OPINION

Cross at your peril

Re: "French tourist killed on zebra crossing in Kanchanaburi", (BP, April 4).

Yet another murder at a zebra crossing by a member of the egregious population of irresponsible Thai drivers, whose punishments never fit the crime. As such, I repeat my suggestion of a few years ago in this column to build several speed bumps on the approaches to these crossings, where practical, with warning signs that they lie ahead. Surely, this would have some effect on mitigating these lamentable circumstances?

However, where would the budget and incentive (!) come from? Nice little earner though if sources were found and the warning signs could be adorned with expensive frippery to add the soft touch as done on some aviation-themed road lighting elsewhere.

Fast lane, finally

Re: "Airports offer free parking over Songkran", (BP, April 4).

Kudos to an efficient and organised Suvarnabhumi airport this time. Since past PM Srettha Thavisin visited the airport unannounced several times in early 2024, things have improved dramatically. I used to have many bad experiences with lengthy check-in lines, immigration queues, overcrowded departure halls and long waits.

My recent departure from checking in baggage through to immigration, however, was a breeze. New features were speedy self-drop baggage and automatic channels for passport screening (no physical presence of immigration officers). From baggage drop to passport screening and arriving at the departure area took me only 15 minutes! My own country could learn from this! Still, the majority of passengers on my flight were apparently oblivious to this new procedure as they were still waiting in a long line for the check-in counter to get their boarding pass and check in their baggage.

Tariff roulette

Re: "SE Asia, hit hard with tariffs, seeks talks with US", (BP, April 4).

I understand some economics, but more mathematics, so I find the values of some tariffs puzzling. One would assume the rate might be "even", such as 10% or 20% or a major divisor, 25% or 50%, whereas, of course, we want it at 0%.

Where do some of these values come from, such as China 54%, Vietnam 46%, Cambodia 49% or Taiwan 32%? I would be very interested to see how these rates were determined, rather than what I suspect might have happened, the total of three darts thrown at the dartboard.

Clarity might not be one of the US president's major skills. I need more details, and so does the rest of the world.

Empire on edge

Re: "Trump sparks trade war with sweeping global tariffs", (BP, April 3).

I've read many angry local reactions to President Trump's tariffs, and my general thought was that although tariffs can be unfair, "ownership has its privileges".

In freshman economics, I was taught that empires have what are sometimes called "privileged economies". That means you could do things with ancient Rome, the former British empire, and today's American economy, which are impossible in economies lacking an empire. America was an empire left by President Biden to crash, and is now trying to save itself. Will America defy history and save its empire? We will soon see.

Tax the lucky few

Re: "US on the brink", (PostBag, March 31).

Jason A Jellison is correct that the US national debt is a problem. But rather than cutting spending that benefits society, the other obvious solution is to increase taxes on Donald Trump and his billionaire mates. That also has the ethical benefit of being a just solution to the problem. In contrast to inheritors and rentiers, the super-rich who earn their wealth are the good rich. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and so on, have created vastly greater wealth for many, so deserve to be well rewarded for their efforts. However, super-sufficiencies of billions demonstrate that the tax system needs recalibration, however much the more than sufficiently greedy rail against such fairness.

Nor can it be argued that even the best rich should pay only minimal taxes. That ignores the fact that the Carnegies, Rockerfellers, Benzes, Fords, Shinawatras, and the like did nothing to merit the family, the nation, or the time they were lucky enough to be born into. Nor did they do anything to deserve the lucky break of intelligence, or the even more important bit of luck of a personality inclined to discipline and hard work, perhaps with a tad of very lucky ruthlessness thrown in.

Those undeserved blessings enable vast fortunes to be made in society, and a just government will adopt policies that benefit all of society by supporting and creating more opportunities for those who are not born to so lucky a set of determinative factors outside their control, factors that are wholly unmerited by those who have the right talents and personalities at the right time to make a most lucky killing in a fair market.

Facts over fables

Re: "Tesla sparks fly", (PostBag, March 30).

I was astonished -- not in a good way -- when I read Joseph Ting's letter claiming that the current climate in the US is "anti-science and anti-immigrant" and that the Trump-Musk team is "anti-science and anti-immigrant".

Particularly galling is that Mr Ting resorted to the fatuous, fake, worn-out, tired trope of conflating illegal immigration with legal immigration.

The US is the most generous nation in the history of the world in welcoming immigrants into the country, with 800,000 legal immigrants admitted to the country every year. Donald Trump is the most pro-immigration president in US history. His mother was a legal immigrant, and so was his wife. Meanwhile, the second lady, Usha Vance, is the daughter of legal immigrants. The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, is the son of legal immigrants. And Mr Trump is pro-science. He initiated the United States Space Force.

Calling Elon Musk "anti-immigrant and anti-science" ... the claim is beyond ludicrous. Musk is himself a legal immigrant. The scientific and technological community in the US includes legal immigrants, such as Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Sergey Brin, and Sundar Pichai (Google), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), et al. And to say Musk is "anti-science"? Musk creates electric cars and rolls out Neuralink, Starlink, SpaceX, and Grok AI. If anyone thinks that's "anti-science", then I can't help them.

Take Trump's offer

Re: "Trump orders halt to aid to South Africa, claiming mistreatment of white landowners", (World, Feb 8).

Although it has been overlooked by the Thai media, President Donald Trump made an interesting proposal this week, stating that he intends to resettle members of mainly Dutch-speaking white settlers to South Africa in the 16th century, the Afrikaners.

Already, various worldwide TV and print outlets, such as the BBC, or Gerald Imrary's March 21 AP article, have stated that almost 70,000 white South Africans have expressed interest in immigrating to America.

The reason why this is the case is that the current South African government is throwing white farmers off their land, and in some cases even killing them if these farmers refuse to leave.

Bearing this in mind, I would not be surprised if many more soon decide to leave, given that there are at least 2.7 million white people still living in the country.

I hope that some of the South Africans teaching English here will take Trump up on the offer.

I once worked for an agency which sent me to a school in the south of the country filled with teachers from South Africa. Instead of welcoming me, they seemed suspect at my presence, jealously guarding their "territory"; and other native teachers have told me that they had the same experience.

For whatever the reason, scores of teaching agencies in the south of Thailand are filled with primarily teachers from South Africa, which by the way is not considered to be a native English-speaking country by the Thai government.

Further, sources have told me that all the Thai embassies in Malaysia are now refusing to give South Africans work visas to legally work here. Thus, it stands to reason that many South Africans are now teaching here illegally.

So, all things considered, I think it would be best for many of these to consider immigrating to the US if they no longer want to go back home. At least in America, they can get various social benefits for free and work legally, achieving a standard of living far better than here or back at home.

Cold War lessons

Re: "Quake prayers", (PostBag, April 3) and "Stay safe", (Cartoon, March 31).

Many years before the late, great Jim Morrison sang with palpable stridency in his voice, "You cannot petition the lord with prayer," I received instructions in elementary school on how to take shelter under a desk in the event the Soviets dropped a nuclear bomb on us.

I knew at the time that this was a rather preposterous idea since we were located in rural New York State -- hardly a valuable strategic target during the Cold War era.

Broadcast bloopers

Not wanting to get up at 2am to watch the live broadcast, I tried to watch the rerun of the men's final of the Miami Open tennis tournament. I checked the on-screen menu and switched to the channel that was indicated, only to find that there was a rerun of the Australian Open.

Switching back to the menu, the listing for the Miami Open was replaced by "AO Highlights." Trying again a little later, the same thing happened: the Miami Open was listed. I switched to get an ATP 250 tournament and a TBD line in the menu.

I was already a little annoyed at seeing April 2024 NBA Play-In Tournaments being broadcast and a complete denial that the NCAA men's and women's championships finals are presently underway. And for the first time in decades the men's final four are all number one ranked teams.

I have written many times about adding a simple "L" for live or "R" for replay to the menu setting, but to no avail.

And this is from a "leader in broadcasting" who has been calling Sgt Hondo on SWAT a lieutenant for the past seven seasons. What do you expect for 1,644 baht per month -- quality?

CONTACT: