A recent research on shadow economies raises some issues that need to be addressed by the two reform committees. In June, Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio Montenegro published a paper entitled “Shadow Economies all over the World: New Estimates for 162 Countries from 1999 to 2007”
The researchers define a shadow economy as all market-based [...]
Development of local governments is one of the 14 issues to be addressed by the two reform committees. This presumably is because local governments are not close to receiving full autonomy envisioned by the architects of the earlier reforms. Below are some reports of what highly autonomous local governments have been experiencing since [...]
By all accounts, the world economy has recovered from the recession which began two years ago. Views differ, however, as to whether the recovery will be sustainable and what should be done next. This is partly because unemployment in the US remains stubbornly high. The US government has called for more measures [...]
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The cat is out of the bag. It was revealed on June 16 that over the past year, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates had been holding a series of secret meetings with billionaires, beginning in New York City last May with David Rockefeller, the last grandson of John D. Rockefeller, hosting. They were [...]
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The end of June is almost upon us. Normally, the monsoon would have brought heavy rains to nourish new crops and replenish the depleted reservoirs. But pictures from press reports continue to show the bottoms of some reservoirs, and severe water shortages persist. With rains bringing so much water each year, Thailand [...]
Two weeks ago, I wrote “A Guide to the Perfect Thai Idiot” assessing the weaknesses in Thai society which gave rise to a series of events culminating in the violence and torching of private and government properties on May 19. To my utter surprise, I continue to receive feedback from readers well into the [...]
Inspirations
A number of years back, a few individuals who were born and grew up in Banna, a district of Nakhon Nayok Provice, and in their own ways had found a measure of success, got together and agreed that we should do something to give back to our beloved motherland. We also agreed that the [...]
In 1996, three Latin Americans wrote a best-selling book in Spanish which was later translated into English as Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot. Their main contention is that Latin American problems are not caused by outside influences as Latin Americans generally believe. Rather, they result mainly from actions of Latin Americans [...]
No, this is not a review of the job-seeking and career-changing manual of the same title, for that perennial best-seller of some 40 years needs no more reviews. Rather, it is a note to remind the Thais that what colors they choose to wear or be associated with may greatly affect their lives and [...]
The economic crisis of the past 2 years has cost millions of people in various lines of work their jobs. Writers and reporters on economic affairs, however, are among the exceptions, as they have a lot more work to do and have produced so many books and reports that it is hard to keep [...]
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