Thais have a word for their modern, moneyed jet set: “hi-so,” inspired by the English term “high society.” From 1980 to 2011, Thailand’s per capita GDP soared from $680 to nearly $5,000. Forbes magazine ranked the Yoovidhaya family as the fourth richest family in Thailand this year, with an estimated net worth of $5.4 billion. The grandson of Red Bull creator Chaleo Yoovidhya was accused in the hit-and-run death of a police officer and had his father pay the officer's family $97,000 to stall the lawsuit. The car involved in the accident was a Ferrari and is valued at about $1 million.
According to US government figures, America’s wealthiest 20 percent control a bit more than half of the national income. The same is true in Thailand, according to the World Bank.
Rich Americans’ counterparts at the bottom, the poorest 20 percent, take in 3 percent of the national income. In Thailand, the corresponding figure is nearly the same: 4 percent. The world’s premier measure of income disparity, the Gini coefficient, suggests that Thailand’s nationwide wealth disparity is equivalent to that of Bridgeport, Connecticut, or Washington, DC.
As the nation grows more prosperous, the ranks of the superrich keep swelling. According to the Switzerland-based Julius Baer group, which tracks wealth, Thailand’s stock of 47,000 millionaires in 2010 could swell to as many as 136,000 by 2015.
The US saw the Occupy Wall Street movement that high-lighted America’s top earners as the 1%. Thailand’s have-nots are the Red Shirts faction which contends their nation resembles a feudal serfdom lorded over by aristocrats. The shopping commercial district, lined with Gucci and Burberry stores, was the Red Shirts’ chosen site for their largest-ever protest encampment. By the time the movement was finally crushed by the military, nearly 100 dead, 2,000 injured ere left behind and a series of buildings, including the luxurious Centra World, in flames widely assumed to have been torched by the Red Shirts’ embittered ranks. Since then the Red Shirt protests seems to be on the back burner. The movement was funded by ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire mogul ousted in a 2006 army coup and his younger sister, Yingluck, now serves as prime minister.
“These hi-so people look down at us,” Sawitseree Rorbruu, a 60-something Red Shirt sympathizer said. “If they see us crying out, they’ll say ‘These damned people, these weeds, they’re poor and stupid and have no schooling.’ We are not like them. We are the ones who eat curry by the roadside for 20 baht (65 cents). They eat their curry on the mall’s top floor for 60 baht ($1.95).” Instead of lamenting their handbag shops going up in smoke, they should still be mourning the scores of protesters killed during Thai army raids, she said
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According to US government figures, America’s wealthiest 20 percent control a bit more than half of the national income. The same is true in Thailand, according to the World Bank.
Rich Americans’ counterparts at the bottom, the poorest 20 percent, take in 3 percent of the national income. In Thailand, the corresponding figure is nearly the same: 4 percent. The world’s premier measure of income disparity, the Gini coefficient, suggests that Thailand’s nationwide wealth disparity is equivalent to that of Bridgeport, Connecticut, or Washington, DC.
As the nation grows more prosperous, the ranks of the superrich keep swelling. According to the Switzerland-based Julius Baer group, which tracks wealth, Thailand’s stock of 47,000 millionaires in 2010 could swell to as many as 136,000 by 2015.
The US saw the Occupy Wall Street movement that high-lighted America’s top earners as the 1%. Thailand’s have-nots are the Red Shirts faction which contends their nation resembles a feudal serfdom lorded over by aristocrats. The shopping commercial district, lined with Gucci and Burberry stores, was the Red Shirts’ chosen site for their largest-ever protest encampment. By the time the movement was finally crushed by the military, nearly 100 dead, 2,000 injured ere left behind and a series of buildings, including the luxurious Centra World, in flames widely assumed to have been torched by the Red Shirts’ embittered ranks. Since then the Red Shirt protests seems to be on the back burner. The movement was funded by ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire mogul ousted in a 2006 army coup and his younger sister, Yingluck, now serves as prime minister.
“These hi-so people look down at us,” Sawitseree Rorbruu, a 60-something Red Shirt sympathizer said. “If they see us crying out, they’ll say ‘These damned people, these weeds, they’re poor and stupid and have no schooling.’ We are not like them. We are the ones who eat curry by the roadside for 20 baht (65 cents). They eat their curry on the mall’s top floor for 60 baht ($1.95).” Instead of lamenting their handbag shops going up in smoke, they should still be mourning the scores of protesters killed during Thai army raids, she said
See here for earlier comment
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