may I invite your attention to 2 curious pieces of local Thai news (heard / watched on TV, as I recall Nation channel)

1) Gold Hoarding by traders

lately there has been a lot of talks on gold. so, in one of programs there was an interview taken from gold traders (well, not a big secret that practically all of them are ethnic chinese). and first several of them said they are going to close their shops due to higher and higher risk of being robbed. then net day there was another program where it was mentioned that there are about 6000 gold shops (outlets?) in Thailand, and apparently many of them are gonna be shut down – only some 1000 shops will remain.

[my comment: these guys are SLY and shrewd ! they DO KNOW what's coming - HUGE sky-rocketing gold price hike, and thus they simply have ALREADY decided NOT to sell their gold now, but wait till a better days - aka BETTER PRICES ! ]

2) profits from Debts

gov. has started a campaign, highly advertised on TV, inviting people to sign up for the new scheme (or rather a scam?) which is allegedly aimed to “help” them to pay off their debts to all the loan sharks ! this scheme is ONLY for those who borrowed “outside the system” – in other words, not from all those official “legal” companies (as Big Brother, easy Money, Citi etc etc) – but from private lenders (aka “loan sharks”) – mostly because huge number of people are not considered eligible for taking official loans, so they borrow from those who eagerly overlooks all such legal formalities.

wow! what a brilliant idea, huh? taking into consideration that A LARGE number of people are ALREADY in debts (and many are being killed for that regularly) and many more continue to borrow.

so, in other words, gov. has figured it out – that it is VERY PROFITABLE to tap into that GIGANTIC “underwater part” of the iceberg – all the unofficial/ illegal loans ! why, buying of DEBTS has ALWAYS been a “daily bread” for banksters, as that saying goes (now it is my favorite): “Money is Debt; Debt is Money”.

imagine – even MINIMAL (and that’s what they use to persuade the naive public – low percentage) interest percentage from those “helping loans” would be a VERY yummy morsel for all those banks !

by the way, the rumour is – that the present Abhisit’s government didn’t actually “discover the America” by inventing this whole idea – but themselves merely “borrowed” it from … old buddy Thaksin ! (who reportedly has been trying to adopt this plan several years ago)

oh, and perhaps worth to add another thing, a real fact told to me by one friend, who was told by his parents upcountry : RICE prices are not simply rising, but apparently brokers/ traders/ middlemen now are hoarding it. people came to buy rice and were told by trader : “I am not going to sell now, because price will rise very soon – so, come back in Jan-Feb and you can buy then for those NEW prices”.

cool, huh ?

so, the conclusion is: those who hold their finger on the pulse of REAL business (as gold and food traders and all sorts of other middlemen and parasitic elements) -they ALREADY DO KNOW that pretty soon something BIG is coming. that is why they employ good old trick of all the speculators: they HOLD (= hoard) their goods, waiting for SURE much higher profits !

“welcome to the desert of REAL” (Morpheus to Neo)

Last time I was emotional about politics was 30 years ago, when it dawned on me that it really didn’t matter and I haven’t voted since.

Politicians only do what short term action is needed to get re-elected without any care for the future, as lucrative board positions and public funded benefits await them. Unfortunately many of the voting public only vote for what favors will be tossed their way, they are mostly incapable of objective thought and rely on the media to provide their opinions for them.

Hence we see inane nonsense like “Change we can believe in” actually being swallowed by the ignorant masses as they cry in joy as their candidate takes his turn to disappoint and sink the country into further ruin as the elite profit. Even sadder perhaps are the Thai forums where farangs fight about which useless corrupt government here is better. Oops, sorry for the rant.

You would agree that the current astonishing mess was and is highly political. Stupid, coward and blind politicians have created it.

People usually accuse bankers, traders, greed etc… But those are mere symptoms.

We have to go to the source : and the source is without any doubt politics.

How do you want to have sound economic policies with people… like Korn and Abhisit (or Surayud, Samak, Somchai, Thaksin whatever) ?

And with Brown ? Bernanke ? Obama ? Sarkozy ?

I don’t think 2010 is going to be a hugely happy year for Thailand and Thais, indeed, for the whole world; we can only hope that it is the middle and hi-so classes that get hurt the most.

Dubai is a worry.

Life is sweet. Let’s have another drink….totally agree and you will find me at the beer garden in front of Central World Plaza for a X-mas beer…ahhh.