That must’ve been the first thing that came across the mind of the President of the Government Saving’s Bank (GSB) this morning as he awoke to the the news that THB 30 billion had been withdrawn from the bank.

Backstory?

Well very simply the GSB had recently provided a loan of THB 5 bn to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) via the usual inter bank market, which the BAAC were then going to use to pay the farmers for the late rice payments.

This resulted in quite a few a depositers of GSB being worried that their deposits were used to pay farmers and decided to go and withdraw some THB 30 bn in a day! As a result of this it appears that the GSB and BAAC are backpedaling on their earlier promises.

Anything to worry about?

No, there’s still plenty of liquidity within the Thai Banking System, the GSB is guaranteed  by the Government (how ironic), so any noise about a liquidity crunch is something that we shoo away. But there are several thousands of farmers that haven’t been paid what they’ve been promised. Social Unrest? Thai Spring?

Other thoughts?

Thaksin prides himself on running a country like a CEO, well Thailand is a prime example of what happens when the boss isn’t around to make sure his staff are doing their jobs.