[Biofuel] Fw: About the coup in Thailand

[D. Mindock]

I guess there's not much on the media since they're waiting to get the "news" to read to the American public from the White House before we get the "news" from them. Meanwhile, here's some info from the blogs. Peace, D. Mindock ===========================================================   Amazingly little in the mass media about the coup in Thailand and what it means...of course. Brad Hicks, local LiveJournal blogger has some very astute articles about it: During the early 1990s, Thai banks and other companies saw the possibility of carving out a moderately successful niche for Thailand as, in essence, the strike breakers for South Korea and Taiwan and China. That is to say, Thailand positioned itself as a second-tier outsource for manufacturing, a place where Chinese companies and South Korean and Taiwanese companies whose laborers were starting to feel entitled to a real living wage could shut down one or more local production lines, send those production lines to Thailand, and thereby send a warning shot to their own workers .... Thailand in particular became one of the world's poster children for the disease of "kleptocracy," rule by thieves. .... Enter the International Monetary Fund. .... The net effect of an IMF SAP is that the IMF holds countries down while rich guys from wealthier countries gang-rape them to death; the campaign contributions that net them the privilege of participating in the "privatization" are their tickets to the gang-rape. The IMF chains countries to rocks and hooks them up to life support so that vultures from wealthier countries can swoop down every day and eat their liver. No country has ever actually escaped from grinding poverty without violating the terms of their SAP.   continued at: http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/273900.html .... The recently overthrown elected Prime Minister of Thailand started out as a poor peasant.  .... Thaksin set up a combination of government lending programs, and micro-lending banks paid for out of his own family fortune, to provide small business loans in every province in Thailand. Instead of cutting all government services, he built new roads in the poorer provinces, provided every school in Thailand with more up to date textbooks and set up Thailand's first ever European-style universal health care program including discounted anti-viral drugs for people with HIV or AIDS. Instead of deregulating all business local and foreign, he set up a variety of auditing programs to prevent a return to the kind of corruption that had bankrupted Thailand in 1996 to 1997, including a final appeals group that reported only to the King, not the elected Prime Minister. The newspapers, and eventually his own party, adopted the nickname "Thaksinomics" for his programs. ... it ended up massively improving Thailand's workforce and infrastructure, and thereby reassuring Japanese and Chinese investors who ended up moving yet more manufacturing operations to Thailand. Poverty levels dropped by 40%, and Thailand paid off its IMF loans in full two years early, back in 2004. .... So they went looking for some way to tarnish his popularity so they could either vote him out or, failing that, overthrow him. Continued at: http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/273968.html .... -------------------------------- And see Billmon also: http://billmon.org/archives/002747.html Update 9/20 10:45 AM ET: U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab . . . said Washington would be looking for "a [Thai] government that is ready, willing and able to negotiate a free trade agreement'' when the situation is resolved. It's good to see they've got their priorities straight.   ////

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