Greeting folks. Tons of things on the blue plate special today. As usual Thailand is never boring, McCain is at it again, the US is burning down and traffic is growing nicely on the blog. Thanks to all the readers and contributors. We are beta testing our “donate a beer system” so stay tuned for more ways to reward your favorite bloggers.
I am sure all of you noticed BBB’s vain attempt of establishing his superiority here. BBB congrats. I am working on how England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Lodi are all technically the same country for Dummies post. I expect a similar flood of comments.
New content shortly from BBK, On Nutter, SukPsycho, Xagrin - possibly a weekly and YP on why he wishes he never left Thailand.
Okay - to the juicy stuff.
Remember when Al Gore created the Internet?
Well - Now we have McCain to thank for creating the Blackberry. Thus I have renamed the crackberry the McBlackberry:
Asked by campaign trail reporters what McCain’s experience as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee does to help him to understand the economy and lead the country through its current turmoil, Douglas Holtz-Eakin waved his BlackBerry in the air, according to The Politico.
“Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce committe,” Holtz-Eakin said. “So you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.”
Well. Isn’t that special. When we host the McCain for President party at the Mango I plan on getting to the bottom of this.
Bear, Lehman, AIG and the list goes on. The world’s financial markets are a big mess. I tried asking a bargirl last night what she thought of it and her response was 2500 baht. So clearly my negotiating skills are weak.
I love Stanley Bing from Fortune Mag and his latest column is so spot on:
When I think of the just plain dumb stuff that Wall Street and its assorted salesmen, analysts, enabling bankers and callow spin-meisters have visited upon working companies over the years, it makes me want to choke. The arrogance. The willingness to see hundreds, thousands, lose their jobs as a result of their pronouncements and manipulations. Masters of Business all, they have been taught to see corporations not as places that employ people and provide a product or service, but as numbers on a balance sheet, a balance sheet that serves only one group: Investors.
Well, now the investors are taking it on the chin. A bunch of companies are feeling it too. And of course all those poor Street people are now reaping the payback from what their entire economic world-view has wrought.
Amen.
Okay. Back to the local stuff. Jesus - I don’t even know where to start.
So they pick a PM that is about as close as one can get to Thaksin - a brother in law. The guy is squeaky clean but if one thought the PPP is a Thaksin proxy government before than one has to surely believe it now.
So given the PAD platform one would expect them to keep going but maybe Somchai will be better at negotiating with them. If the PAD does let up then I am baffled as to what they were originally complaining about.
The latest article by Crispin at the Atimes should leave you even more confused:
In early August, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra held a private meeting in Bangkok among his most trusted confidantes to discuss his next political moves, including his planned flight from justice into exile in Britain. Provincial powerbroker and political insider Newin Chidchob showed up for the meeting, but was told by Thaksin to wait outside while the closed-door discussions were held.
That is just the opening paragraph folks.
We all know that all of this is the continuing struggle around the various teams trying to stay on top of the heap but these latest moves have me somewhat baffled since once would think if the PPP was trying to move on they would not pick Thaksin’s brother in law as the PM. Of course the PPP party could very well be done and over with anyway. Only time will tell. Atimes has a interesting article about the overall struggle between people power and the establishment in Thailand and other parts of Asia.
Problem is this continued mess is absolutely killing tourism but much worse than that it is killing business investment and scaring people away in general. Bangkok Pundit covers this well here.
So tourism is crushed but now the conference market is getting it too. Today Mobility World Bangkok which was scheduled for mid-October is getting moved to China. Bangkok does a pretty big conference business and this is not listed as tourism but provides mostly the same bennies but with a bigger spend since people are on expense accounts for these.
Here is the email from the conference organizers:
We at Beacon, along with our Mobility World Congress event partners and sponsors, have been closely monitoring the unfolding situation in Thailand. While we maintain that Bangkok is currently stable enough to play host to the Mobility World Congress, we recognize that the situation could change at any moment and we feel it is prudent to act now to enable everyone to plan their visit to the Congress with confidence and security.
We have therefore made the decision to re-locate the Mobility World Congress to Beijing and hold it on 24-28 November 2008, alongside our annual China Mobility International Summit.
So the trickle down effect from the PAD, Samak and the overall clueless nature of current regime is starting to have a real economic effect. Amazing that they are not only oblivious to the abnormal activities that are going on in the world but will add to them with their own ignorance. Shocking.
Unfortunately I don’t see things getting better quickly and at this point the high-season seems to be a possible victim. I was told by one of the G-Club owners that they are seeing 1997 like attendance numbers at G-Clubs which means we are not experience just a tourism hit but local consumption is hurting as well.
All I can hope for is that the short time rates start to come down a bit.
You should consider a career in journalism, oh dead-rocked one. You could be the next Richard Quest or Anderson Cooper. Ok, they are both gay, but you get my point.
View all comments by But Different
bd - thanks. putting that compliment in the bank for later.
Someday pmmp and I will do the video blog to kick it off…
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Very good piece and links !
I also hope short time rates go down, but I guess this will never happen considering the change of attitude that girls had in the last few years here.
View all comments by messi
messi - I am buying a lotto ticket today. 2 fucking compliments on the same post - let alone the same day.
I am sure the times literary critic will blast me soon. PE should weigh in soon to claim that I am writing these myself but thank god u have a gravitar.
I have noticed the NEP girls being a little less choosy whereas cowboy girls are as uppity as ever. So business does have an effect.
One can hope anyway!
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Bob. Crap post.
View all comments by Daywalker
Short time rates coming down?
This is Thailand.
They use the Less for more mentality.
When business gets slow it’s time to gouge the customer AND give less service.
Strange but true.
View all comments by Kilgore Trout
KT - I think that is the thai business way but I don’t think that is the girls, I have not had a barfine this week, routine. I was practically getting begged the other night to barfine. Girls promised long time and a decent massage for 1500 baht. I told her if she could manage an american breakfast I would do it.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
ssBOB… ” I told her if she could manage an american breakfast I would do it.”
So was she not prepared to eat an American breakfast then?
View all comments by Daywalker
Lodi?
View all comments by fontok69
dw - whether or not she could make breakfast but I think u knew that.
69er - yes - lodi. quite sure it is near ireland but I could be mistaken. I will get this worked out though before I do my post.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Lodi is the roman name for wales. duh, everyone knows that.
View all comments by UnCochinoWetback
Walked down Soi Nana4 today.
Things look dismal. Poked my head into Morning Night. They sure are hiring the skanks these days.
Hillary was empty. Someone said they were closing.
View all comments by Kilgore Trout
I coulda’ sworn the Nana (Angels) Disco would have folded before Lehman.
But maybe I was thinking about the Swan 5 down the street.
Stuck me head in the now-being-renovated Subway and it looks to be another f in tailor shop. Why didn’t I go long cheap suits instead of doubling up on Washington Mutual?
Any non-go go bar that has Thai guys out front (i.e., Hillary I) should fold.
I’m waiting for the Chinese Singaporeans to yank their money and all the cranes in the sky to stop mid-pull.
I’m sorry, did someone say something about pulling?
“May you (but not so much me) live in interesting times.”
View all comments by jack dawson
“I am sure the times literary critic will blast me soon”
Au contraire Fraiser Crane - a critic does not ‘criticise’ - he ‘applies a critique’ - quite different.
I found it to have little impact - it neither excited nor appalled me, but I read it to the end, so that must count for something. I didn’t click on the blue things though because I am patently not an oik and my butler who normally holds the ‘mouse’ is presently engaged in turning down my bed.
I will make this point though - far from facing their Waterloo, the vast majority of the poisonous little braces-twanging twerps who got us into this financial mess will, in fact, still be in post. They will probably start earning fees advising us on how to get out of the porcine defecate they landed us in. I hope the obnoxious little gits rot in hell.
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
Why should ST rates come down? Inflation in Thailand is nudging 10%!
View all comments by Brewsterbudgen
Do agree with Kilgore Trout (funny name
is that a fish?): Thailand is sales logic proof. Nothing that should be expected never happens. Prices will go up as less customers means higher margins needed. Which is not completely stupid when you think about it.
View all comments by Suk Psycho
I guess they never heard of customer service or repeat customers.
View all comments by Kilgore Trout
b - I heard 4 + % and they are saying maybe 7% for next year. VN is the leader with a projected 25% for next year. Ouch.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
wettestback - thanks for the assist on lodi
jd - swan 5 sold the land and the building for a tidy sum but I think the new joint will not be a bar. So it is showing the trend of the bars getting sold for their land. NEP beware. agree on the thai guys owning the door. that gets so old.
tlc - u read the whole thing. amazing.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
I’ll tell you what will kill tourism to Thailand (or any other country) - high airfares. The last time I booked a flight from the midwest USA to Bkk it was $1200 (just over a year ago). Now, the cheapest flight I could find was $2200. Almost a 150% increase. People will choose to stay home rather than pay that much on airfare. Granted, some mongers will pay regardless, but if you are talking about tourists on vacation (without the mongering) then I can see where they would choose somewhere much closer and cheaper. After all, a beach is a beach.
View all comments by Calvin
Lodi, California is a hot dusty town in central California made famous by Creedence Clearwater’s 1970s song ” Stuck in Lodi Again.”
Then again, I guess you could get stuck in Wales — a rainy, backwater place that some may admit to calling home.
View all comments by fontok69
wouldn’t worry too much about the US economy since the great renaissance man that is john “walnuts” mCcain says that the economy is fundementally strong and his word is like the bible. besides, who wouldn’t want to see sarah palin in the VP office. she’s doable and stupid enough to get into some strange scandal that perhaps may lead to more cigars going up vaginas and stains on expensive articles of clothing. on the other hand it would be nice to piss off old white ladies by having a black undercover muslim in the highest office serving fried chicken and watermelon to foreign dignitaries. us minorities are all about freaking out the white man. how else would you explain some of the crazy shit we do?
bush is gonna speak soon. time to play the george bush drinking game. every time he makes up a word or fucks up the english language you take a shot. whenever he strings together words into some incomprehensible (like this comment) you shotgun a beer. everybody ready??
View all comments by UnCochinoWetback
all the best strippers in central cali come from lodi. the clubs in south sac are filled with lodi girls that will happily fellate you or a group of friends for a few lines of the booger sugar.
View all comments by UnCochinoWetback
f69 - so u are confirming that they are basically the same place?
saltybackedwaterdroplets - pretty funny. for sure pallin will be the death of the party but for now she is bringing mccain ticket to life.
nice drinking game…
I was partial to centerfolds on highway 50. lots of college girls, full nude and great burgers. we ate lunch there all the time.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Well me being one of those “poisonous little braces-twanging twerps” who advises others in financial matters.
Our group did see the financial crisis and deleveraging of the system but we were off on how deep it would cut. Some of the most highly regarded companies in the world have taken to the crap hole not just a poop but a large DW turde. We made a big shift from growth equities to Fixed Income by pursuing Corporate bonds (yep should have done CD’s, T’s & M’s) but what we are seeing is of global not just domestic proportions. The fear also comes as preferred stocks have been values not as a debt instruments but more of a equity brother to the common shares of the company added to the volatility of the market, this is a new prescient that we have never seen before. Emerging and Developed markets have been hit as well (Russia Closed 2 days down 50%), Vietnam, Malaysia, UK, Thailand, Sweden, Canada, choose anyone… there are very few markets that are in sound shape. The only bright spot I have is that we were able to get a little piece into the Financial Ultra Short… but it was not big enough to make a dent in this market.
So my blog brother TLC (tender loving care?) it was not the greed of wall street but the debacle of the dollar, housing market, global inflation, commodities market leverage, short selling causing the banking system to not function properly (ie pushing them down to levels where companies could not borrow) that is what has happened to wall street this is not the corporate greed that Tyco or WorldCom fell to, it was simply the Perfect Storm a 1994 a 1987… that’s what it is.
ok my rant over…. ooh yea going to AC & BKK in 60 days… need the break!
GL
View all comments by GoodLife
centerfolds was stocked with lodi girls. i went to school with half of them. UOP had it’s fair share of pole dancers. and thank god for the community college since half the girls there stripped either professionally or for book buying money.
you had lunch in a strip club?? was your food smothered in baby oil and did you have to pay in all 1’s?
View all comments by UnCochinoWetback
While I agree with the sentiment about the money grubbing assholes on Wall Street (though in a sense I’m one of them, but not really), it’s also important to remember that those huge firms also employed thousands of back/mid office people. Almost all are New Yorkers for the outer boroughs, and none of them were getting six figure bonuses or ruining decent dive bars with their 26 year old loud mouth frat boy friends. Those back/mid office people were usually the only ones at the big firms I could stand anyway.
The good news is that so far this is just a financial disaster, not an economic disaster. Outside of housing and finance most economic data is pretty decent. Not great, and I’m not saying some people both in developed and developing world aren’t hurting, but one would normally associate Lehman and AIG going under with soup kitchens and food riots. If we’re’ seeing a correction that is destroying investment banking capacity that’s great by me, I just hope it doesn’t screw anybody else up too much.
I follow Thai politics from afar. It seems to me becoming the PM of Thailand is the political equivalent of landing the drummer gig in Spinal Tap. How much of this is jockeying for position for the day when Team Yellow finally needs a new coach? It seems like that might be a window for an ambitious sort to expand various political and financial opportunities.
View all comments by tosh
I confess to not being much of a financial expert - well not at all really - but some things become so embedded in the mindset of financial experts that they seem to transcend the views that us ordinary folk have
what is leverage? - well it’s using a small amount of money to control a large amount - not terribly different to owning a credit card I suppose - but you are messing with an amount of money that isn’t yours….
selling short? - basically that’s betting on failure… hardly up there in the pantheon of great human achievement is it?
and this was supposedly started by people lending money to other people even though they knew they couldn’t afford it just so they could pocket the commission
On asianbadgers blog he talks about the ’stupid penalty’ - i.e. if you screw up you should pay the price - thats what happens for the rest of us
I’m sure that in the financial world there are good guys and bad guys like anywhere else
View all comments by doctorbond
Did you know that according to ancient Welsh Law, a husband can be sent to jail if he doesn’t fuck his wife frequently enough? Now being half-Welsh (my mother’s side), I have seen my share of young beautiful Welsh gals metamorphasize into fat, flabby, oily cunts. Perhaps this explains the high rate of middle-aged-Welsh-man flight to the Land of Smiles. But who knows?! See you all next week - I hope the Short Time rates continue to drop faster than my cock after the viatmin v wears off.
View all comments by Tim Oakland
I used to work in HR for Goldman Sachs Inestment Bank, and can put my hands on my arse and say 95% of the arseholes I had the misfortune of speaking too were obnoxious and unbearable pricks.
I hope the 95% i dealt with prescribed a massive fuck-off tablet, and turn to a life of smack and whoring their dirtboxes on Hampstead Heath to make ends meet. Its called Karma you cunts.
On the subject of airfares…… I paid 379 bones for a one-way from LHR to BKK 2 weeks ago. Also paid the same price 2 years ago for a one-way
View all comments by Young Penfold
Dear Goodlife - I shudder at the thought of impugning the good name of a fellow blogger and I don’t believe I mentioned Wall Street at all.
What is certain is that this mess has been created and exacerbated by quick-buck spivs on whom my red setters would not cross the street to piss. I also strongly suspect that a large number of them wear braces.
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
@Doc - There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with leverage. If you buy a house putting 20% down and the mortgage payment is 15% of your monthly paycheck–the model of personal financial prudence–you’re still taking on 5 to 1 leverage. The problem is when you have 10% equity in your hose and you take out a home equity loan for 5% to go to Vegas and now are at 20 to 1 leverage, and believe me that’s the least of what’s been going on in the US and UK (and most of Europe, absent the krauts) for almost the past 20 years. Now the bill is due. I’m just pissed I didn’t make more money on the downside (shorting, btw) than I did to offset the tax bill I’ll have to pay for the cleanup. I guess I should have been flipping condos in Miami like everyone else.
@YP - Goldman really seems to attract a special kind of 24 karat asshole. Ain’t got a clue why.
View all comments by tosh
@ tosh - yep with you on that one - but the gamble is mine and secured by the lender by the value of my house and even in a declining market property has an intrinsic value that not all other ‘financial vehicles’ have - but your point is well taken.
Good news just breaking here is that the FSA has banned short selling on financial institions here in the UK - common sense emerging?
View all comments by doctorbond
Dr007
IMHO
Common sense left the UK 10 years or so ago, when the indolent majority voted our talentless, charlatan government into power. A position that they have since maintained, mainly (shamefully) due to the apathetic state of our lazy nation.
There have been many disasters since, some more significant than others. This fiasco is yet another example of the shortcomings of our hefty leader who set up the current financial regulatory environment during his extended spell as chancellor.
Sure there are a myriad of excuses, and on their own some of them may even be plausible, but the track record of this charmless man and his free loading predecessor speaks for itself.
View all comments by Spyker
@ Doc - obviously a mortgage backed with a house is less risky than playing 35 on the roulette wheel, but as we’re finding even houses aren’t sure things. The real problem, IMHO, is that everyone in the whole chain of disaster was operating under the assumption that someone else would wind up holding the bag. From the guy who took out the mortgage, to the broker who didn’t check his creditworthiness, to the aggregator who didn’t check (or care) if the broker was honest, to the iBank who bought the package of loans and securitized it, to the next bank who resecuritzed with a bunch of other opaque debt, to the bank who bought the paper backed by the CDO. Everyone assumed it would be someone else’s problem when it all came to tears. Now we’re having to work out exactly whose problem it really is.
I don’t see any problem with short sellers, it’s a damn difficult way to make a living. Warren Buffet was asked about ‘naked shorting’ at the last Berkshire meeting and said roughly, ‘If anyone wants to naked short Berkshire, they can do it until the cows come home. In fact, we’ll hold a special meeting for them.’ Lehman and AIG didn’t fail because people were shorting them, the failed because they were insolvent.
View all comments by tosh
@ tosh - at worst case my house could end up being worth 80% of it’s initial value when at the bottom of the curve - If I had an 80% mortgage then it is barely a risk and my point being it is far from comparable with guaranteeing some worthless piece of paper with another worthless piece of paper. Happily I have much greater equity than that and more than one property - despite the downturn I can’t tell you how much happier I am knowing my assets are largely in bricks and mortar
I might be being a bit thick here but if Lehman and AIG were insolvent, then to some degree they were leveraging…. returning us neatly to my original comment
View all comments by doctorbond
P.S. - I’ll shut up now
@ Spyker - not a @Labour man’ huh? - mind you, look at the alternatives….. maybe Thai politics is not so bad after all
View all comments by doctorbond
@Doc - if bricks + mortar are your thing, then great. But anyone who uses loaned money is using ‘leverage.’ Every bank in the world, from the local credit union to Barclay’s, is leveraged. Lehman and Bear wound up foolishly leveraged, or recklessly leveraged, and they paid the price.
View all comments by tosh
Sideshowbob,
I’m glad I won’t be able to attend the McCain for President party! If he gets elected the apocalypse will be at hand!
View all comments by Quagmire
yp - were u the errand boy or something?
tim oak - hope to see u around.
q - after my McBlackberry post they seemed to have quit talking to me. Oh well.
Next campaign we are supporting is Massage King for Bkk governor.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Calvin,
EVA (Taiwan’s Evergreen Airways) is currently selling round trips from Seattle to BKK for USD$1,000. Spend half of that for the R/T to Seattle and it isn’t so bad.
View all comments by TaiwanExpat
@ tosh - I told you I knew nothing
You’ll have to pint me up at the BM one day and we’ll thrash this thing out.
I found this article this morning which seems to encapsulate stuff quite well - in particular the bit about the need for someone to start talking about how we get out of this mess seems especially appropriate because I haven’t heard much of that sort of talk lately and I think it’s overdue.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1842123-1,00.html
View all comments by doctorbond
Dr007
@ Spyker - not a @Labour man’ huh? - mind you, look at the alternatives…..
I find myself in violent agreement with you, I think I said in another post that the only difference between them (UK political leaders) is that some of them are fatter than others.
Again just an opinion and purely my own, but I do think that they’re all self serving charlatans
View all comments by Spyker
@Doc - Time piece is interesting, and I agree with a lot of it. However, they conveniently forget numerous Time cover stories from a few years ago trumpeting the joys of condo flipping and home equity lines of credit. One actually had the gall to title the story, ‘We’re Loving Our Home$.’ Seriously, that was when I first started to look for a top. Still decent piece, esp for a ‘mainstream’ US publication.
View all comments by tosh
I booked my flight with EVA
Should be plnety of slutty Taiwanese stewardesses to leer over
With British package operator XL.com going tits up, you reckon that’ll deter more tourists from booking to come Asia/Thailand?
View all comments by Young Penfold
YP - I went with EVA back in April - of course I went business class because I’m not a white van man ;)- their seats don’t go flat and it felt like sleeping on the roof of your house with your feet in the gutter - so screw that, I’m back with Etihad this time with flat beds and the bonus of a ‘fag break’ half way across. The stewardesses fuss around a lot but try hard and it’s good training for a visit to Thailand as they have no breasts either.
View all comments by doctorbond
errr - I was talking about the EVA stewardesses being fussy and falt chested…. the Etihad stewardesses are bursting out of their uniforms - love it
View all comments by doctorbond
PF&doc: I had a ride on a girl named EVA that I picked up at the Nana Hotel Parking lot about a month ago. It cost a hell of a lot less than 379 pounds, and she too was “bursting out of her uniform”. Seems we have a lot in common.
View all comments by Werewolf
doc - In those seats I tend to slowly slide down during ’sleep’ with the result that my trousers ride up and strangle my bollocks and thus wake me up every 30 minutes!
View all comments by redstar
@redstar - a fellow sufferer - upon disembarking I said thank you in a high pitched voice - now i know why
@werewolf - i think i will be on a mamms hunt this visit- just got to be cafeful that it’s an ‘Eva’ not an ‘Evan’
View all comments by doctorbond