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Billionaires are people who have amassed a great fortune. I must confess, I’ve only met one and he is a nice old man who happens to be a partner in Berkshire-Hathaway. Charlie Mungerson’s partner is Warren Buffet, a.k.a. the Oracle of Oklahoma. I listened to Charlie explain his philosophy of life in simple, down to earth terms. ‘Find a need and fill it; in doing so, you can help society and make a reasonable profit.’ That seems to sum up his views. However, not all billionaires are of his mind set.
Taksin Sinawatra is a fascinating case study. When I first visited Thailand, he was in his first term as Prime Minister. Initially, I was very impressed with him. He had received a Ph. D. in Criminology from a U.S. University; had graduated from the Thai Military Academy which gave him an Officer rank; and became a “self-made” billionaire thru his telecom company, Shin Corporation.
He touted himself as a CEO Prime Minister, a man who could get things done; who could run a country like a well run business. As Prime Minister of Thailand, he had the talent and opportunity to turn a struggling country suffering from the Asian economic collapse of the 90’s into a prosperous nation. His Thai Rak Thai (Thai loves Thai) Party controlled Parliament. He was personally wealthy enough that he didn’t need to make another baht (dollar). He had the respect and cooperation of the business community. Few democratic leaders have ever had the opportunity to become historically great leaders as had Taksin Sinawatra. However, money and the power that goes with it; along with greed, became his Achilles heel.
As time flowed by, he became increasingly narcissistic. No idea was a good idea unless he personally thought of it. His top advisor and mentor, Mr. Snoh, finally disassociated himself from P.M. Taksin. The Thai Military, after initially seeing him as one of their own, became disenchanted with him because he ignored their protocols and tried unsuccessfully to jump his cousin over several senior generals and make him the chief of the Armed Forces. He did succeed in getting a few of his close military classmates promotions they were deemed not to deserve.
In the mean time, an expensive, important civil case against his business interest was making it’s way to the Thai Supreme Court. He managed to replace enough justices with his friends resulting in a win for him by one vote. This did massive damage to the perception of Thai justice in the eyes of most Thai people.
Like a character in a good novel, P.M. Taksin, the billionaire, has been neither completely evil nor a saint. When he first ascended office and before his developing megalomania, he established the 30 baht health care program; a government run program that provides health care, dental and eye care, to any Thai that would pay the 30 baht (75 cents) and even wave that fee if necessary. This made care affordable to all Thai people. Almost overnight, Thailand had a better healthcare system than we will probably ever see.
P.M. Taksin promoted OTOP; One Tambon, One Product, and provided government seed money to make it happen. It was an effort to get every tambon (county) to specialize in the product they could excel at. The scheme worked reasonably well and helped the Thai economy.
As Prime Minister, he was aware of the needs of the “little people.” He broke up the motorcycle taxi extortion gangs and licensed them to operate which gave them some legitimacy and protection from police harassment. He helped taxi drivers with government loans to buy their own taxis. He started a program to help poor farmers get land to farm. All these initiatives to relieve poverty received a lot of media attention but little follow up for how successfully they actually were. The success was mixed; nevertheless, many poor people benefited.
One would wish the P.M. would have worked as hard at eliminating poverty as he did enriching himself and his family and friends. Had that been the case, there would be no poverty in Thailand today.
P.M. Taksin, becoming increasingly autocratic and deluded by his own ‘expertise,’ declared he would solve the illegal drug trade in Thailand. He ordered all drug dealers to turn themselves in to the police at a date certain, after which time all drug dealers would be “shot on sight.” This resulted in over 2,000 extra-judicial killings. Taksin and police claimed that it was mainly drug lords settling scores and not police murder that accounted for the deaths. This bloody mess was a disaster for human rights and their justice system as well as a colossal failure to solve the drug problem.
In spite of this, his Thai Rak Thai Party won in elections marred by vote buying and alleged fraud. In a way, Taksin campaigned using the Thai treasury. He would promise voters in a district that if they would vote Thai Rak Thai, he would see to it that they got the bridge they wanted. On the other hand, if they didn’t vote his way, no bridge.
He also invited the other parties to join the Thai Rak Thai Party so they would have a Singaporean style democracy. Singaporean democracy is one party rule although they do allow five opposition candidates to be “elected.” It is not what we would normally conceive of as being a democracy.
Meanwhile, he arranged for his son to get cheap office rent in a government owned building in downtown Bangkok’s prime commercial district for his “advertising” business. Then he had an advertising contract with the new subway system revised to give his son the bulk of the advertising business. Putting pressure on his appointed ministers, his wife managed to buy some prime government owned property for a small fraction of it’s value and then turn around and re-sell it at a fantastic profit. Next, he helped himself to the Thai treasury by concluding an agreement with the Burmese Junta to update their telecommunications using a loan from the Thai treasury to do it. Oh, one little catch, they had to use his Shin Corporation to do it. ‘Find a need and fill it, at an unreasonable profit.’ Share price for Shin rose.
To get around a provision in the Thai Constitution, Taksin had put his shares in Shin Corp. in his children’s names without paying a transfer tax. Sensing that the deal, already announced with Myanmar would fall through, he sold Shin to Singapore at a hefty profit. And, like any good billionaire, he had money in Bahaman Banks and no doubt other secret accounts abroad.
Then came the coup. I have always held a negative view of coups d‘etat. The Thais have had a lot of experience with coups. The Thai Military is expert at staging a coup; but the September, 2006 coup will go down in Thai history as the most masterful coup ever. I will never forget it.
I was getting ready to go to school, I was a Thai teacher of English at Preseartislam school and had checked my e-mail before leaving for work. My son had e-mailed me and asks how the coup was going. Then the phone rang. It was teacher Warrawan: “Dr. Art, NO SCHOOL TODAY. THERE HAS BEEN AN ACCIDENT.” Knowing what had happened, I responded, “Did the Army accidentally over throw the government!”
My wife, Fran, and I walked down to the corner of Prachacheun and Namwanwon roads in Ban Khen, home of the 11th Battalion. There in the cross road was a tank and armed soldiers were all around. People were laughing, throwing flowers at the soldiers and getting their picture taken sitting on the tank. It was a wonderful coup; everyone had a good time and no one got hurt. My view on coups has changed.
P.M. Taksin was away on official business and simply did not return. His Thai Rak Thai Party was found guilty of vote buying and disbanded. That was no solution, the same players simply created another party, the People’s Power Party and Mr. Taksin directed it from his safe perch in the UAE. The coup leaders had the constitution re-written and held elections to return to civilian rule. PPP won and formed a government which then proceeded to some how grant amnesty to Taksin who had been sentenced to two years in prison, in absentia, for looting the treasury. The courts eventually ruled he illegally gained 46 billion baht and had that money transferred from his frozen Thai bank accounts to the government treasury. However, the attempt to give Taksin amnesty and let him keep his loot brought about the Yellow Shirt demonstration and seizure of the Bangkok Airport which eventually brought the resignation of the government. A coalition of parties joined the Democrats in forming a new government.
It did not help that the PPP government was led by Taksin’s former brother-in-law. Now, out of power again, the former P.M. through his surrogates, formed the Red Shirts, a.k.a. United Front Against Dictatorship, which claimed the Democrat led coalition government was illegal. They seized a prime commercial area in central Bangkok’s business district and held it hostage demanding the government immediately dissolve and call new elections. The “poor” from the PPP/Thai Rak Thai in Northeast Thailand were sent by the thousands to this “peaceful” rally.
Taksin, from abroad, would call in and rally his troops. At first denied, later admitted, Taksin was funding the demonstration and even paying many of the demonstrators. His objective seems to have been a grant of amnesty and a return to power; also a return of his seized assets. With billions more to spend, Taksin was willing to do everything he could do to overthrow the coalition government.
While clamoring for democracy, the Taksin appointed Red Shirt leaders railed about the injustices to the poor from their rally stage wearing their Rolex watches and staying in a five star hotel while their followers slept on the ground in Lumpini Park. Embracing only “peaceful means,” they also embrace rogue Lt. General Kattiya, a..k.a. Sedeng and his “Black Shirt” guards with stolen granade launchers and AK-47’s. The peace didn’t last.
Billionaire Taksin has not been successful as a proxy leader of the “poor” attempting to overthrow the Thai Government and establish Singaporean democracy. Like the French Revolution, Red Shirt radicals got continually more radical raiding a hospital and firing grenades culminating in torching a number of large commercial buildings loosing any sympathy they may have had from those outside their movement. This enabled the Thai Military to disband their movement and the Thai police to arrest their leaders. Taksin Sinawatra, shopping with his son and daughter at Versace’s in Paris, called urging the mob to not surrender, to fight on.
Incredible you say, not so. There are lessons in this sadness for us. Billionaires are a real danger to democracy. Billionaire T. Boon Pickens financed the “Swift Boat Veterans” who spread lies and half-truths that hurt Senator Kerry’s presidential campaign giving George W. Bush an second term. Billionaire George Soros, currency speculator, is likewise very politically active.
It is sometimes alleged that we are really a corporatocracy rather than a democracy and neither Democrats nor Republicans exercise much control. That’s a conspiracy theory the Tea Party can really explore. But behind all these corporations lie a large group of billionaires. They are not all just trying to find a need and fill it; at a reasonable profit. I suspect many of them are behind the scenes Taksin Sinawatras. We once had an inheritance tax that was supposed to protect our democracy until the Republicans re-named it the “death tax” and got it repealed. Before it is too late, we need to “get our country back.”
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