Posts filed under 'Thailand'
More than 2-½ years ago when I predicted a global stock market crash on my investment blog, even foreshadowing the duration and the severity of the impending crisis by naming it the Peak Investment Crisis, many called my predictions ludicrous and far-fetched. In that article, I specifically stated that the declines in global stock market indexes could easily “dwarf the pullbacks that caused a 10% decline in the London FTSE, a 35% decline in the Indian markets, a 30% decline in the Brazilian markets, and 20% decline in the Japanese markets over a several week period in 2006” and that “it [was] a potential disaster that 99% of people [were] unaware of.” Today, I foresee another enormous disaster with far wider-reaching and more serious implications than even our current global financial crisis. Read more …
May 6th, 2009
October 30, 2006 – “The United States is a damned country that deserves only to be cursed. It declares its own occupation of our lands legitimate, but brands our resistance as terrorist”- Ahmed Ibrahim, Libyan parliament deputy speaker, April 2006.
I opened this blog with that comment to illustrate that money and greed will many times take precedence over issues of national security or the democratic desires of people. This is a concept that is extremely difficult for many people to grasp, especially those that have fallen victim to the mass media’s snow job (no pun intended in regards to U.S. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow). Read more …
October 30th, 2006
September 19, 2006 -
Thailand has one of the cheapest stock markets in all of Asia, and it’s about to get even cheaper. Currently I’m in Bangkok and yesterday, after weeks of verbal grenades and strategic maneuvering that pitted the Thai Prime Minister against the Thai military, factions opposed to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra staged a coup last night to oust him. Even before the coup, Thais have been largely split in their support and criticism of Prime Minister Shinawatra.
PM Shinawatra has been largely supported in rural areas, where the rural poor have viewed Shinawatra as an ally to their cause because of numerous programs he has enacted to aid them. However in urban circles, much criticism has been directed at Shinawatra. In fact, Thai media mogul Sondheim Limthongkul, head of Manager Media Group, has been a thorn in Shinawatra’s side for months on end now, staging highly public rallies and speeches that were harshly critical of his former friend and sometimes attended by tens of thousands of people. Ironically, the fortunes of Manager Media Group were once said to have turned for the better due to Limthongkul’s friendship with Shinawatra.
However, after relentless criticism by Limthongkul, in which he has criticized Shinawatra as dictatorial and corrupt, their friendship has no doubt degenerated to a point that is now beyond repair. In fact, just about a year ago, a popular TV show hosted by Limthongkul was taken off the air by Channel 9, a government controlled TV station. Read more …
September 19th, 2006
September 11, 2006 -
On July 25th, in my E-Zine Issue #013, I mentioned that I thought the U.S. dollar was going to strengthen and that gold was going to fall. Since then the dollar has rallied for six straight weeks and reached six-week highs on August 8th against most major world currencies, recouping all of its earlier losses against the yen. And back then I specifically mentioned that I believed gold would head below USD $600 an ounce. And yesterday, gold continued sharply retreating since my statement to about $592 an ounce. And I have strong reason to believe that it will possibly challenge the June lows of $570 an ounce and perhaps even head lower before sharply rebounding and heading much higher.
Before I continue as to how I can predict these things with a fair amount of confidence, let me discuss why the dollar hasn’t strengthened against the currency in Thailand even though it has strengthened significantly against most other Asian currencies. In Thailand, though the U.S. dollar has been making a strong run against the major currencies of the world in the last six weeks, it has barely strengthened at all against the Thai baht.
Since the topic of this discussion is the fact that governments consistently lie and can not be trusted, let’s take a quick look at possible reasons why the baht has remained strong against the dollar despite the dollar’s strength against other currencies. Read more …
September 11th, 2006
