Govt defence of rice Maginot Line can't last

Published: 21 Mar 2013 at 00.00
Newspaper section: News

In late 1996 and early 1997, in the face of a slowing economy, deficits in the budget, trade and current accounts, and weakness in the financial system, the Bank of Thailand insisted that it was ready to go to war.

Trucks carrying sacks of rice queue up in front of a rice mill in Buri Ram’s Prakonchai district where farmers mortgaged their crops under the government’s rice mortgage scheme late last year. Strains are emerging in the programme, as complaints among farmers increase about delayed payments. SURACHAI PIRAKSA

Thailand would defend the currency at 25 baht to the US dollar at all costs, George Soros and his evil hedge fund ilk be damned!

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DONHUAN
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Discussion 3 : 22 Mar 2013 at 01.393
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Another year or two of the rice pledging scheme, we may have another problem; having tasted the ‘forbidden apple’, those paddy rice farmers may, by then, be so addicted to this scheme that they may not allow the program to be discontinued. With superior numbers as their main strength, they may collectively decide to black-mail this PT government into submission. If this scenario does materialized, it will certainly place the government between a ‘hard place and a rock’. Instead of playing the good people of ISAN as fools, the PT gangs may find themselves as pawns in the grand schemes of politics.
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Renaissance
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Discussion 2 : 21 Mar 2013 at 17.472
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Discussion 1: It might be more helpful for Thaksin, if you could say how much Dubai desert would be covered by 18 million tonnes. Also, how much desert would be covered by the 500 billion Baht that is the debt. Thaksin might then understand the extent of the problem he has caused.
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pquinlan
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Discussion 1 : 21 Mar 2013 at 15.111
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Wow, 18m tonnes is 12m m3. That is enough to cover a rugby field to a depth of approx 3.75 kilometers, or just over 2 miles for our UK & USA friends still mired in feudal measurement systems.

Either way, that is a truly massive mountain of rice. Any buyers out there?

Didn't think so.
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Govt defence of rice Maginot Line can't last | Bangkok Post: opinion