{"id":186505,"date":"2014-01-03T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-04T00:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/01\/03\/why-they-are-protesting-against-democracy-in-thailand\/"},"modified":"2014-01-03T19:34:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-04T00:34:00","slug":"why-they-are-protesting-against-democracy-in-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/01\/03\/why-they-are-protesting-against-democracy-in-thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"Why They are Protesting Against Democracy in Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Per capita GDP<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Thai vs. Australian per capita GDP<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Government Debt<\/i>

<\/a>
Social (health) spending<\/i><\/div>\n

Look at the graphs on economic statistics for Thailand.<\/p>\n

Why is anyone complaining about results like this<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Anti government forces Bangkok have vowed to rid Thailand of all vestiges of Thaksin \u2014 including Thaksinomics. So let\u2019s pause to cast a medium-term eye over the country\u2019s economic performance during the period (2001 to the present) that has been dominated by Thaksin-esque policies.<\/span>

<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span> I\u2019m sure there are plenty of other indicators and comparisons \u2013 good, not-so-good and bad \u2013 that could be used to plot Thailand\u2019s economic performance since 2001 (comments on other indicators would be very welcome). But the overall point is that Thailand\u2019s voters have some sound economic reasons to keep on electing Thaksin and his allies.<\/span>

<\/span> Strong economic growth, and increasing government spending on health, welfare and rural development, didn\u2019t start with Thaksin, but he and his allies have been able to effectively place growing prosperity at the heart of their political success.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What the protesters are objecting to is not economic growth, but rather they are objecting to the fact that there are benefits accruing to the rural peasants.<\/p>\n

So the hoi polloi are doing better.<\/p>\n

There are new roads, new bridges, new rural clinics, and the position of the rural poor has improved.<\/p>\n

It has improved a lot, and their lot relative to the urban elites has also improved.<\/p>\n

So the protestors are upset that poor rural families are no longer forced to sell their daughters into prostitution in the big cities, and this is why they want to remove any vestige of Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra while insisting that there be no elections.<\/p>\n

When I say that, “The Thai protesters are revolting,” I am using the last word as an adjective, not a verb.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Per capita GDP Thai vs. Australian per capita GDP Government DebtSocial (health) spending Look at the graphs on economic statistics for Thailand. Why is anyone complaining about results like this? Anti government forces Bangkok have vowed to rid Thailand of all vestiges of Thaksin \u2014 including Thaksinomics. So let\u2019s pause to cast a medium-term eye …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[971,973,1051,978,1086,1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-economy","category-hypocrisy","category-politics","category-social-safety-net","category-south-east-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}