By: Murray Hunter
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered the two-meter fence around government house raised, which critics describe as a metaphor for the government’s growing spate of dilemmas, especially with a swirling scandal over skyrocketing pork prices driven up by an outbreak of African flu that officials apparently tried to cover up, according to reports.
The country heads into 2022 as divided as ever and with the economy still in decline despite media attempts to dress it up. It is going into the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic following a 6 percent 2021 GDP decline according to the World Bank. Public debt is running at 58.8 percent of GDP, while household debt is now Bt14.27 trillion (US$430.2 billion), or 89.3 percent of GDP. Non-performing loans are increasing. Stagflation is a rising danger.
The official unemployment rate is only 2.25 percent, but it is…
