What cure for addiction to debt?
Re: "People 'spending beyond their means' ", The Nation, November 27.
In Thailand, households’ overdue payments are up by 37.8 per cent, overdue payments to credit-card companies have risen by 11.1 per cent and non-performing personal loans stood at Bt56.5 billion, which is 21.4 per cent of outstanding non-performing loans (per the National Economic and Social Development Board).
I knew an unmarried nurse from the Northeast who moved to Bangkok and soon compiled credit-card debt of more than half a million baht on her meagre salary. She died and her boyfriend committed suicide, leaving her working-class siblings to pay off the debt.
It is too easy to get credit in Thailand. Too many Thais have been led to believe that living on huge debt is “the American way”, and they want to emulate that, but fifty years ago – even thirty years ago – that was the polar opposite of the American way, at least for the working and middle classes.
I implore Thai news media: start telling the truth about the American way that once made the US so financially successful, and begin reporting the real human tragedies that occur in the Thai working and middle classes as the result of outrageous debt.
Can we possibly regain some sanity with regard to consumerism based upon debt?
Guy Baker
Bangkok
