's nearly half the BOT estimate for the year of 15 mill. What do you think, will they make the target or not?
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COVID-19 scare: 30% of hotel bookings cancelled in Pattaya, says business leader
in Pattaya News
Posted
It's not even looking close to 20%, the estimate currently is 8.1% but that could change, 10% may be realistic. But let's not forget the government has a bail out program to the tune of 1.9 trill., that's money which if spent is counted towards GDP, it's swings and roundabouts with the numbers.