Brave Ladies

[Aunty]

Ok, I'll add my 2 satays.

Thaksin is doing the same way as all savvy politicians do - get the mass of uneducated poor to support you by throwing a few token social programs here and there. Juan Peron did that in Argentina, any U.S. president do that with the farmers lobby, Fidel Castro did that in Cuba, etc, etc. Of course, the other side of the coin is to make them afraid of city folks because they'll take away all those few token programs if their candidate becomes elected. Hum, didn't chairman Mao do that in China?

But it is worse here. Thaksin doesn't really believe in those programs. He is not really a populist. It is just to buy him time to do what he wants - make his family (and hence, himself) richer. What most people feel unfair is the wholesale sale of a huge chunk of the backbone of the Thai enterprise system without any benefits being given back to the country. IMHO, the Shin corporation can be considered as the GE of Thailand. Can you imagine if a controlling shareholder of GE sells the whole GE to, well lets say, China, and then finds a way not to pay taxes to the IRS? I am sure the whole U.S. Congress would be up in arms.

Here Thaksin was able to sell through the use of his political power, more than a Billion Dollars of assets tax free. He may have been able to make it legal. But it stings. Even worse, the sale was to a foreign government (yes, yes, forget the bs that the Singaporean government is saying, it is a corporation wholly-owned by it). This is why that Bangkok shopowner is so angry.

Ok, back to regular programming.

Davey 612 has nailed it.

Hasn't the US Congress just gotten its knickers in a huge twist over the sale of P&O to Dubai interests? (Placing six US Ports under the ownership and control of a foreign Arab Govt. - Bush threatens his first veto, Dubai has to sell the ports etc etc.)

What's happening in Thailand is by no means unique as Davey 612 points out. Thaksin appears to have manipulated the sale of Shin in such a way as to line his own pockets at the expense of the Thai people. He is not a private businessmen, he is the Prime Minister of Thailand, and given where his loyalties should lie that stinks. Whatever happened to the notion that elected office holders of Govt. put their assets and business interests into the hands of independent trustees to avoid any hint of a conflict of interest between their personal wealth and the office they hold?

How's the Enron trials going?

Yes its a two-edged sword clawdaddy. But just watch what happens if the doodles slap on a blanket tariff for all Chinese goods. All those cheap products the Americans love so much all those cheap products that float the American economy the consumer machine. Now a huge amount of those products are American but made in China because labour is so cheap over there. Its a two edged sword thats for sure.

Luckily China also has a very healthy European and Asian market. Though you are right it is doubtful that they would cash in their US-dollar. As far as economic war goes and the Americans love a good war, the Chinese are holding the cards. The Euro could just suddenly become very interesting. France would get its way at last, just think of all those freedom fries.