OPINION

Priorities in a tailspin

Re: "THAI targets tasty catering profit source", (BP, Sept 12).

Now the listed national carrier Thai Airways is in the food business? It has set up a food truck and exports food as well. Why does no one see anything wrong with state enterprises being in competition with mom and pop businesses?

PTT is probably the largest coffee retailer in Thailand, the State Railway of Thailand is a huge player in the real estate sector and now Thai Airways is operating food trucks.

How will the individual operator feel when his life's savings has gone into buying, refurbishing and fitting out a food truck only to have his taxes support the government entering into competition with him?

Knowing Thai Airways will probably serve bad food but continue to throw money at that segment of their business until many other competitors are forced to quit only compounds the offence.

Time to reform the state enterprise sector top to bottom, prime minister?

It is completely in character for the heads of the EU Mission to fly off on yet another junket to meet other self serving bureaucrats at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, this time in Marrakech. They even admit it has been going on for 20 years, and I wonder how much of the dreaded Co2 emissions they have caused themselves with all these jollies overseas.

The real problem the world faces, and this is backed by no lesser person than Sir David Attenborough, is overpopulation.

I purchased a Samsung Note 7 while on vacation in Korea and now Samsung Thailand is refusing to honour it's worldwide recall of Note 7 in Thailand because it was bought in Korea. What am I supposed to do now? Samsung has issued a worldwide recall and its business practices here are out of sync with the parent company. How can this be allowed to happen? Should I wait until it explodes before you honour your product?

Re: "Stingy reporting", PostBag, Sept 14

I have had the same feeling as Mr K. I particularly miss the Thai Pulse page which I found well written, interesting, informative and varied. I am sorry it appears to have just silently disappeared with no explanation or warning.

On the other hand, I regret the continued publication of Wumo, which, for me, is a sad waste of space.

I, too, have noticed the slow size reduction through the dropping of "Dear Abby", some cartoons and probably others ... and wasn't there a "newsy" page that followed the second Opinion page that has now disappeared? I loved that page! Would the Bangkok Post care to comment?

I am not a Bangkok Post apologist, but in the first section of today's Post totalling 12 pages, I counted one banner ad, one postage stamp ad and one ear ad on page 1 (the other ear ad is an in-house ad), plus a quarter page ad on page 3, and two more in-house ads elsewhere in this section.

That makes a total of three quarters of a page of paid ads in the entire 12-page section.

The eight-page business section seems to be fairing a little better, while in the eight-page Life section there is zilch ads! At this rate, we will be lucky to have the Bangkok Post to read at all in few years, or even months, down the road. Never mind the shrunken newspaper.