Thursday 6 June 2013

Are the Bangkok Post trying to damage Thailand's economy and telling lies about credit ratings?

Over the last few days the Bangkok Post, along with their allies in the Democrat Party, have made a huge deal of Moodys possibly downgrading Thailand's credit rating due to excessive spending on the government-subsidised rice buying scheme. In an editorial entitled "Face the truth on rice scheme" it seems like the Bangkok Post have a pretty tenuous grasp on how facts actually work in the real world. 




But this story is starting to unravel very quickly as it appears that Moodys have denied that there is any chance of Thailand's credit rating being downgraded.

The rating agency are quoted as saying
"Thailand's credit rating is not in danger of being downgraded because of its rice intervention scheme, rating agency Moody's said"
So why are the Bangkok Post putting out barefaced, 100%, stonewall lies about this story? Why is nobody bothering to actually check the facts, do the research and compile the evidence?

And why would the Democrats fly in the face of Thailand's national interests and so gleefully put out falsehoods and rumours that could damage Thailand's credit rating and therefore its economy?

What is astonishing in all this is that Thailand's rice buying subsidy scheme is relatively small if the total loss figures of roughly US$2billion match the governments expectations. In the EU for example farm subsidies top US$75billion whilst in Korea, Switzerland, Japan and Norway up to 60% of all agricultural earnings come via government subsidy. 

There's nothing that strange about agricultural subsidies. And the rice buying scheme was put to the electorate in the 2011 general election and they clearly voted to back this policy.

The democracy deficit of the Thai Democrats and the Bangkok Post is only matched by their truth deficit.