Wealth and Thai families

[wesmant]

Never look down on personal wealth in the 3rd world country. The country may not have social security system in place to guarantee living standard to everyone, but to some people, opportunity is clear in the midst of the mess of these country.

In addition to it, eastern community is not like western, where each individual would be proud of their achievements, including the pride not to live on your parents money.

So, i would simply say, in the asian community, if you see young chap and very flashy, he/she is living their parent's fortune!

[stednick]

Without knowing for certain, I would assume they get their money from the same place as the "rich elites" in other countries; born into it (mommy & daddy), politics, movie stars, rock stars, business, sports, crime, and, occasionally, hard work.

[wesmant]

From business kingdom. Many of them are natural resource businessmen, be it trading or eplorators.

You won't be surprise that there are more numbers of people with huge assets from 3rd world country than from EU/US if you rank the top 100 or 1000

[TomC]

It's the other side of the coin of cheap labor. If you're the big business owner, you reap the benefits of cheap labor, thus, the Porsche's, Mercedes, etc.. My guesstimate is 90% of the wealth goes to 10% of the elite class or maybe even less. You're screwed if you're a working class. Even a Thai masseur I had, wanted to start her own business. To be her own boss. As there is no way to make enough money working for someone else. That's why the Toyota and the Western Digital of the world descended on Thailand to scoop up some cheap labor. Another way of looking at it is 90% of the wealth in the country goes to Bangkok. That's why the high property prices. Just a guess.

[Song_Si]

TomC - many countries would be similar in the eg 90/10 split.
I saw this article yesterday - how's that for a statistic?

Walmart heirs have as much wealth as the bottom 41 percent of Americans combined
The heirs to the Walmart fortune have as much wealth as almost half of Americans, a new analysis has found. The study, conducted by Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute, found that the value of the Walton family fortune grew to 89.5 billion in 2010, which is equal to the worth of 41.5 percent of the poorest American families,
source

and this

The number and wealth of Asian millionaires surpassed Europe last year for the first time . . .
Bankers estimate there are about 50,000 high net worth individuals (HNWIs) in Thailand who are estimated to control about 40 percent of money invested in Thai capital markets.
source

Last year Forbes issued a list of the Richest 40 people in Thailand - here - topped with US$7.4 billion - gives an indication of the businesses/industries they have made their money from.

and these figures are from 2009, but I don't expect the percentages would have changed much in the last three years

The top 20% own 69% of the country's assets while the bottom 20% own only 1%.
42% of bank savings money comes from only 70,000 bank accounts holding more than 10 million baht. They make up only 0.09% of all bank accounts in the country. In other words, less than 1% of the people own nearly half of the country's savings.
On income distribution, the top 20% enjoy more than 50% of the gross domestic product while the bottom 20% only 4%.
source

It won't be rice farmers buying those flash new cars.

Locally (Chanthaburi) - and I think it may have been similar in Phuket in the last 20 years, look for old photos and so much was in rubber and cashew plantations there; low-return horticulture land being sold up for hotels, housing developments. A million baht-plus will maybe buy one rai of good land here, but still not near Phuket prices.

'New money' for new cars? How many rai to the Porsche?

[Song_Si]

^ last night walked past a local shoe store, run by young guy and his wife; a year ago he got a 'new' old Yamaha 400, pride and joy all polished up outside the shop, bought for 60-80K at a guess; last night - a new, delivered yesterday, Yamaha FZ-1 1000cc, just 2.4km on the odo; looked online they're 650,000-upwards. It's the new car season here, red plates galore, with annual fruit crops being sold all for a single payment, maybe the family farm did extra-well. I doubt the Porsche Cayenne we saw will ever carry much fruit in the back.
One of the places I cycle past (durian farm) bought two new Harleys last year, will check to see if they've added a third.
I upgraded my bicycle in 2011, and may buy a new helmet with the 2012 farm profits.

[stednick]

Here is a link to an interesting article concerning the migration of the Thai youth away from the rice farms to the cities, the money and the technology.

June 6, 2012 New York Times: "Thai Youth Seek a Fortune Away From the Farm"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/wo...pagewanted=all

Article contains considerable amount of data, both current and historic concerning rice farming in Thailand. Good reading for background information.

On a light note: It's to bad the article does not answer the question "How fast can you plow a hectare of rice paddy with a Porsche Cayenne?"

[Dumbo]

If you keep buying new bicycles at that rate you be classed as one rich Kiwi in Thailand

[Song_Si]

^ it's cassava harvest in next two weeks, looking at prices my new helmet may have to wait.
Bicycles - my current one isn't flash enough to impress; moved out of the world of alloy/carbon-fibre road race bikes now, sold mine and bought a cheaper mountainbike; strong cycling community here, and some v expensive machinery, many in the 100-150k range. My partner once mentioned what my bike had cost when we lived on the farm - but they simply didn't believe 7kg on wheels could cost as much as several motorbikes.

^^ the Cayenne on the farm . . . I'd like to see that . . . unsure if it has changed but 3 years ago I understand a 'farm pickup' could only be two-door, and that the 'kingcab' style 4-door pickups were classed as luxury and didn't qualify as farm vehicles; different duty/taxes applied.

Re the rice farming - in many cases families spend every baht on getting children a good education so they don't have to be rice farmers. Get a good job in the city and ideally send money home to repay the favour.

[stednick]

Originally Posted by Song_Si

Re the rice farming - in many cases families spend every baht on getting children a good education so they don't have to be rice farmers. Get a good job in the city and ideally send money home to repay the favour.

Sending money home. Our company hired a "maid" for upkeep of our offices and warehouse spaces. Daughter of an upcountry rice farmer. She was sent to Bangkok for the express purpose of earning money to send home. We paid her the current or prevailing rate for maid services at the time, a few thousand baht per month. For ten plus hours of work per day, six days per week.

This basically unschooled and uneducated, upcountry girl, walked @ 5 kilometers each way, every day, between our company spaces and her rooming house. Regardless of the weather, pouring rain or incessant sun (the 10-15 baht motorcycle taxi fee was far "too much money" to splurge on herself). Lived off of a few handfuls of rice every day (the company would frequently reward our employees with lunch - team building - at least once a week, sometimes more). I do believe this was the only time she ate more that rice - although I could be wrong. She shared a single room in a boarding house with four other upcountry girls sent to Bangkok to earn money. She worked very well, although not very hard - not necessary. We had a small place, only a dozen or so rooms with some factory space. So her sixty some hours per week were far more than she needed to keep the spaces clean.

This girl sent ALL her money home less her actual living expenses. I believe she sent @ 75% of her pay/funds home to her parents. (As ALL good Thai daughters do.) Read into this what you will. Far more the norm than we want to believe, or acknowledge.

The highlight of her 2-3 year career with us was when she got permission from her parents to purchase a pairs of jeans for herself for her birthday present to herself.