Thousands of Thai call for ouster of PM Yingluck Shinawatra

[opebo]

Nice summary, jaichind.  Democracy has certainly been a disaster for Thailand

I am actually pretty impressed at Thailand's economic progress since 2005 despite such great political turmoil.  Imagine what would have taken place with political stability.  The fact that Bank of Thailand is mostly insulated from political changes I suspect is a major reason for this.

Possible.  Another possible reason is the huge inflows of foreign investment.   I think given the utter lack of any demand-growth or profit-potential in the West due to austerity, and the pumping up of monetary policy leading to 'hot money' flows, enormous investment was and is inevitably flowing to SE Asia.  

While some goes to lesser destinations like Indonesia, a huge proportion will go to Thailand simply because for the corporate decision makers who might be posted there or have to frequently visit their investments, the prospect of living in Thailand is far more appealing than those other countries.

In general outside forces have much more influence on the Thai economy than the Thai government.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I feel that it would do us all some measure of good to bear in mind that "morality" and "pleasure-seeking" are equally unsophisticated means of interpreting the world, and one really should not feel superior for preferring one or the other: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-circuit_model_of_consciousness

Interesting. I've bookmarked the article for further reading. Thank you.

[dead0man]

Special Report - Thailand secretly dumps Myanmar refugees into trafficking rings

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[opebo]

Special Report - Thailand secretly dumps Myanmar refugees into trafficking rings

Not precisely relevant, but it does show that the current Red government, like the brother Taksin's government of a few years ago, is worse than the 'undemocratic' Democrat gov't on human rights issues.