Credit Crunch effect on Thailand

[The understudy]

Hi There Tiger

That Senator and other PHD constantly praying these Lines of ""without credit businesses won't be able to meet payroll", "without credit, people won't be able to buy groceries yada yada". are hopeless last ditch effort defending the old system in which they grown up and lived "The so called Ameircan Dream" payed by Credit financed by the World.
I'm still waiitng to The Creditcard bubble to burst in the US. Boy if this bubble bursts we can expect a humongous shockwave rippling through all parts of the economy American Express changed its self to a Bank to get Govt Free Money having a fair degree of foresight. if you can call it "fair degree" I'm calling it "scared sh***less" of having to go bust.
I know americans who have up to eight Creaditcards and talking about their paying behavior They pay the one that are important to them and the rest of just keep on posdypone.

Your's the understdy!!!!

[T.I.G.R.]

Yeah.......you are absolutely right. I had a guy tell me a few years ago, when he was drunk and unemployed, that he and his wife had a million dollars of mortgages. One house up in the hills where we lived, and another in the Bay Area.

Again, he was unemployed. She was the personnel manager for a large bank and did pretty well.......but how much a month does a million dollars of loans cost?

Of course the guy gets a job at his wife's bank a couple of months later and shows up in a brand new $40K SUV.......think he paid cash for it?

Think they might have been using credit cards to pay for gas and golf on the weekend when they came up to stay in their second home?

You betcha.

It raises a good point that we've yet to see discussion as to how much credit card debt is actually out there, and how much of that my have been spread around with re-insurance scams. And to your point, what's going to happen when all those credit card addicts can't make their payments?

[sargeant]

quote TIGR "I am really getting tired of the entire world sticking their collective heads in the sand."
"There is no "credit crunch". t Governments who practice deficit spending, Companies who leverage themselves silly, and individuals who think credit cards are free money have finally spent themselves into insolvency. "

I havent had a credit card of any sort or variety for 11 years.
Mrs Sarge has never owned a credit card in her life and niether has her son or her brother.

We own a 20,000$ house on a mortgage and paid 10% deposit with a combined income of 3,000$ a month (hardly extravagant irresposible spending)

Telling me having my household loose approx 50% of our income in less than 6 months plus the millions unemployed here and worldwide there is no credit crunch and to get our heads out of the sand makes me want to tell you you need to remove your head from where it is smell some fresh air instead of compost and look reality in the eye

I have not spent myself into insolvency other a***holes have done that for me and most of them and the biggest ones are in your congress and your wallstreet Question Why am i and my family paying for the irresponsible a***holes

As for the poor thais they are insolvent 24/7/365/lifelong without a bank account let alone a credit card or a mortgage try telling them there is no credit crunch and its their own fault they cant feed their familys now

[T.I.G.R.]

Sarge -

I apologize for going overboard in my generalizations.

I should have been more careful in describing the A***holes I meant to yell at, and included all of us that have been properly careful with our money in a better fashion.

The fact of the matter is, however, that it wasn't a lack of credit but an overabundance of credit that's caused the entire problem.

I've been looking reality in the eye my entire life just like you, and frankly I'm tired of getting sh***t on just like you. I didn't blame any poor people for being poor if you'll go back and look at what I wrote. I worked my ass of for 44 years trying to get out of being poor and have lost so much money in the last three years because of those stupid A**holes in Washington I'd be happy to beat the shit out of every one of them one at a time........so there. And don't start blaming America for everyone's problems in the whole world.....there's plenty of jerkoffs everywhere else too.

Have a lovely day tomorrow....I'm going to bed. All of this p****ng and moaning is wearing me out.

[Super Joe]

And don't start blaming America for everyone's problems in the whole world.....there's plenty of jerkoffs everywhere else too.

Agree, if someone made the decision to emigrate here based on an exchange rate that was kind at the time, without allowing for possible future contingencies, then they should look closer to home than trying to blame Wall Street or others.
Most of us didn't plan for it and I'd only blame myself for that.

SJ

[norm]

What really upsets me about this mess is it was caused by rampant spending and overuse of credit. Essentially people spending more money than they were making and the banks encouraging it.

Now the government wants to get out of the problem by spending more money they don't have.

For those of you interested the following is a very good video on how money is generated from debt. A bit long but easy to watch and understand.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2583451279

[hhfarang]

Sarge,

You must never leave Hua Hin, let alone Thailand. I hate credit cards too and don't believe in them but I find I have to carry a couple if I ever want to travel. Any advance air ticket or hotel room reservation requires one plus you either have to have one to rent a car or one hell of a cash deposit.

I don't know how anyone would travel without at least one card.

[sargeant]

Now the red mist has drifted from my eyes after a nights kip i will address a few points i hope calmly

Firstly a quote from my dad the United Kingdom is the only American state that does not have a star on the flag or use dollars as its currency

That was accurate 25 years ago and still is so i dont blame only the states on the flag we are one of them and so are most other countrys.

Profligate spending on credit is only half of the problem the biggest part of the problem was packaging debt and then selling it at a profit the high earnings rate promised encouraged GREEDY w/bankers to buy it

But the main cause and the people most to blame are Frank & Dodds who deregulated to the point where fraud and conning became almost obligatory in the financial sector as normal all other closely related countries had to suck in the virus to compete. This was equally exacerbated by the property sector in their scramble for greed and growth.
Hua Hin was full of property people boasting about how many deposits on houses here they were selling on CREDIT CARDS

SJ i dont know what you smoke but if you are saying that you planned for and expected a drop in the value of the pound by 33% in less than 6 months you are in the wrong job you should be on wall street (cos they didnt see jack crap coming)


I started this thread about how it is affecting the Thais and Thailand and how it affects them will effect us

[hhfarang]

...how it affects them will effect us

A very true and thought provoking statement, Sarge!

[Super Joe]

SJ i dont know what you smoke but if you are saying that you planned for and expected a drop in the value of the pound by 33% in less than 6 months

Sarge I wrote "Most of us didn't plan for it and I'd only blame myself for that." So no, I didn't see it coming or plan for it either but I won't blame others for that. It's more of a 33% drop in 5 years since I moved over when it was 60 something. It's a difficult one when you decide to move over and the rate is 'x' knowing what to budget for in future drops etc.
Back to your OP even if the Pound recovers the global lack of spending is going to be hard on all but my biggest concern is that it's going to last maybe 2-3 years (just my impression) yet before people get back to spending/holidays as before.

SJ

[sargeant]

SJ my dear fellow dont listen to me your maths is as bad as a poster i wont mention 60 BT down to 50 Bt is 15%ish not 33% its gone down one sixth

When i came here and for the large bulk of the time i have been here it was 72 Bt to 75 Bt down to 50 = 33% thats down a third
however as i said in the OP Mrs Sarges business virtually Thai exclusive has collapsed and so our combined income is down to about 55% of what we were getting 6 months ago
quote me "how it affects them will effect us" i agree in my case it is a direct effect but i have the side effects of son brothers and sister inlaws as well

As for tourists coming back at a mere drip of 8% of GDP top whack forgive me if i think thats a piss in an egg cup compared to the overall picture

And finally no i wont blame myself i have a pension that grows at between 3.5% to %5.0 % per annum my pension when i came was 26.5 times the average Thai wage it is now 7.5 times the average Thai wage as stated i have no nil zero buggerall credit except a piddling 6,000 Bt a month mortgage i have not nor has Mrs Sarge been profligate or lived a minute in 11 years on credit please explain to me

1....Why i should blame myself
2.... How the hell anyone would even think of coming here to live if they took this crap into their calculations before coming

[Super Joe]

Sarge, maths apart (I was using hypotheticals and I said "60 something" not 60) I was making the point that the drop, although yes in the last 6 months, I would judge over my entire period spent here. Ie: The rate might have been 10% up for 3 years of my stay so I'd take that into account too.
You can blame who you want (can't see how it will help you though), I blame myself for not budgeting for a recession/severe drop in the exchange rate at some point during the rest of my life here. We all know already what can/has happened to Asian economies and currencies and we've all lived through recessions and know they happen. Our destiny is in our own hands, Wall Street/US & European banks aren't going to budget for our futures.

Many of us came over at 60-70/Pound and if we planned for our futures allowing for potential currency crashes we should have played safe and budgeted for 35-40/Pound IMO. I didn't either so I'm not trying to say I'm any different, but the blame is squarely at my feet to me, because I'm the only one who could have done something to prevent it.

SJ

[sargeant]

SJ i have been here 11 years my pension has risen on average 4% per annum so yes i did budget for a drop a reasonable to expect drop and it did it went from 75 down to 60 over 10.5 of those years and my pension kept pace ALMOST but what is happening now is just not normal and NO pension can keep pace with a 15% drop in 3/4 months
As for blame if you have credit debts or a mortgage you could not pay or as in many instancys no intention of repaying then take the blame because they are the people that caused it
and if you havent i dont even vaguely see why you should take any blame

The problem i have with your stance of "Our destiny is in our own hands"
is that I am not even vaguely going to put even a miniscule of blame on the millions of poor Thais who have NO destiny let alone anything to control it with
so as you are happy to take it i will blame you

[hhfarang]

Blame America Sarge! Some people do for everything and we don't mind... we have big shoulders.

[Super Joe]

Blame whoever you want mate they won't care, but it is only US that will now suffer because we came over relying on a certain exchange rate and not allowing for the worse.
I didn't learn much from Asia 1997 and now I'll pay for it, if I swear at Wall Street 5 times an hour I'll still be getting 48/Pound

Cheers mate, good luck

SJ