The usual collection of random thoughts over the past 2 months

Sweet weed

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7987002/
• Came across this study, and guess what? That sweet sweet weed helps against the wuflu. So c’mon Anutin and friends, stop screwing over the population more than you’ve already done and get us access to that sweet weed

Elections

• BKK governor elections are finally on the go.
• If you’re a local and not voting for Chadchart, I’d recommend you get your head examined.
• Now for the national elections, what could the wonderful leaders do make the populace happy? Raise the minimum wages? It’s been in the news that they may increase it to near 500 baht/day.
• What’s more interesting is the natural change in the demographics in the country…
  • https://stat.bora.dopa.go.th/stat/statnew/statPMOC/#/
  • Go through this website and have a look at the changes, it has been said that 2.5 mn voters have died since the last election and nearly 2 mn teenagers have become of voting age, PPRP probably knows by now that they don’t have a chance…but this has been well taken care of by the adjustment in the voting system. The election rules have been adjusted, again, unlike the previous election where even those parties that came 2 or 3 could have it count towards MP positions hence why Future Forward was able to have a decent position in the government. Now the election system has reverted back to only the #1 winner in each district thus naturally you’re going to see PPRP and Pheu Thai win and the smaller parties are going to have to become very strategic in their districts/provinces to ensure that they have a chance.
• Have a look at how well the Buriram boys have been performing, they’ve expanded their MPs from 60 to 80 and these crooks (well aren’t all politicians crooks…) are still going to remain strong and their allegiance is very simply “Give us the positions where we can make the most bank”
• Thaksin has proven to continue to be an idiot with political strategy by appointing his daughter to the party….this is family member #4…no wonder the technocrats that have had half a brain have all left Pheu Thai over the past few years.

Covid payment policies

• The Ministry of Public Health has announced that, effective from 1 March 2022, the government will no longer absorb ALL Covid costs (under Universal Coverage for Emergency Patients – UCEP). Since 2020, the Thai government has dealt with Covid quickly and decisively (to contain the spread) by ordering that any Covid patient, once confirmed with Covid, has to be treated at the hospital where the patient was tested and confirmed. In return, the government will reimburse the hospitals (both public and private) with payments at pre-determined rates.
• I read this as a massive drop in future revenue for the hospitals.

KBANK AM

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-01/kasikornbank-said-to-weigh-sale-of-2-billion-asset-manager-unit?sref=mb1KtL6P
Rather overvalued….industry norm is to pay 1% of AUM. Which is then $470mn, though as a friend commented “let’s see what else can be packaged into the sale”

EV’s
If you’ve been reading my rants for some time you’ll know that I have a disdain for the forced EV movement on consumers for multiple reasons, 1. It isn’t cleaner than an ICE vehicle unless an EV is used for 200,000 km (go internet sleuthing for Volvo’s study that they posted last year on their website, but took down in Feb ’22). 2. A massive amount of re-electrification of every country is required to support this – which guess what requires a lot of energy! Such as oil, copper, steel etc etc 3. There hasn’t been any investments in the necessary dirty mines to get the nickel, copper and aluminium required for EVs 4) What happens to the lithium batteries when an EV car has run its course? 5) All these subsidies (see below, well summarised by one of the brokerage houses a month ago) come at the cost of the tax payer and in Thailand’s case, they are extracting the capital to CP and China as it’s the only country without import taxes… 6) The cost of future electricity usage will probably increase by 50% again at the cost of the tax payer/consumer.

Thailand Electric Vehicle: Expect growing demand for EVs from government’s incentive programs

• Stage 1: Cabinet approval of EV incentive package On 15 Feb 2022, the cabinet approved the electric vehicle (EV) incentive packages for 2022-2023F to encourage the use of EVs – both 2- and 4-wheel EVs – nationwide. These incentive programs include import tax and excise tax cuts, and subsidies which can be categorized as follows:
  • i) Passenger cars
    • a. Less than Bt2m/unit – 40% import tax cut for CBU, excise tax cut from 8% to 2%, and Bt70,000/unit subsidy for EVs with capacity less than 30MWh (Bt150,000 for EV with more than 30MWh).
    • b. Bt2-7m/unit – 20% import tax cut for CBU, and excise tax to reduce from 8% to 2%.
  • ii) Motorcycles – A subsidy of Bt18,000/unit for electric bikes less than Bt150,000/unit.
  • iii) Trucks – 0% excise tax and Bt150,000/unit subsidy for BEV trucks over 30MWh capacity.
• Stage 2: 30@30 policy by 2030
  • The Government aims to achieve 30@30 policy where it targets new EV sales to be at least 30% of total passenger cars by end of 2030.
  • To achieve such a target, National New Generation Vehicle Committee along with the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) aim to make Thailand a global production base for EVs within 15 years (by end of 2035). The new plan is for Thailand to produce i) 1.05m units of EVs by 2025F, ii) 6.22m units of EVs by 2030F, and iii) 18.41m units of EVs by 2035F.
  • Moreover, the committee is also planning to raise local demand for EVs to 15.58m units – 6.4m units of passenger cars and pickup trucks, 8.75m units of motorcycles, and 0.43m units of buses and heavy-duty trucks.
• Stage 3: To achieve carbon neutrality during 2065-2070
  • The Ministry of Energy has drafted a national energy plan that will drive Thailand towards using clean energy and reducing carbon emissions to zero (carbon neutrality) by 2065-2070. The policy outlines the National Energy Plan (Policy Direction) that will drive the energy sector towards achieving the goals to be a low-carbon economy and society by promoting investments in green energy such as
    • Increase the proportion of new electricity generation – the proportion of renewable energy should not be less than 50% of the nation’s power capacity – along with optimising the cost of long-term energy storage system.
    • Using green energy and electricity for activities in the transport sector and promote the use of EVs to achieve 30@30 policy (as discussed in the previous section). This will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and PM2.5 dust as well as improve energy efficiency in the transport sector.

Others

If you’re wondering why the government is incompetent, maybe this helps to explain why…

https://twitter.com/SaksithCNA/status/1491690055328403456?t=ilTM4wuuTOZXKchgsdCxaw&s=19

For Valentines day, the government told us to wank instead of having sex, then they fretted about the declining birth rate in the country. https://twitter.com/KhaosodEnglish/status/1492077127595802626?s=20&t=FVof0Cq3GTRgpS_hA-ARvA, bunch of idiots, though if they said “have sex outdoors on the beach where there is a lower risk of covid” I may have described them as clever…

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2264143/green-light-received-for-b40-82bn-provincial-plans – I found this to be a positive development, been saying for a while that the government should provide a silly amount of liquidity to the provinces as most people have gone back home from the main economic centers that are Bkk, Chonburi and Phuket. Even if the politicians and civil servants pocket 50% it should still be able to boost domestic businesses in each province.