Remember the 2011 floods and the promises it would never happen again? well . . .

[Alex]

How are you defining 'but to the country as a whole, this year's floods won't cause a lot of damage'. I await your statistics at the end of the year ---- regarding the country as a whole.

Fair enough, let's wait until this flood is over and compare damages then, anything at this point is just speculation either way. I'd define it by metrics such as number of people forced to move to temporary shelters and total loss in GDP.

[Alex]

The way I see it, the point is not whether the country as a whole is flooding. The point is after the 2011 floods the government promised they would do whatever is necessary to prevent any major flooding again. I don't know what they did, if anything, but here we are 5 years later and major flooding is occurring yet again.

That's as true as it was predictable, unfortunately. One of the problems is the Thai mentality towards (not) tackling long-term problems. If the same elected government were still in office, they'd need to be held accountable, so there's another problem, the political situation and overall lack of accountability.

That's why I'm not hopeful with regards to Bangkok's long-term prospects. Everyone knows the city is sinking and will be under water in maybe 50 years. Precious little is done, because that still seems far away. My fear is that one day it will just happen, outrageous as that might sound.