Supporting royalism 2013

Some two years ago, PPT posted a comment based on a New York Times report by Thomas Fuller. In a long post on royal wealth, we noted this:

Fuller adds that income from the CPB [Crown Property Bureau] “is separate from the approximately $350 million in taxpayer money allocated for the royal household, royal-led development projects and other expenses related to the royal family.”

PPT added:

In fact, PPT thinks $350 million of taxpayer money is an under-estimate. For example, in the Abhisit Vejjajiva government’s last budget the first three lines of the Ministry of Finance’s allocation was for royal things and amounted to about $100 million. Line after line in the budget allocates funds to the royals. This is public information, but as far as PPT knows, going through the Budget Bureau’s allocations has not been a task yet completed.

Now doing the rounds of the social media is this estimate for 2013, and drawn from the Budget Bureau. Our version is sent to us by a reader who says it is a Facebook translation provided via Andrew MacGregor Marshall. PPT edited some of this but didn’t change the data:

… according to the Fiscal Year 2013 budget Act:

- Expenses related to Royal Development Projects – 2,300,000,000 Baht (US $76.67 Million)

- Expenses related to traveling and welcoming foreign Heads of States – 700,000,000 Baht (US $ 23.34 million)

- Layout of plans for cherishing, safeguarding and protecting the monarchy institution to these government organizations:

1. Office of the Permanent Secretary to the Office of the Prime Minister – 635,066,000 Baht (US $ 21.2 Million)

2.  Office of the Secretariat of the Prime Minister – 2,104,446,500 Baht – (US $ 70.15 Million)

3.  Minister of Defense (22,760,700 Baht – (US $ 0.76 Million)

4.  Royal Thai Aide-De-Camp Department – 580,426,700 Baht (US $ 19.35 Million)

5.  Royal Thai Armed Force Headquarters = 260,000,000 Baht (US $8.67 Million)

6.  Royal Thai Army – 320,000,000 Baht (US $ 10.67 Million)

7.  Royal Thai Navy – 12,246,100 Baht (US $ 0.41 Million)

8.  Royal Thai Air Forces – 23,500,000 Baht (US $ 0.78 Million)

Grand Total: 6,958,446,000 Baht (approximately US $232 Million) per year

The version sent to us adds this, which confirms our earlier comment above on needing to drill down on the budget:

In an addition, several individuals provided the comments that most governmental branches are required to use their own annual budget to allocate for “cherishing, safeguarding and protecting the monarchy institution” on the top of the Official Annual Budget for Fiscal Year 2013.

The Thai of the translation  above is:

… ตาม พ.ร.บ.งบประมาณรายจ่ายประจำปีงบประมาณ พ.ศ.2556 ต่อไนี้หน่อยครับ (เพื่อนลิงค์มาให้ตามโพสต์ด้านล่าง)

 - ค่าใช้จ่ายตามโครงการอันเนื่องมาจากพระราชดำริ 2,300,000,000 บาท

- ค่าใช้จ่ายเกี่ยวกับการเสด็จพระราชดำเนินและต้อนรับประมุขต่างประเทศ 700,000,000 บาท

- แผนงานเทิดทูน พิทักษ์ และรักษาสถาบันพระมหากษัตริย์ จัดให้หน่วยงานหลักดังนี้

(1) สนง.ปลัด สำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี 635,066,000 บาท

(2) สำนักเลขาธิการนายกรัฐมนตรี 2,104,446,500 บาท

(3) กระทรงกลาโหม 22,760,700 บาท

(4) กรมราชองครักษ์ 580,426,700 บาท

(5) กองบัญชาการกองทัพไทย 260,000,000 บาท

(6) กองทัพบก 320,000.000 บาท

(7) กองทัพเรือ 12,246,100 บาท

(8) กองทัพอากาศ 23,500,000 บาท

If readers go back to the 2012 budget (clicking downloads a very large PDF in English), the centrality of the expenditures on and for the monarchy indicates how debased ideas about “national security” have become. In fact, these allocations are evidence of the extent of the warping of public public policy required by monarchism:

The FY 2012 budget allocation consists of 8 strategies and a list of expenditures on general administration under 49 programmes. Important aspects of the strategy can be summarized as follows:

Strategy 1 : Building of foundation for a balanced development towards the society….

Strategy 2 : National Security

The government has allocated the budget for protecting national security, upholding and preserving the monarchy and maintaining domestic order by strengthening and developing readiness and potential for the national defence system….

The amount of 190,300.9 million baht, equivalent to 8 per cent of the total budget, is allocated for this strategy and can be classified by the following programmes.

2.1 Programme on upholding, protecting and preserving the monarchy

The amount of 11,208.8 million baht will be allocated to uphold, protect and preserve the monarchy from any offenses by providing a security system and organizing events on upholding the monarchy at appropriate occasions. In addition, His Majesty’s suggestions will be implemented along with the promotion and promulgation of the Royal Projects to make people aware of his kindness and maintain their loyalty to the monarchy and the fact that the Thai society is the society of unity and sufficiency living.

2.2 Programme on national defence

The amount of 164,615.4 million baht will be allocated to strengthen and develop the national defence system to be prepared with potentials to protect independence, sovereignty, security and national interests from internal and external threats….

2.3  Programme on maintaining domestic order

The amount of 14,476.7 million baht will be allocated to preserve national interests and maintain domestic order….

Obscuring by political concoction

As any long-time reader of PPT knows, the wealthiest family in Thailand is the royal family. If the wealth of the top ten in the annual Forbes list is combined, then the total comes out roughly the same as the assets of the Crown Property Bureau alone, leaving aside the other assets of the royal family.

Another measure of wealth that comes out each year for Thailand is the Money & Banking/การเงินการธนาคาร list of top shareholders at the Stock Exchange of Thailand. We do not recall it including the royal family’s personal shareholdings. PPT hasn’t seen the latest issue and ranking (the cover is reproduced, right), but we note a story based on it from The Nation.

PPT’s attention was drawn to the article by the headline: “Richest stockholders linked to govt, PM”. As far as we can tell, this is a complete fabrication by the newspaper. This concoction – made for blatantly political purposes – is apparently not even based on the data the editors of this fish wrap  reproduce in their own story. The first lines of the story modify the false headline only slightly: “Politicians and their families, especially some people close to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her government … rank among the richest stockholders in the country.”

Well, yes, they do rank “among the 5,737 millionaires as of September…” – yes, that is more than 5,700.

The Nation breathlessly states: there “are Yingluck’s two nieces, who are daughters of her big brother and former prime minister Thaksin [Shinawatra].” It shows that “Paethongtarn Shinawatra, was ranked 47th with her 29-per-cent holding in SC Asset worth Bt3.46 billion, while Pinthongta Shinawatra was 53rd with a 28-per-cent stake in the same real-estate company worth Bt3.35 billion.”

What the data show is that the top 46 stockholders are not related to the government or prime minister, at least not according to The Nation’s data.

The paper does find others who are not ”Richest stockholders linked to govt, PM”, but claims they are: “Pojaman na Pombejra, Thaksin’s ex-wife, fell to 502nd” place on the list, while “Pongthep Thepkanjana, deputy prime minister and education minister, has his wife and daughter on the list. Yapa was ranked 244th with a 2.1-per-cent interest in Kiatnakin Bank worth Bt795.50 million, while his wife Panida was 264th with a 1.9-per-cent stake worth Bt728.08 million in the bank.” Then they dug up “Artharn at 1,811st with a 2.6-per-cent stake worth Bt58.28 million in Unimit Engineering, and Duang at 2,213rd with 1.8 per cent or Bt38.60 million in the same company,” who are sons of Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung.

It is quite clear that The Nation has simply made up its headline and concocted a story. It has long been known that the Shinawatra clan is wealthy, and they have appeared on the Money & Banking list for many years, often much higher ranked than they are now. Pongthep’s family has also been on the list for some time.

Recent reports suggest that the king’s personal holdings “include shares valued at $63 million in companies including Minor International Pcl (MINT), Thailand’s biggest hotel operator … according to data compiled by Bloomberg.” If accurate, that alone would rank the king above Pongthep’s wife and daughter combined.

If real analysis was done of the biggest shareholders, we have little doubt that the real headline would be “Richest stockholders linked to Democrat Party.”

The Nation is too often a disgraceful pile of pulp and remarkably stupid in its concoctions.

Monarchies in comparison

Personal or public?

Readers may recall that back in April this year, PPT posted regarding the scandal facing the Spanish king at that time and some of the historical coincidences that haunted the Spanish and Thai kings. At the Council on Foreign Relations blog, Joshua Kurlantzick has a post with a contemporary comparison.

Referring to a Washington Post article of a few days ago, Kurlantzick writes of how European austerity programs are impacting the monarchies there. Kurlantzick reminds readers of the criticism of the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, for his 19th Century and colonial-like penchant for shooting wild animals in Africa (see PPT’s earlier post). That criticism “led to a major backlash against the monarch.” The blog article states that that event has seen calls for “Juan Carlos to drastically cut his annual spending and to be much more transparent about how he is spending money on royal activities.”

While the well-funded and seemingly well-fueled escapes of the youngest British prince/playboy in Las Vegas may suggest that the austerities are not cutting too deep for some, the calls for greater transparency for the more controversial and big spending and well-connected royals has been growing, while establishment figures and self-serving royalists seek to protect the extravagant royals.

Kurlantzick then turns to Thailand:

Though it may be able to hold off such inquiries for now, via harsh lèse-majesté laws and the genuine reverence the monarchy enjoys, the Thai monarchy could learn some lessons from Juan Carlos. Like the Spanish king, the current Thai king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, has truly earned a high degree of respect from many Thais over the course of his lengthy reign. But that respect, and the fact that the king’s reign is strongly supported by a core of arch-royalists in Bangkok, does not mean that questions are not increasingly being raised, in private, about the royal family’s finances.

Kurlantzick’s view of “respect” is couched in terms that don’t obliterate history in the way that several news agencies have long done, and the point he makes about transparency for royal finances is an important one. While he believes that “royals seem to understand this [need] in Thailand,”we are not so sure the royals are in any way keen on opening up about health, wealth or much else.

His evidence for feeling that the Thai royals have been given a message is the “recent, royally-approved biography of the king’s life” that he says “contained significantly more information on the Crown Property Bureau “than any royally-approved book had in the past.” That’s true, but it is a bit of closing the gate after the horse has bolted given the high profile of an academic account (get it here) and the related Forbes story of the CPB. Essentially, the book is a royalist and palace attempt to steer the public account of the monarchy, post-Handley (and his The King Never Smiles).

Kurlantzick believes that as the average Thai knows something about the monarchy’s wealth, that knowledge “only fuels a hunger for more —though Thais will not say so in public. On social media sites, and in private conversations, discussion of the Crown Property Bureau now is far more common than in the past.”

Juan Carlos has apparently “announced he would be taking a pay cut voluntarily, according to the Washington Post story, in tune with the austere times.” Kurlantzick asks if that isn’t a “model for other monarchs?” Probably not, for as the palace and those responsible for the recent biography points out, this king is unlike any other…. and other such concoctions that serve “protect” and conceal.

One of many

Much that contributes to the wealth and power of the Thai monarchy remains missing from public view. See sets of PPT posts on this here and here.

As a most basic of examples, it remains unclear – make that opaque – how much taxpayer money goes to support the royal family, its activities, projects and personal spending. Efforts have been made to cull information from Budget Bureau papers, but there is no clarity and a myriad of government agencies pour funds into the support of the royals, with no accounting or public accountability (as one small example, think of royal cars). No minister or politician dares  raise questions about royal funding in parliament, which is meant to be one site of scrutiny over the expenditure of public monies; many of these people assist in what amount to cover ups. Senior bureaucrats regularly come out with dopey letters denying royal wealth.

Transparency remains pretty much off the agenda and accountability is a term that is unlikely to be used in the same breathe as monarchy.

How feudal monarchies use lese majeste to protect status, wealth and privilege

A dedicated reader pointed PPT in the direction of a lese majeste story from the feudal sultanate of Oman. Wikipedia tells us that “Oman is an absolute monarchy in which the Sultan of Oman exercises ultimate authority but its parliament has some legislative and oversight powers.” So in terms of government, Thailand’s political and social system should be far less feudal. But not, it seems, when it comes to lese majeste.

A recent report explains that:

One of the ten Lèse-majesté detainees was released on bail today by the Muscat Primary Court in al Khuwair, according to an activist. Last month authorities in Oman clamped down on a number of Netizens for slander against Sultan Qaboos Bin Saeed.

So far 10 activists, accused of defaming the country’s ruler by writing slanderous articles on social media or various web-based forums, have been sentenced by the Muscat Primary Court but released on bail pending their appeal in the higher court.

Of course, under the royalist Abhisit Vejjajiva regime, far more activists were locked up in order to “protect” the monarchy and the system of privilege and wealth that the royalist state manages. Abhisit’s political police attacked opponents with the same vigor and determination as Oman’s feudal rulers. And, they hardly ever bailed those accused of lese majeste!

Just like in Thailand, when family of the detainees tried to get help from the National Human Right Commission, that body turns out to be nothing other than a protector of feudal privilege.

And when protesters demand change, like in Thailand, the feudal forces choose to kill people. The protection of wealth and privilege seems to demand the deaths of citizens.

In reading the report, PPT has the impression that the ultra-royalists in Thailand are protecting a feudal-like monarchical system that is an anachronism. Despite its (modern) corporate wealth and the remarkable sums it receives from the state, the system of status, privilege and wealth is an anachronism that works well for the royalist elite but not for others, who are the vast majority.

More money for royals

Already the world’s richest royals and receiving hundreds of millions of baht in taxpayer funds each year, governments continually throw ever more taxpayer money at the royals.

The Bangkok Post reports:

The cabinet on Tuesday approved a fund of 112 million baht from the central fund of the 2012 budget to cover expenses for the celebration of Her Majesty the Queen’s 80th birthday on Aug 12….

The extra loot was proposed by the Office of the Prime Minister. It was explained that the additional bags of money were to be used for:

expenses expected to be incurred are for the meetings of the organising committee and other related committees, the public relations, an exhibition in honour of Her Majesty the Queen, a feature film about Her Majesty, and a garden party.

PPT can hardly wait for the “feature film.” We can’t wait for the Democrat Party to claim that the amount is too little and part of a plot to make the monarchy look trivial.

Throwing money at the biggest moneybags in the country seems to be required. The more than US$350 million they already receive just seems somehow inadequate for this royal family. Another $3-4 million for these trifles seems like a drop, but it keep happening. The drops soon become a bucket and then a reservoir. How much does this royal family really cost?

Pavin on Thaksin, deals and the future of democracy

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at the Centre for South-east Asian Studies, Kyoto University, has yet another newspaper op-ed that deserves attention. Pavin has been one of the most prolific of media commentators on Thailand over the past 2-3 years after a kind of conversion away from the Democrat Party.

In our view, his most significant contribution in recent years has not been his writing but his innovative lese majeste-focused Ah Kong fearlessness campaign. At the time, Pavin’s action was brave and much needed,

Of course, as we at PPT well know, when one writes a great deal, there are many opportunities for getting things wrong in the murky world of Thai politics. Pavin’s latest piece is titled “End seems near for Thaksin saga,” and PPT thinks Pavin gets it wrong on several scores.

First, there is the issue of deals done and deals contemplated between Thaksin’s camp and the amart side. Pavin reckons that there must have been a deal because “the Yingluck government seems to lend credence to such reports through some of its actions.” But then there have been as many actions that would be deal killers by the same government. If a supposed deal was just about making the monarchy feel good about itself and letting the military play by itself, that would seem one-sided. But Pavin believes the deal includes Thaksin’s “enemies agreeing to allow him to return without facing any charges.”

Of course, no one has presented any evidence for a deal and there has been so much talk about deals done and deals broken that PPT can’t help but think that political deals are about as solid as a quicksand. We tend to think of strategies and pressure and counter-pressures rather than deals.

Related to the deal scenario, Prime Minister Yingluck’s government:

has made clear that it will not support calls to amend Article 112 of the Thai criminal code, which makes it an offence for anyone to insult or defame the monarchy.

That’s true, and this is our second point, we disagree that: “For the country’s traditional elite, Article 112 is the key to the survival of the royal institution and thus, to their position of power.”

That is a remarkable exaggeration that misses, for example, a whole range of symbolic and remarkably expensive symbolic nonsense that supports the monarchy and its lifestyle of living luxuriously at the taxpayer’s expense. It also ignores the most basic fact that monarchy is not just a bunch of welfare recipients living in grand style but the country’s largest capitalist conglomerates. That makes the monarchy more complex and more powerful.

Our third disagreement is more straightforward: Pavin says that Hun Sen’s “support to Thaksin and the Red Shirt movement” is the “first time in modern history that a Cambodian leader has openly taken sides in Thailand’s internal conflict.” Of course,Hun Sen has been doing this for several years now, so recent events are hardly novel.

We do agree with Pavin that the “traditional elite simply could not compete with Thaksin in the game of electoral politics.” That’s partly why we’d say that the monarchy as we have known it is finished.

And we also agree that Pavin raised the right question when he asks what the will be “the future direction of Thai democracy amid this power rearrangement among the elites?” In other words, what does Thaksin have in mind? His record in power was mixed and while he paints himself as a democrat now, his incapacity to disengage his own interests from those of the state seems likely to continue and to undermine those claims.

Costly royals

Over several years, PPT has posted various pieces of information regarding the cost to the the Thailand taxpayer of maintaining the royal family in the style to which it is now accustomed.

For example, in a recent post, we pointed to reports that have the taxpayer being responsible for between US$367 million to $500 million per year. That is a lot of money in anyone’s terms, and even by the standards of the world’s royals, with the Thai royal family sucking up more than five times the amount allocated to the British royal family.

Today is the the funeral of a little-known royal that is reported in the Bangkok Post to be “the culmination of about eight months of work by the Fine Arts Department and Religious Affairs Department, which allocated a budget of 218.1 million baht for the preparations and ceremony.”

That is more than US$7 million from just one of the agencies involved. Throw in security, road closures, a public holiday, innumerable meetings requiring the attendance of the countries top administrators, free shuttle buses, and so forth, and the funeral is costing taxpayers a very substantial amount of money.

Of course, a funeral such as this has immense public relations value for the palace and the royal family as it is meant to demonstrate historical continuity, deserved royal grandeur and is a display of power and wealth.

In part it is also a reaffirmation of the long road to royal victory over the People’s Party that ended the absolute monarchy in 1932, for Princess Bejraratana may be the last of the royals who went into exile after that Revolution.

PPT doesn’t doubt that there will be many who will enjoy the event, even if this deceased royal was one who was kept out of the public eye for decades. Indeed, for a long time, she lived in England for some three decades.

The question is whether the public purse should be paying for it. After all, most corporations pay for their own advertising.

Updated: Costs of monarchy

For as long as PPT has been around, we have been pointing out that the monarchy in Thailand, while fabulously wealthy, is largely funded in its activities by the state and, hence, the taxpayer.

As recently as a couple of days ago, PPT posted on a funeral for a little-known royal that is sucking up a few million dollars. In another recent post, we pointed to a Forbes article that revealed that the state and taxpayer fork out a huge amount each year to “maintain” the monarchy.

The report claimed that in 2011, taxpayers ladled over $84 million to the Bureau of the Royal Household alone, and that isn’t the bulk of state funds poured into the monarchy:

once security costs are factored in, the government spends around $194 million a year on the royal family and its courtiers. This is in addition to the CPB’s income (minus its costs). This implies that … the Thai crown [annually] burns through half a billion dollars.

Forbes compares this to other royal families and says it is huge. For example, the far more transparent British monarchy “gets nearly $50 million” from taxpayers “but remits most of its crown property income to the treasury.”

In other words, the smaller Thai monarchy in a poorer country, takes about seven times more from the public purse.

Now, thanks to Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (our third post from FACT this week!), an academic paper by David Streckfuss is available. In it, Streckfuss makes comparisons between the Thai monarchy and other monarchies on cost to the taxpayer and, separately, the “cost” to democracy. PPT has only had a quick look, but it looks fantastic.

On the hot question of the monarchy making an oath to protect the constitution, the academic says:

The first metric examines the position of the monarchy within the constitutional order in Europe. Including all but one, monarchs make a public oath to respect the constitution.

On cost, this table really says it all (and note that the figure for Thailand is lower than the Forbes guesstimate:

Germany is included as a comparison with heads of state who aren’t monarchs. Swaziland is small in terms of population and a “banana monarchy” if ever there was one, so it is a ridiculous outlier. After that, the Thai monarchy is more than twice as expensive in terms of tax burden than tiny Luxembourg.

Read the whole paper.

Update: The paper is now available as a PDF.

Updated: Bhumibol’s business

Forbes have taken the opportunity provided by the publication of King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life’s Work, which they describe as a “semi-official biography,” to reassess the king’s wealth.

The article points out that Forbes has previously listed the king as the world’s richest monarchy “by a comfortable margin,”  and last year estimated his net wealth in excess of $30 billion. Forbes observes that

Bhumibol’s top ranking is controversial in Thailand, to say the least. Republicans grumble that the monarchy is wasteful and inefficient. Others are horrified that foreigners have the gall to turn a lens on their deified ruler. Royal courtiers insist that Forbes has it all wrong, that the billions on the balance sheet belong to the crown, not the man. They also contest the property valuations on which much of our estimate is based. Yes, they say, the monarchy is sitting on prime tracts of land in Bangkok and central Thailand. But it leases land and rent properties at subsidized rents that no commercial agency would tolerate. So the king isn’t loaded, just landed….

The article then turns to “the royal money machine” as set out in a chapter in the new book that discusses the Crown Property Bureau (CPB).

It first notes that the chapter “confirms the vast land holdings that Forbes used as the basis of its estimate: “In central Bangkok, the king owns 3,320 acres; town and country holdings stretch to 13,200″ acres.

Forbes, however, disputes the “CPB’s line” that the combined value of all this land and property “is less than a third” of the Forbes estimate for the Bangkok holdings. Even so, it is revealed that the  “CPB says it has 40,000 rental contracts, of which 17,000 are in Bangkok.” The CPB claims it doesn’t get a lot in rental income.

As is well known, the CPB holdings include substantial holdings in corporate giants: “a 23% stake in Siam Commercial Bank” and a 32% stake in the Siam Cement Group. Forbes says:

Add those together and you have stock worth $7 billion. In 2010, these companies paid $184 million in dividends to the bureau. In fact, according to the book’s authors, the CPB’s total revenues have averaged 9-11 billion baht a year since 2008. So even when times were hard (Thailand’s economy stalled in 2009), the crown collected a cool $290 million.

It is added that the chapter “doesn’t mention that the CPB also has a majority holding in German hotel group Kempinski AG. Another unit is Bangkok-based Deves Insurance. In 2008, this and other holdings were valued at $600 million.”

Forbes says that “Bhumibol’s biographers are at pains to point out that the CPB isn’t his personal piggybank (a separate agency handles the royal family’s private assets) and so it’s incorrect to label him as ultra-rich.”

Of course, this is royalist double-speak, for the the wealth

is in Bhumibol’s hands. His anointed successor, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, will inherit the keys to the safe. In other words, it’s a family enterprise in which the assets are gifted to the next generation.

The article asks: “what exactly is the CPB?” The book chapter’s answer is:  “It is not part of the palace administration, nor is it a government agency, nor is it a private firm. It is a unique institution.”But unique what? A special arrangement for managing the royal wealth without paying much tax:

the bureau pays no business tax, and nor does Thailand have a land tax. Its tax-exempt status is enshrined in law. Yet it’s not a charity or a public agency (or a sovereign wealth fund). It’s not obliged to issue an annual report. It answers only to the king, whose investment strategy isn’t up for public debate.

That’s not to say that firms like Siam Cement and the Siam Commercial Bank don’t pay tax. They do, but the CPB itself is exempt.

In addition, the state and taxpayer fork out a huge amount each year to “maintain” the monarchy.

Whereas the CPB is claimed to hand over “9-11 billion baht from the portfolio of assets managed” to the expenses of the monarchy, in 2011, taxpayers ladled over $84 million to the Bureau of the Royal Household, and that isn’t the bulk of state funds poured into the monarchy. The new book comments on this:

once security costs are factored in, the government spends around $194 million a year on the royal family and its courtiers. This is in addition to the CPB’s income (minus its costs). This implies that in an average year, the Thai crown burns through half a billion dollars.

Forbes compares this to other royal families and says this is huge. For example, the far more transparent British monarchy “gets nearly $50 million” from taxpayers “but remits most of its crown property income to the treasury.”

In other words, even ignoring the British monarchy’s contributions to public funds, the smaller Thai monarchy in a poorer country, takes about seven times more from the public purse.

The new book doesn’t attempt to justify this except that the whole book is a grand justification exercise for the monarchy.

We imagine that even with the book being published, the Forbes article will not be welcomed.

Update: A reader points out that we stupidly forgot to include the now current estimate of the CPB’s brimming coffers: it is US$37 billion.

Another reader calculates the yearly cost of the estimated $500 million for keeping the monarchy show on the road: it is about $8 or 240 baht for every man, woman and child in Thailand. It is 500,000,000 cheap bowls of noodles at a sidewalk vendor. It is 50,000,000 days of the proposed 300 baht a day minimum wage. It is 0.15% of Thailand’s total GDP. As long time readers will know, PPT doesn’t include any mathematics wizards, so we won’t dare vouch for the figures. What we do know is that it costs a lot to keep the royals safe and (presumably) happy.

Crown versus the public

Thomas Fuller in the New York Times has looked at the issue of the German seized-now-released Boeing 737, which the Thai government claimed “belonged” to Prince Vajiralongkorn and asks exactly the right questions.

He notes that, in the final days of the Abhisit Vejjajiva government, a deal was struck whereby the Thai taxpayer paid a bond for the release of an aircraft the government claims “belongs” to the prince. As PPT stated in its second post on this saga, the question of ownership raised serious issues of the relationship between crown and public.

Fuller makes the same point when he states that the Thai government’s actions “left unanswered was the question of who, precisely, owns the plane.” As he summarizes,

The case underlined a long-unresolved, and rarely discussed, question about the privy purse and the public purse in Thailand — and, ultimately, whether certain assets are held by crown or by country. At issue are an estimated 1.1 trillion baht, or $37 billion, in real estate holdings alone, plus substantial stakes in two of Thailand’s most successful companies. But the agency that manages the assets, the Crown Property Bureau, is under no obligation to detail the holdings or how profits are spent….

Fuller associates this ownership with the CPB and it needs to be emphasized that it is not clear that the plane seized by the Germans had anything to do with the CPB. What Fuller does is draw attention to the broader issue of crown property. PPT won’t go through all the details in Fuller’s article, although if it is blocked in Thailand, readers can email us, and we’ll post it all. Here, we’ll just make a few of the important points.

Fuller notes that “the subject of the crown finances remains mostly taboo in a country that regularly enforces a strict law against criticizing the monarchy. The media in Thailand reported on the controversy over the crown prince’s plane, but the episode did not generate commentary in the mainstream media about the larger questions of ownership.”

As PPT has noted several times, the lack of transparency and control of the CPB by the monarch is associated with the current reign. The opaque management and operation of the CPB is becoming a serious issue, and it scares those who manage the CPB so much that they have taken baby steps to trying to appear more transparent. As Fuller says, “Much remains unknown about the bureau’s assets.” In fact, his statement is weak; almost nothing significant is known.

He notes that, in 2008, Forbes magazine “ranked the Thai king as the world’s richest royal, the Thai government strongly protested, saying the magazine had conflated the king’s personal wealth with assets managed by the bureau.” As others have pointed out, this is a nonsensical response. Only the crown controls the CPB and no recent government has ever sought to change this situation.

Fuller adds that income from the CPB “is separate from the approximately $350 million in taxpayer money allocated for the royal household, royal-led development projects and other expenses related to the royal family.“

In fact, PPT thinks $350 million of taxpayer money is an under-estimate. For example, in the Abhisit Vejjajiva government’s last budget the first three lines of the Ministry of Finance’s allocation was for royal things and amounted to about $100 million. Line after line in the budget allocates funds to the royals. This is public information, but as far as PPT knows, going through the Budget Bureau’s allocations has not been a task yet completed.

As Fuller points out, the “king and his family also have personal assets” and it is this arena where the prince’s Boeing 737 seems to have landed, if the government is to be believed.

Fuller reckons that the monarchy’s wealth is seldom questioned “because King Bhumibol commands widespread respect after more than six decades on the throne and because of the law protecting the monarchy against insult.” PPT reckons that the first factor really only applies to government and the bureaucracy. No one is willing to question the deals done by individual royals or by the CPB.

Fuller’s parting remark is important, and a point we’d missed: “As for the specific question of the prince’s plane, a German court was supposed to rule on its ownership in September. But with the aircraft now back in Thai possession, the case is closed.” That’s another of those eye-opening moments! Of course!