As Wacky Tacky and his red shirted mob continue to threaten and pose, I thought this article particularly interesting. I was interested in the point about Chinese thinking versus Thai thinking; I just hope enough Thais have read this. No doubt some will say Professor Young is talking rubbish but it all makes perfect sense to me and goes a long way to explaining many issues.

There seems to have been a spate of reports about Thai rip-offs – often involving the police. Now the Thais are getting all upset suggesting it is ruining their business and as ever blaming the people who produce the reports rather than going to the roots and stopping the rip offs.
http://www.bangko...eo-nasties

I read that over 1000 people have been charged over rackets at the airport – mainly in connection with taxi scams I suspect – but nobody is prepared to let two plus two equal four. We all know there are plenty of scams and we all know that even with tourism drying up the number of scams will not go down – so the percentage of people being conned will go up: ergo more chances of publicity. Of course running a programme entitled ‘Big trouble in Tourist Thailand’ was never going to make the Thais happy. I suppose the only upside is the blithering idiots, who most of us wish had never heard of LOS, might be discouraged from coming. There was a discussion on a web board about this and I was surprised at some people whose attitude was “if they are stupid enough to be scammed they should not be here”. In some case you may say that is so, but I think that is a very unintelligent generalisation. The bottom line is that every scam that succeeds, and makes somebody money, only encourages more and more. And the people who turn a blind eye are simply encouraging it as well. And can we all say honestly we have never been swindled in Thailand? By the way anybody who pays the police for whatever has effectively been ripped off because, as we all know, bribing the police is a wrong. And yes, I know, running almost any business means that sooner or later you have to pay somebody (if running a bar it is sooner, if not immediately)!
And, of course, this article will not surprise anybody who has lived in Samui, or Phuket and touches on the same subject. I know when I was in Samui several efforts were made to publicise this problem but the powers that be thought such publicity was bad for Samui. Suggesting to people that riding a unfamiliar motor bike whilst blind drunk might lead to injury or death would seem to make more sense than revolting pictures on cigarette packets but we all know that in LOS logic is not the strongest suit