Things seemed to be going so well when the Pheu Thai braintrust gathered to celebrate the New Year in Dubai, or Hong Kong, or wherever such affairs take place. The recovery from the miserable soaking of 2011 was complete, the stock market was coming off a splendid year, companies were investing again. Thailand was once more the poster child for a mid-sized economy with solid fundamentals and a bright future.

And weren’t people just loving what the Pheu Thai government was giving them? All those cheap cars, all that money for rice, promises of fast trains to everywhere. Everyone was in a mood to spend.

Did someone say "bubble"? Banish that inconvenient thought and repeat after us, "The fundamentals are sound." Baht biting you on the bottom line? Don't worry, while the politicians, central bankers and businessmen talk the issue to death, the market will take care of things in its own way. And so it did.

But wait, what about all that rice? Who's buying and who's selling and how much of a soaking have the taxpayers taken? Sorry, that's a state secret. And can you believe this traffic? Car-crazy Bangkok is trying everyone's patience once again. The government really ought to Do Something about all these things that are making us unhappy, right?

No one said governing would be easy. Luckily, advice is free, and Pheu Thai is getting plenty of it from all sides. The magic of Skype, meanwhile, keeps the lines of communication open to the Thinker-in-chief, in case the party’s actors forget their lines. Good luck to them, and to the rest of us.