From Nation of earlier today:
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont told the National Legislative Assembly on Friday that his government would focus on self-sufficiency economy. Surayud announced the policies of his government to the NLA at 9:30 am Friday. He told the NLA that his government would encourage the members of the public to save and to try to reduce their debts so that the society will become stronger.
Let’s hope the debt reduction campaign starts in the city where the middle classes have gone on a credit binge. But it won’t surprise me at all if the war cry of sufficiency is used against “populist” policies like the one million baht village fund. As I wrote (pre-coup) in an earlier post:
In the current political context is is important to ask to what extent policies such as the one million baht Village Fund have fed an increase in household debt. Perhaps not very much at all. Figure 3.1 in the Monetary Policy Group paper suggests that in 2003 the Village Fund represented less than 3 percent of household credit. And the Bangkok Post’s 2004 Mid-Year Economic Review reports that “Government policies such as the 30-baht health-care scheme, farm debt relief and the village fund programme are not seen as significant contributors to consumer loan growth since most lenders have focused on middle-income earners in urban areas.”
It may be more legimate for social commentators to focus their attention on the proliferation of credit card debt.
But credit cards are the darlings of the middle class. It is only rural debt that seems to threaten the ideals of self-sufficiency that are being deployed against Thaksin. Especially when rural folk have the cheek to purchase some of the trappings of urban modernity such as mobile phones. Outrageous!
It will be interesting to see how this sufficiency push for savings pans out. Perhaps the good folk of Bangkok could be issued with the household accounting books (samut banchee khrua huan) that were distributed in rural areas by the Thaksin government with the (Thaksin-stated) objective of ensuring households “have income that is higher than expenditure.” Sounds like Thaksinomic sufficiency to me.
6 responses so far ↓
1 James Haughton // Nov 3, 2006 at 10:46 pm
I seem to recall that Surayud has been promising to cut the cost of healthcare from 30 baht to 0. Not exactly fiscally responsible.
2 chris white // Nov 4, 2006 at 12:13 pm
There has been a lot of smoke and mirrors around the healthcare debate. ‘Its all getting a bit weird’ too!
At first it was criticized as fiscally irresponsible. Then, because the amount was so small,’ only’ 30 baht, (try explaining that to someone earning the daily minimum wage of about 170 baht) it wasn’t worth collecting. So it was announced that they would stop collecting it. The assumption was that healthcare is going to be free for all. However, reports last week (in the Nation if I remember rightly) were referring to free health care being only available to the ‘poorest of the poor’ and that those who could afford to pay would be required to pay. I’ll take bets on that the group ‘who can afford to pay’ will include also include those on the minimum wage.
There were other reports last week (I think again in the Nation) that announced, proudly, that national pride had been restored in the battle of rice exports. It looked like Vietnam was going take Thailand’s number one position as chief rice exporter. However, with good luck and good management Thailand was going to hold on. Buried in the article was the announcement that the ‘floor price’ for rice, instituted by the previous government, was being abolished. This was going to allow the price of Thai rice fall so that it could ‘compete’ with Vietnamese rice. There was another line buried in the article that the only people who will disadvantage by the demise of the ‘floor price’ would be Thai rice farmers. Apparently, both governments have ‘promised’ each other that they wont ‘dump’ their rice on the international market.
So far I’d say the score is ‘Thai National Pride’ = 2 – ‘Thai Farmers’ = 0
3 Ant // Nov 4, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Chris, the free public health for the poorest of the poor is not new as previous to Thaksin, dating back to the early nineties and late eighties public health was negotiated on an ability to pay basis, those who could did, those who couldn’t didn’t, and people’s bills were worked out on this basis so sometimes you would pay a part of the whole.
4 chris white // Nov 4, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Thanks Ant. Yes I think everybody understood how health care was delivered before the previous government introduced a ‘universal’ health care system. In my post I was commenting on access to the health care system post coup d’état (or stratocracy or Thai democracy or what ever you want to call it.)
5 Krid // Nov 5, 2006 at 1:02 am
Ant, the 30-baht scheme improved the position of the poor in that they had a RIGHT to healthcare, and not be at the MERCY of hospital officials, removing the humiliation of people in need of care by often condescending state employees.
6 cheeky // Nov 10, 2006 at 10:41 am
Its funny that the anti-Taksin claimed Taksinomist and troppled him in the recently. 30 baht scheme is the one of Taksinomist in which save amont of money and Sorayud is going to convince people as free scheme. There is no reason for opposing.
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