Democrats lost for ideas

Anyone in Thailand knows that a good censure debate focuses on scandals and corruption, whether it was the Sor Por Kor land-documents scandal under the Democrats in the 1990s or the Shin Corp scandals after 2000.

Nowhere in the world – even where the education level is higher than it is in Thailand – can “public debt” be used to bring down a government. Japan and the US have had rising public debt for decades. Only the Tea Party in the US is focused on public debt, and it is a political force, but there is no similar group in Thailand, where fiscal management is a matter for bureaucrats and a few highly educated persons.

Focus instead on the rice scandal, flood mismanagement and corruption in purchasing equipment (remember the photos of Thaksin going to look at flood equipment in South Korea during the floods?). There is also U-Tapao, Thaksin’s US visa, and the government’s overpayment of public money to red-shirt “victims” while no compensation went to the 36 buildings burned down and other businesses hurt. (Even worse, the previous government said it was terrorism, thereby preventing collection of private insurance.) There is the appointment to the Cabinet of persons on blacklists due to links with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, and a red-shirt leader’s land encroachment in Phuket. All of these are better censure issues than public-sector debt. 

This is going to be a big yawn, but the cause is the Democrats not doing their homework on the government’s corruption. This is why Thailand is still corrupt.

Hitler

Bangkok