Post by Fletchsmile on Jul 2, 2015 12:51:36 GMT 7
Some slightly different perspectives on why the Thai economy is struggling. Real mixture of an article, facts, stereotypes, and opinion as the article unfolds - a little something of everything ....
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Bangkok’s Sex Shops, Street Bars Survive Graft Crackdown
Fern’s cocktail bar appears each night on a sidewalk between a group of scantily-clad women from the next-door go-go club and a noodle stall near one of Bangkok’s infamous red-light districts. By morning it has vanished.
The bar, the prostitution, even the food stall are illegal, part of a shadow economy that one economist estimates is worth more than two-fifths of the nation’s gross domestic product. The ruling military junta says it has cracked down on corruption, and that’s the reason why the country has the slowest economic growth among developing nations in East Asia. Yet on the streets of Bangkok, there’s little sign of any difference.
Payments to bribe officials and mafia are higher now, so everyone is earning less, said Fern, who uses an alias because the bar she’s been running for almost five years is illegal. She said it has become more expensive since the army took over because the people she pays said they also have to pay more.
“Thailand’s shadow economy ranks globally among the highest,” said Friedrich Schneider, an economist at Johannes Kepler University of Linz in Austria and author of “Hiding in the Shadows: The Growth of the Underground Economy.” He estimates Thailand’s shadow economy was 40.9 percent of real GDP in 2014, including some illegal sectors such as gambling and small weapons, but largely excluding drugs.
contd......
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-30/bangkok-s-sex-shops-street-bars-survive-graft-crackdown
======================================================
Bangkok’s Sex Shops, Street Bars Survive Graft Crackdown
Fern’s cocktail bar appears each night on a sidewalk between a group of scantily-clad women from the next-door go-go club and a noodle stall near one of Bangkok’s infamous red-light districts. By morning it has vanished.
The bar, the prostitution, even the food stall are illegal, part of a shadow economy that one economist estimates is worth more than two-fifths of the nation’s gross domestic product. The ruling military junta says it has cracked down on corruption, and that’s the reason why the country has the slowest economic growth among developing nations in East Asia. Yet on the streets of Bangkok, there’s little sign of any difference.
Payments to bribe officials and mafia are higher now, so everyone is earning less, said Fern, who uses an alias because the bar she’s been running for almost five years is illegal. She said it has become more expensive since the army took over because the people she pays said they also have to pay more.
“Thailand’s shadow economy ranks globally among the highest,” said Friedrich Schneider, an economist at Johannes Kepler University of Linz in Austria and author of “Hiding in the Shadows: The Growth of the Underground Economy.” He estimates Thailand’s shadow economy was 40.9 percent of real GDP in 2014, including some illegal sectors such as gambling and small weapons, but largely excluding drugs.
contd......
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-30/bangkok-s-sex-shops-street-bars-survive-graft-crackdown
