More taxpayer funds for royals

PPT was (not) staggered to learn from a story in The Nation that reports that even more bags of taxpayer money is being poured into pampering the wealthy royals.

The story states that the regime “has approved an 8.78-billion-baht budget to procure new aircraft for VIPs including royals, privy counsellors, prime ministers, ministers and royal guests.”

Oddly, the report does not say what kind of aircraft is being purchased.

The Prime Minister’s Secretariat proposed the purchase as the “Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) needs to replace the old Airbus A340-500 procured from Thai Airways International (THAI) for VIP travel.”

This Airbus appears to be the same VIP plane that the generous generals shoveled money into for the Royal Thai Air Force for a magnificent loo for royal poop and pee at a cost to taxpayers in excess of 54 million baht.

At that time, it was also reported that the air force had awarded Thai Airways a 750 million baht contract to renovate the interior of a Boeing 777-800 royal aircraft that was said to be under direct command of King Vajiralongkorn’s Deachochai 3 Royal Flight Unit.

Adding salt to the deep wounds on the taxpayers’ collective back, in 2020 it was reported that a new Airbus was procured for royal travel, complete with a VIP conversion at Lufthansa Technik. At a cost of probably well north of US$100 million, the plane joined a VIP fleet that then included two Boeing 737s, three Airbus 319/320/340s, three ATR 72s, 3 Sukhoi Superjet 100s, one Super King Air, and four Saab 340s.

Obviously, the rather small royal family doesn’t feel sufficiently pampered. More taxpayer money probably helps makes them feel better about themselves.

Royal moneybags

We don’t know the site, but noticed Legit for the first time when it – like many others in the past – reported royal wealth.

It reports on several royal families across the globe and seems realistic in not listing Thailand’s royals as the world’s richest – it lists them behind the Middle East royals who bob about on top of vast petroleum resources.

An earlier photos of several members of the royal family. From Love to Know

As a remarkably small royal family, it seems useful to reproduce this data fro Thailand’s rich, taxpayer-squeezing, and pampered royals:

Thailand’s royal family: Up to $60 billion

Thailand’s Chakri dynasty has ruled the Royal family since 1782 and is still treated with utmost reverence in the country.

…The Bangkok-based royals comprise 22 individuals, including unofficial members and former spouses, but the core family members are just 10.

From Love to Know

The true wealth of the royal family cannot be declared publicly and is protected by lese-majeste, meaning to wrong the majesty, a law and anti-defamation policy that has seen people arrested and jailed for harmless acts such as posting memes of the King’s favourite dog on social media.

The royal family’s net worth is estimated at $30 billion to $60 billion, which was signed over to the King himself in 2018 after the country’s Crown Property Bureau managed it for 80 years.

Rich royals

The world’s remaining monarchies are mostly very wealthy.

We all know that King Vajiralongkorn is fabulously wealthy and that his reign has been marked by his moves to make that fortune undeniably his own. Under the dead king, the palace and the state preferred to fudge the issue of royal wealth.

It is interesting to see a Financial Times article that assesses the fortune and management of the dead British queen’s wealth. That article also refers to the new king there facing some of the management issues that motivated Thailand’s new king.

This is not to say that the wealth of the British monarch is in any way as personalized as Vajiralongkorn has made his fortune. And, Vajiralongkorn seems uninterested in the demands of constitutional monarchy:

Elizabeth II was one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, with property holdings ranging from central London prime real estate to farmland across the country, but her ability to profit from, let alone sell, many of the assets over which she presided was limited….

The Queen’s managerial style was unavoidably guided by the specific demands of constitutional monarchy and shaped by a gradualist approach to change that ruled out radical innovation.

Reform the monarchy!

Thai PBS reports that “[p]ro-democracy groups have reiterated their core demands, for monarchy reform, the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and his clique and the drafting of a People’s Constitution, at a rally yesterday at Thammasat University’s Rangsit campus in Pathum Thani, held to mark the second anniversary of the publishing of a ten-point reform manifesto on the same spot.”

A statement was issued:

…the groups said that Thai society has changed irreversibly since that rally on August 10th, 2020, adding that “these days, many people come out to demand and aspire to a better political society. We are sure that today’s political society is not the same as it was.”

It claimed that a major achievement of the political activism has been its success in changing the thoughts and beliefs of people in Thai society….

Some of the reporting in other newspapers probably add some insight into why the monarchy must be reformed. In the royalist-capitalist rag known as the Bangkok Post, the effort of “working towards the monarchy” was on display as tycoons sucked up to the monarch.

Clipped from Digital Camera World

This time, it is Thapana Sirivadhanabhakdi, the CEO of ThaiBev, Thailand’s largest beverage company, organizing a pile of loot from an auction of Royal Limited Edition, gold-plated Leica cameras, complete with the Royal Coronation Emblem.

It is reported that 30 units cameras were produced: 10 cameras said to be “yellow,” but we are pretty sure these are gold-plated with yellow alligator skin body covering. It is reported that these cameras are “priced at 1,500,000 baht.” Another 20 have green alligator skin body covering and gold plating and are “worth one million baht each.”

Six of the cameras “were given to the Royal Family.” That’s roughly 6 million to 9 million baht of gifting from the tycoons.  Now, 22 of the cameras are being auctioned and the loot given to charities, piling up merit for royals and tycoons.

Meanwhile, it is reported that parliament did not reduce budget requests for some agencies: the royalist Foreign Ministry, the royalist-dominated Thai Red Cross Society, and, of course, “the office of personal servants of His Majesty the King.”

It is long past time to reform the monarchy before it makes the country as its private estate.

Malls and the status quo

Archinect is not in PPT’s usual reading list. But it is this week after we found “Architecture, Consumerism, and Human Rights: On ​‘Subverting the Narrative of Power Systems in Thailand’ with Shopping Malls.” The story and interview begins:

Thesis projects offer an exciting glimpse into the minds of emerging designers and their unique architectural perspectives as they navigate through their careers. This is the case for Syracuse University B.Arch graduates Pin Sangkaeo and her collaborative research partner Benson Joseph. Together they explore the practice of merit-making and how political tactics and consumerism have impacted Thailand’s social and political agendas through their thesis project, Temples of Consumerism.

According to Sangkaeo, the project “investigates the role of shopping malls as physical tools of maintaining the status quo, used by those who hold political powers in order to superimpose their ideologies on the collective citizens and perpetuate the systems.”

Reproduced from the linked article where it is placed with the permission of Pin Sangkaeo

Richest of the rich

There’s been plenty of attention to the Forbes rich list. That list has not put the king at the top of the list despite the fact that the king took personal control of it all a few years ago. While corporates like the Siam Commercial Bank now list the king as being its largest shareholder under his personal name, Forbes doesn’t do this.

Even so, at about the same time that Forbes came out with its list, another appeared at The Artistree, listing the top ten wealthiest royals. In this list, the Thai royal family comes in at no. 6: “The Royal Family of Thailand is estimated to be between $30 – $50 billion. There is not much information about the earnings and income of this royal family.” We think it is worth more like $60-70 billion.

Then, the Daily Star decided to recycle a range of interesting and bizarre stories regarding the king and his family, under the headline: “Crazy life of Thailand’s king with leaked vids, abducting daughter and 20 mistresses.” That story has his wealth at about $34 billion.

We are sure that all readers will be aware of the controversial items mentioned in the story and then some.

Which reminds us, where is official consort Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi? As far as we can recall, not a peep has been heard about her since at least December last year.

Of course, plenty wonder what’s going on. There are rumors. She’s jailed again, she’s dead, she’s pregnant, or she’s stuck in Germany. She is certainly banished from royal public life.

 

The Alps beckon (again)

Hugely wealthy, erratic, dim and tone-deaf, King Vajiralongkorn has been supported by military leaders past and present, security services, and the judiciary in seeing off the popular calls for him to back away from his path to restored absolutism.

Confident he’s won the battle, the king has jetted off to his Germany, his preferred location. It was all done secretly, but leaked.

We had mentioned this trip a couple of times, pointing to Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s Facebook posts, but wanted to wait for more verifiable details before posting. Now the poodle is out of the bag, with Bild (in German) and several other newspapers reporting his travels, his entourage, and his harem.

Bild journalists reported being threatened by the king’s “security” detail.

The Guardian reported: “Thailand’s King … Vajiralongkorn has reportedly flown to Germany in what is believed to be his first trip abroad since pro-democracy protests escalated last year, breaking long-held taboos to call for reforms to the monarchy.”

The SCMP had this: “He’s back and is feeling at home with his poodles in his favourite kingdom of Bavaria,” Bild wrote, adding he had brought 30 poodles with him from Thailand. The Guardian adds that the king and entourage “booked an entire [4th] floor of the Hilton Munich airport hotel for 11 days.”

Several aircraft were used to transport the entourage and the huge amount of “luggage” they “need.”

This is why protesters have criticized the king for his extended trips abroad and called for changes to curb his powers and wealth, many of which he’s grabbed since he took the throne.

Who pays?

On Facebook, “some criticised the king’s luxurious lifestyle, saying it struck a poor contrast to the struggles of the pro-democracy activists.”

It is unclear how long he’ll stay in Germany, with some saying he should return soon for the seasonal costume changing ceremony for the Emerald Buddha. Yet with quarantine requirements in Germany, that would been further quarantining. But perhaps he’s not worried as the amount of stuff taken to Germany suggests an extended stay and short trips to Thailand, re-establishing his previous pattern.

The monarch’s wealth

In a very long post at Secret Siam, Andrew MacGregor Marshall has discussed the monarchy’s wealth and its drain on the taxpayer. He puts together an account that draws on multiple sources to assess both aspects.

It is behind a paywall, but if readers can get to it, it is well worth some time going through it.

Some excerpts:

According to an excellent analysis by Prachatai, at least 35.76 billion baht of taxpayer money — well over a billion US dollars — was allocated to the palace in the 2021/22 fiscal year. This represents 1.15 percent of the entire state budget, an extraordinarily vast sum for a country to spend on a supposedly purely symbolic monarchy in the 21st century.

What makes it even more obscene is that the Thai monarchy is already among the wealthiest royal families on the planet, but continues to guzzle taxpayer funds that are desperately needed by ordinary people struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic.

The palace has never been honest about the extent of its wealth, and most media have done an extremely poor job of finding out the facts, so most reporting about the size of the Thai royal fortune is inaccurate and incomplete.

Marshall sets the record straight – or as best as it can be with still limited data. He seems to conclude this on wealth:

Kevin Hewison, one of the foremost experts on the political economy of Thailand, estimated royal wealth at a minimum of $70 billion in his article “Crazy Rich Thais” published in the Journal of Contemporary Asia earlier this year:

Between 2006 and 2019, the ten wealthiest families/groups saw their wealth grow by more than seven times. If that figure is applied to Porphant [Ouyyanont]’s 2005 estimate, the CPB’s wealth in 2018 might have been more than $310 billion. However, because of the CPB’s focus on land and its conservative investment strategies, this is likely to be an overestimate. Using Porphant’s calculations of assets and applying a low 3 percent per year increase for land prices the figure for the CPB in 2019 might be more conservatively put at around $70 billion.

By way of conclusion, Marshall states:

There is no prospect that Vajiralongkorn will agree to reform of the monarchy and greater parliamentary oversight of palace finances. He is implacably opposed to making any concessions. He wants to use the royal fortune however he chooses, and nobody in the regime dares to try to stop him.

But with Thailand facing years of economic pain before it recovers from the damage caused by the coronavirus, and most Thais now aware of Vajiralongkorn’s egregious profligacy, the explosive issue of royal wealth has the potential to bring down the monarchy.

Taxpayers and feudalism

For readers who haven’t seen it yet, Prachatai has completed its annual survey of the funds drained from taxpayers into the monarchy. Its last annual report is here, where we referred to the billion dollar monarchy.

This year, the headline number is 35,760 billion baht or about USD1.084 billion.

Prachatai, using the limited reporting from parliament and from the Budget Bureau, indicates that the funds allocated to the monarchy are likely to be more than the more than billion dollars.

Clearly, all of the calls for reform of the monarchy and for transparency have amounted to nothing.

 

Updated: Cashing in on the virus

With massive unemployment, masked by the fact that migrants have left and many Thais have gone back to the family farm, there are a few who have profited very nicely.

A recent report in the Bangkok Post states that for all of the talk of the virus-induced downturn, on top of the sluggish growth under the junta-cum-military-backed regime, has still seen “listed companies reported a 114% surge in net profits for the first half of the year…”. As the report notes, this partly reflects the “low base in 2020 when the economy was hit by the first lockdown.” Even so, “[c]ore profits also rose 118.6% to 804.95 billion baht while net profits increased 144.2% to 528.34 billion baht, compared to last year’s 216.33 billion baht.”

The report doesn’t explain it, but increased unemployment and increased profits fit together. Companies preserve and increase profits by getting rid of variable costs – labor.

Equally, revealing, a recent Reuters report is of a flood of taxpayer funds for the monarchy. In the current budget bill, the “allocation of 8.76 billion baht ($262 million) for the monarchy in the next fiscal year survived unprecedented calls for cuts by opposition lawmakers during parliamentary proceedings that concluded on Sunday.”

While “government lawmakers in parliament did not comment on opposition lawmakers calls for royal budget cuts,” the “budget for royal agencies for the next fiscal year is for a 2.4% cut compared to the previous year.”

Move Forward Party MPs complained that “the allocated budget lacks clear details and should therefore be subject to cuts ranging from 15% to 40% based on the budgeting of these agencies prior to the merger and because funds maybe needed elsewhere due to the COVID-19 crisis.” Becha Saengchantra, a lawmaker from Move Forward, opined that “royal agencies did not send a representative to explain the budget … there is only a seven-page document that did not explain much…”.

One explanation for the huge allocation to the royals was from the Budget Bureau, which “had earlier explained to parliament’s budget committee that 92% of the allocated budget for the ‘royal agencies’ is for the payroll of its 14,275 staff.”

Who knew that the palace had such a bloated staff!

Opposition MPs also “raised concerns over other funds related to the monarchy that were included in planned expenditure in other ministries.”

That sent PPT back to previous reports for context. We earlier posted that in 2021, the Royal Offices alone got more than 8.98 billion baht, up almost 17% over 2020.  So, next year is a slight reduction, but overall, since 2017, the royal budget has increased substantially.

We at PPT continue to wonder if the figures supplied by Reuters are complete. Does it include the budget for the hugely expensive royal projects? Our feeling is that the monarchy gorges on more than we are seeing here.

Update: Recall that Ruangkrai Leekitwattana has complained to the Election Commission about the Move Forward Party’s questions over the royal truckloads of taxpayer loot. He wants the party dissolved by the Constitutional Court. There’s a fuller story on this corrupt buffalo’s posterior at Prachatai.