THE TROUBLE WITH THAI TOURISM

Well, there isn't any:

https://aseannow.com/topic/1228374-thailand-strives-to-elevate-tourism-industry-striken-hard-by-pandemic/

The TAT sits in its bunker and makes its marketing projections and plans. They won't happen because the pressure is to be always positive and optimistic, not realistic.

But the deeper problem is there is no coordination. They sit alone in their bunker making their nowhere plans.

What could happen is:

- Make an inventory of the things tourists come here to see and do and send to the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

- The Ministry assesses the condition of the country's tourist infrastructure and what work is needed to create first class world appeal.

- This rehab plan is sent to the Ministry of Social Affairs to work with the Ministry of Finance to mobilise all those people unemployed in the tourist industry, to get to work and renew the tourist infrastructure.

- The TAT needs to put pressure on the Ministry of Health to get those people in the top 12 tourist destinations vaccinated. This is urgent, firstly for the people themselves.

- The TAT also needs to pressure their bosses at the Ministry of Transport and Tourism to properly organise low cost quality flights and accomodation. 

 - And finally, the government must accept that with or without covid, the current bureaucratic demands on visitors will always ensure that there is no viable tourist industry anymore in this country. Whatever other countries do or don't do, Thailand must cut all the bureaucratic requirements: expensive insurance, long stay quarantine in dirty expensive government hotels, complex expensive visa requirements and so on ... all gone.

The culture of the people is wearing thin - not happy kind, but greedy clawing. This needs to be reversed and ex-pats encouraged to return too, so that tourists feel safe and that they are genuinely getting value for money.

In summary, we need a joined up approach to mass tourism and if it is high quality tourism attracting wealthy tourists, then a considerable effort must be made to upgrade the infrastructure on offer. 

Fear is that this is way beyond the abilities and resources of the country and so it will lose its tourist industry and 1/5th to 1/4 of its GDP. Civil unrest will follow on a hitherto unimagined scale.

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AFGHANISTAN RETREAT: IMBECILIC

It is true, the West couldn't impose a fair system of justice, didnt create a functioning state, corruption was the usual way to get things done, elections did not produce accountable acceptable leaders.

Although there was peace, no recent Western loss of life, some progress on human rights, women, and with Western support the Afghan army kept the warlords in place.

It took more than 20 years to create local versions of a democratic state in Malaysia, Singapore, India, Hong Kong, Nigeria, South Africa ... 

To the advantage of the Western powers, Afghanistan could not be used as a base to train bombers or send them to our homelands. China could not enter Afghanistan and Pakistan with its Belt and Road, its usurous loans, to begin extracting the trillion dollars of minerals.India was kept on side balancing the other local nuclear power always fearful of Indian influence. Russian influence was restricted  Poppy cultivation could be at least measured and should have been encouraged and bought by the West for legitimate purposes - it's their only crop.

Most importantly, America kept its place as world hegemon, and its respect. Keep the terrorists and China out.

So for very little, the West could at least maintain the stalemate. Talk of a "forever war" is a complete mischaracterisation of a low cost maintenance and security job, the 83b$ is a sunk cost. It is maintenance of Western influence and homeland security.

Where are we now? The frontier between China and us, between political Islam and us, has moved nearer our front gate. The West has lost and emboldened its enemies.

Big big mistake to withdraw. Looks like the States is bankrupt, bankrupted printing money for its banks and stockmarkets. Withdrawn into isolation and decline  Preparing its own death. 

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THE DEATH OF THE WEST

Do you think it is the fault of current leaders, that they are pusillanimous? You are wanting conviction politicians, but The West has lost its integrity, its values, its way. It's more likely the system and democracy and the freedom of the individual.

First, just try to compare where we were, say after the last war, when the international community had an agreed set of rules, a community of member nation states, the organisations to run those rules, and the confidence, resources and power to do so;

compare that with today.

Look at the path The West has taken. Which includes a five-fold increase in the cost of oil, politicians opening the doors to admit peoples very different from our own,  believing the new arrivals would help them win votes and then look at what they did with their power.

The internet which has played to the weakness in our value of freedom of the individual, split us into millions of waring micro-groups and led to a tyranny of the Woke minority. 

Look at how the West has given away, or had stolen from it, its patents and technologies, taken into opposing nations and trading blocks who abuse this knowledge and us, but who could never have done it on their own.

Nation building was a brilliant idea. I was involved, myself, in a tiny way, in Algeria. Failed so miserably, as culture trumps politics and economics, opposing value systems, The West putting the individual first before the group has only ever happened once, and that for just a short few hundred years, since Adam Smith maybe (tell me it was the Greeks), killed by our adversaries and killed by covid.

Just random thoughts.

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THAI GOVT : CHANGE OR BE CHANGED

Flying into Thailand, with a negative test result, fully vaccinated, identify where you are staying. That would work.

There's a network effect here. The more tourists fly in, the more shops and places of entertainment can open. 

You could be looking at 1.5 million.

As it is, health insurance could run to 1 or 2 thousand dollars plus you'd waste a couple of weeks in a place where you don't want to be.

Then the vaccination program is so hopelessly organised that there are 20 thousand new infections à day and 200 deaths making you unwelcome when yo want to return.

There's no furlough so an industry that generates a fifth of GDP is being permanently shut. While the eager vaccinated traveller can quite easily find more accessible destinations. And with less censorship and crackdown risk.

CONCLUSION. Message to the Thai govt : change or be changed.

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AFGHANISTAN THE AFTERMATH

We shouldnt have to go through the arguments again, but here goes. 

 America and NATO went in because Afghanistan refused to hand over OBL zfter 9/11. It was for the security of The West. Also the American policy of what's called nation-building - build a new democratic country because democracies don't fight each other, they trade and prosper. (That is not flavour of the month as culture trumps politics and economy).

The reason for staying is still security. And can add in, keeping China bottled up a little longer.

It was a stupid tick-list decision with no thought given. With two or three thousand troops and some air cover, we could have kept the stalemate.

As it is, this is a massive marketing and recruitment for extreme Islam, it is a wonderful new training ground for al Qaeda (as though Pakistan isn't enough), it shames, discredits and destroy confidence in the world's hegemon in whose shadow the West is kept safe, it let's in China to continue its own Belt and Road hegemon strategy, it betrays thousands of supporters "left on the tarmac" and puts millions into misery and fear and Europe will face another torrent of refugees similar to the 1.2 million in 2015 that cost the EU 5.1 billion euros. 

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For a pretty light foorprint, we had some security against terrorism and China.

It is a world of nation states, with little info on the intentions of the others, except that they plan to devour you.
Best to first assure your security, then plan your empire. 

That might sound like pure evil, but it is the nature of man. 

Think global, act local. Reflect on that simple advice. It is where planning meets opportunity.

Biden and his people, the woke, the left, this sort of creative thinking, is not affordable at this time.

It has been a long time coming, but we should prepare for the fight of our lives.

Just warning the soft hearted, the deluded - also warning those that know this and are here to mislead and betray you....to troll you.

Take care everybody, the Taliban in or out of power are not a big deal, but overall we need to be serious about the level of danger and future conflict.

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AFGHANISTAN, THE AMERICAN WITHDRAWAL

Day 2 today. Just to underline the obvious:

The goal, complete withdrawal, was the opposite of what The West needs, which is to contain islamic extremism and bottle up China.

The guy was advised of this but ignored as cannot listen or understand.

His intelligence was completely wrong: Biden believed the Taliban would not be in a position to mount a blitzkrieg return and said so.

Planning and timing was zero: for example, why withdraw at a time when the enemy is assembled instead of waiting for winter or why were the ancillaries not prepared and assembled for extraction to America or the airport closed and patrolled?

Execution was totally and utterly incompetent, from the Green Zone to the Airport.

Communication before and after has been zero.

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The Taliban, according to Western media, do not exactly have a good record and Western public does not take comfort in their  reassurances about Sharia.

Subjects: Covering (hijab), divorce laws, legal age of marriage, custody of children, polygamy, employment, travel, place of residence, honour killing.

Countries under sharia, women can be stoned to death. 

The reality today is that the extremes of Koranic guidance have thankfully been overtiden by statute. But Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, all derive from Saudi wahabism, a back-to-basics attempt to "purify" the religion (a phase all religions go through) and build a world caliphate along 7th century lines. 

Quite frightening. The enemy is not so much Allah and Islam, it is Man and the House of Saud and Pakistan.

Live and Let Live, I say.

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I believe Pakistan's involvement flows from the House of Saud setting up madrassas (koranic schools) and its funding.

While Pakistan has well founded anxieties concerning India dating back to partition, Kashmir, Jamma.

So Saudi money funds wahabist expansion.

The West is held back by dependence on Arabian oil (controlled by the Saudi family) and India and Pakistan's possession of the bomb.

Some extremely clever manoeuvring is needed to extricate from these massive mistakes of the past. Hope the old goat in the White House (the last two presidents in fact) has not signed The West's death warrant.

Virile new leadership is needed if America is to remain top hegemon.

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As our thoughts deepen - for example, will the Taliban have the bomb? Does this open Pakistan and Afghanistan to China's Belt and Road strategy for "World Domination" - the utter folly of what Biden has done will break confidence in the States.

Virile new leadership - peaceful though assertive - is desperately needed.

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AFGHANISTAN RETREAT

Pakistan is the instigator. It is a rerun of the Kashmir problem.  It is the Pakistan-India conflict, going back to 1947. The Taliban are just a tool of Pakistan. That is the Indian embassy in Kabul.

NATO should have had it out with Pakistan long ago. Still could. But Pakistan and India both have the bomb.

Most unwise to withdraw without having turned off the lights and shut firmly closed the door that let Pakistani into Afghanistan.

Now can only hope India or China wring their chickens' necks. 

Hence a real humiliation for the States and NATO. 
History might ultimately be kind to Bush and Blair.

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Pakistan is involved because it fears Indian influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan's fears or muslim aggression, see it how you will, have driven it to be the aggressor in its relations with India. And it has mostly come off worse - biggest example is its losing east Pakistan. Time wounds all heals.

The original sin was letting princely Kashmir and Jammu choose independence or absorption into India. Kashmir was a hindu mi ority governing a muslim majority. Pakistan sent its soldiers in, obliging Kashmir to seek the protection of India. Pakistan lost that one too.

Now Pakistan is replaying the war. The Afghani leader cannot fight Pakistan on his own,  so he'll likely seek assistance - from India? From China this time maybe. 

Many of the Taliban fighters are mercenaires with experience from Syria where they were originally Saddam Hussein's old guard, renamed Al Qaeda. They were ISIS. 

Bashir al Assad and Putin knew how to deal with these Sunni extremists. The Americans should have supported the Shia, but of course they had to go with various anti-Iran groupings. Big mistake.

And where did OBL hail from? And who funds the madrassas? And how did the mujahideen who fought off the Russians, mutate into the Taliban, who are wahhabists, if it wasnt money from the House of Saud? 

If NATO or the States and its allies had wanted to take the fight to the real Taliban, they'd have carpet bombed Pashtun northern Pakistan and south west Afghanistan. And impoverished the Gulf by abandoning fossil fuels long long ago (technology is basic but oil companies werent ready).

The West ("The West") would have done better to keep things simple and to have had all this out with Pakistan from the start. And the House of Saud before that (Death of a Princess). But Pakistan and India both have the bomb and the House of Saud, which captured Arabia in 1928, has the oil.

Quite a tangled web. 

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ARE THE SNP WINNING?

The SNP is currently trying to form a minority government, that's a minority government.  That shouldn't need explaining.   

The SNP did not win the referendum on independence, because more Scots voted against than for.

The SNP currently hold 30 seats with less than a 10% margin, 13 of those below 5% and two less than 1%.

The SNP has never won the popular vote in Scotland. 

The SNP consistently garners less votes than are given to Unionist parties.  

As you can see, Scotland does not love the SNP.    

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THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM

Covid means cashless and digital currency will give governments complete control over their people.

Banks won't be needed.

Central banks are not (not) independent. Governments get funding from their CB without bothering to go through secondary markets - just increase the money supply and transfer.

Digital currencies connect digitally.

Digital currencies will make social credit systems a snip. People will lose interest in god and freedom and focus on stock markets and their social credit rankings. 

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WE WANT SCOTLAND IN

A task force to regenerate the economy. From the Firth of Forth to the East coast, a green port in a zone with no customs duties and low regulations.

In parallel, a task force to regenerate the health. The Catholic West is in a mess. Start with drugs.

Make Scotland great again. Restore confidence and pride. Upskill. Inclusive growth. A net zero economy. Olympic games.

We all want Scotland in for geographical completeness, "better together". But not dependent.

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The SNP is currently trying to form a minority government, that's a minority government.  That shouldn't need explaining.   

The SNP did not win the referendum on independence, because more Scots voted against than for.

The SNP currently hold 30 seats with less than a 10% margin, 13 of those below 5% and two less than 1%.

The SNP has never won the popular vote in Scotland. 

The SNP consistently garners less votes than are given to Unionist parties.  

As you can see, Scotland does not love the SNP.    

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Whether justified or no, the fundamental problem in Scotland is they do not trust the English. Thus, support for secession. Thus focus on the next world ("Independence"), rather than this world. Thus paralysis and neglect of the people.

What is important is to return the leadership's focus to the present and the people. The SNP are not the leadership Scotland needs. But there does not seem to be an alternative. This foolish focus on woke and separation has choked off contenders  Democracy is not working in Scotland today.

To rebuild confidence and morale, start with the economy. The Firth of Forth is where the money's made. It runs from the centre to the east coast. Yes, run down oil and gas. But transition to a green economy based on renewables, a green port gateway for trade and enterprise zones offering low customs and reg.s. That could free Scotland of its dependence on Westminster ("the English") for subsidies, push inclusive employment and create Europe's first net-zero economy.

As to the Catholic West. The problems are different. Really, should start with the health of the people and the drug culture. Look, Westminster has some considerable experience in this domain.

It shouldnt be called "The Union" because the United Kingdom is one country. Going way back from 410, geographical completeness was built slowly over the centuries, with the Brits, Romans who stayed, Angles, Saxons, Picts, Gaels. The power of a country is a function of its population and its wealth. So Scotland is in, and very much she is wanted.

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MAKE SCOTLAND GREAT AGAIN

How to MAKE SCOTLAND GREAT AGAIN?

The government (the UK government, of course) needs an investment plan to regenerate the economy and a health plan for the people.

China would run its belt and road into the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh airport, given half a chance. And that is a good place to start.

Nicola is right to volte farce on fossil fuels. Areas For the Regeneration of Scottish Equity could be created, with no customs duties and low regulations, focused on green power generation.

1. The Firth of Forth is where Scotland makes its money. It runs from central Scotland to the East coast. To create and operate a Firth of Forth green port would require inward investment and reskilling the people. The result would be inclusive growth and a net zero economy.

2. The rest of the country, the Catholic West, is in a bad way. Before economic regeneration must come public health. Start with the problem of drugs. All this could be done under under the cover of covid. There is hope without dope.

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