Temple transactions are wholly suspect

It appears that some politicians are questioning the money that was given to Privy Council head Prem Tinsulanonda, and that went to the Wat Suan Kaew. Would it not also be proper to ask how 924 rai of land given to the temple could end up as the Alpine Golf course and housing development, which in 1999 was purchased by fugitive ex-prime minister Thaksin, for Bt500 million? In early 2001, the Council of State had found that all transactions for the land since 1990 were invalid.

Also, why not ask why the Ministry of Interior is not following the law and demanding the land be returned to the temple?

Tom

Bangkok

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Bankers put European stability in peril

There seems to be no end to the unprincipled ways in which bankers seek to maximise their profits. A day does not seem to go by when they are not revealed in the most disagreeable of lights.

The latest debacle is over how Greece and others managed to get their finances into such a parlous state that Greece is now a risk to the whole euro zone. The euro zone rules dictate that governments must keep a country's deficit below 3 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product and must take on total debt of no more than 60 per cent of GDP. As a member of the euro zone, Greece had to comply with these strict caps on the size of government deficits relative to its national economy, but Goldman Sachs and other banks helped Greece and others cheat and raise cash in ways that did not appear in the official statistics - and in the current recession this has caused official budget deficits to balloon all across the continent.

As a percentage of GDP, Greece's 2009 public debt is 113.4 per cent, with Italy at 113.9 per cent, Portugal at 76.6 per cent, Ireland at 64.5 per cent. In Greece 's case, Goldman Sachs has been the most important of more than a dozen banks used to manage its national debt, using derivatives and in transactions called cross-currency swaps. Such deals are a very expensive way of raising money, but they have the advantage of not having to be accounted for as debt.

But now, as we see all too clearly, the piper has to be paid and the taxpayers of all these countries will be paying dearly for their governments' use of this clear deception. Given the very expensive nature of the money, we can see how such big profits accrue to the bankers and where that money actually came from and how state workers and others shall have to bear financial pain for years.

Goldman distributed millions of dollars in pay and bonuses to its staff for their 2009 performance - just a year after the financial system was bailed out by governments.

The nature of this collusion, which was a clear attempt to evade controls, is unacceptable, but these bankers will just pocket their bonuses and move on to designing the next new financial instrument that extracts value for them. These actions are not victimless just because a direct line of responsibility cannot be established. There will be real hardship across Europe because of their actions.

Who will stop these merchants of misery plying their dubious trade across the world, because at present they are getting away with daylight robbery?

John Symons

Bangkok

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