A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

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Captain Kirk
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Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by Captain Kirk »

Jun wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 5:05 am
Captain Kirk wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:41 am Can't help but wonder what kind of salary the Thomas Cook top brass has been paying itself while probably knowing they'd be going bust soon enough.
No need to wonder.
No need indeed. Being discussed in news programmes today, paying themselves millions in "performance bonuses" while the company goes tits up. Good old capitalism.
fountainhall

Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by fountainhall »

I hope the review of directors' remuneration goes back at least to 2007 when the company started its series of acquisitions of financially dodgy companies starting with My Travel. This started a major devaluation of shareholder value and a slumping share price.

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https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mar ... group.html
Jun

Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by Jun »

Captain Kirk wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:01 am No need indeed. Being discussed in news programmes today, paying themselves millions in "performance bonuses" while the company goes tits up. Good old capitalism.
Almost all bonus schemes for directors of listed companies have metrics such as share price, or EPS which they have to meet to get the bonus. This is usually all disclosed either on the annual reports or in regulatory news statements (RNS). They are unlikely to get anything in the current financial year.
Admittedly in recent decades, pay for the top management has got out of hand. Apparently requiring their pay to be disclosed has made the situation worse, as directors are keen to keep up with their competitors.
However, even with a few failings, capitalism is way better than living in a typical socialist regime, such as the Soviet Union (photo below).



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fountainhall

Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by fountainhall »

I fully agree that a communist-style system as resulted in the Soviet Union would be disaster. I visited Moscow and Leningrad three times before the final collapse. On my first visit staying in the Ukraine hotel - one of six similar Stalin buildings around the city and you had to bring your own bath plug. I recall my last lunch in the hotel's spartan dining room. I felt I had to try caviar before I left and ordered a helping along with a vodka. The waiter barked something which my interpreter translated as "No vodka until 4:00 pm - Gorbachev's orders!"

But that was a time when the Soviet Union was on the point of collapse. One of our near neighbours Vietnam is a one-party communist state. It has one of the region's fastest growing economies and its supermarkets are filled to overflowing with probably as good a variety of products as many western supermarkets. Service in the hotels I have stayed in in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Phu Cuoc have been as good as almost any in the west. I have no idea how the government system works but if Vietnam is held up as an example of present day communism, frankly I find it relatively appealing! And this was a country all but destroyed by several decades of ghastly wars imposed by the capitalist west.
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Captain Kirk
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Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

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Jun wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 2:25 pm
Captain Kirk wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:01 am No need indeed. Being discussed in news programmes today, paying themselves millions in "performance bonuses" while the company goes tits up. Good old capitalism.
Almost all bonus schemes for directors of listed companies have metrics such as share price, or EPS which they have to meet to get the bonus. This is usually all disclosed either on the annual reports or in regulatory news statements (RNS). They are unlikely to get anything in the current financial year.
Admittedly in recent decades, pay for the top management has got out of hand. Apparently requiring their pay to be disclosed has made the situation worse, as directors are keen to keep up with their competitors.
However, even with a few failings, capitalism is way better than living in a typical socialist regime, such as the Soviet Union (photo below).



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Actually socialism or capitalism could both work reasonably well. The reason there are problems with either is the extreme greed and corruption of people. You can post the picture of empty shelves in Russia but there are plenty of exceedingly rich people there too. Here the shelves may be full but we have plenty of people for whom they may as well be empty because they cannot afford to shop in them. Food banks are a growing industry in this wonderful capitalist country.

For the record, I'm not against either system. It's the 1% of people who feel the need to have all the wealth the world has to offer for themselves I abhor. Not forgetting the politicians who don't care how many people die for them to get their hands on it.
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Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by Gaybutton »

fountainhall wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:32 pm if Vietnam is held up as an example of present day communism, frankly I find it relatively appealing!
Unfortunately it's a little different in Laos. Laos is a Communist country. The only people who have much of anything are the fatcats running the show. They're rich. Just about everybody else is poor. Even so, the people are far better off than Jun's example, but I wouldn't want to live in a country where one word of criticism against the government is a sure ticket to jail. Somehow I don't think I would want to spend time in a Laotian jail - and I don't think my 'Get Out of Jail Free' card would work . . .
fountainhall

Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by fountainhall »

Gaybutton wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:21 pm
fountainhall wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:32 pm if Vietnam is held up as an example of present day communism, frankly I find it relatively appealing!
Unfortunately it's a little different in Laos. Laos is a Communist country. The only people who have much of anything are the fatcats running the show. They're rich. Just about everybody else is poor. Even so, the people are far better off than Jun's example, but I wouldn't want to live in a country where one word of criticism against the government is a sure ticket to jail. Somehow I don't think I would want to spend time in a Laotian jail - and I don't think my 'Get Out of Jail Free' card would work . . .
It's surely a fact of life that in most countries of any political persuasion, it is the fat cats and the massively corrupt - the 1% or thereabouts - who end up with vastly over half the cream.

Of all the countries that got caught up in America's crusade to keep Indo-China from communism and the ghastly horrors that massive destruction and the massacre of millions of lives resulted in, I feel most sorry for Laos. Can anyone imagine what it must have been like to have a superpower wage an undeclared - and therefore - illegal war against you, for it to open up a secret airport in your jungle, the busiest in the world at the time, so their B52s and other aircraft could bomb the hell out of you and your neighbours, to then have your tiny country with little or no military equipment have a B52 bomb your country every 8 minutes for a total of nine whole years thus making your country the most bombed per capita in the entire history of mankind? I sure can't. And even today America pays just a mere fraction of the cost to clean up all the bombs - many of them of the cluster type - it dropped which did not explode and which continue to main and kill dozens of Laotians every year. There are still today 50 million of them out there somewhere in that country!

I have no idea if Laotians are able to think for themselves without being thrown in jail. Frankly I suspect that's a major exaggeration - but I do not know. All I know is that in Vietnam, another communist country, all the people I have met think freely and have said what they think about their governments good and bad points. They are not in jail.

I also think that if some more powerful country had inflicted the same decades of war at such a scale and with such proportionate casualties on the United States, absolute freedom of thought might have been affected for at least some considerable time thereafter, whatever the constitution states.
Jun

Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by Jun »

fountainhall wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:32 pm I have no idea how the government system works but if Vietnam is held up as an example of present day communism, frankly I find it relatively appealing! And this was a country all but destroyed by several decades of ghastly wars imposed by the capitalist west.
As you undoubtedly remember, when Vietnam was practising communism, the economy was such a disaster that the population were risking their lives trying to get to Hong Kong on some shoddy boats. Things only started picking up when they introduced some free market reforms, in the same way as China did.
Almost all of the communist/socialist regimes either collapsed or started to introduce free market reforms. There are exceptions, such as North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

Also, if you or I went to live in Vietnam having already spent the best part of a lifetime earning money, it might be quite acceptable.
However, if we were younger, we may have to deal with corruption in the education system. Followed by poorly paid professional jobs with a 6 day working week or if we wanted to start businesses, a lot of corruption.

In comparison, the UK issue of having obsolete businesses like Thomas Cook going bust is a very minor problem. The tourists will get home. Everyone who deserves it will find another job. Our minimum wage is way ahead of Vietnam levels.
fountainhall

Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by fountainhall »

Jun wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2019 4:17 pm As you undoubtedly remember, when Vietnam was practising communism, the economy was such a disaster that the population were risking their lives trying to get to Hong Kong on some shoddy boats. Things only started picking up when they introduced some free market reforms, in the same way as China did.
North Vietnam was practising some pretty nasty communist principles by the end of the Second World War. But I do not think it is remotely fair to equate Vietnamese communism in 2019 - or any other country for that matter - with that of 1946 or even in 1975 following 30 years of war that massacred millions of its people. Similarly showing empty shelves of a Soviet supermarket more then 30 years ago. I would not wish to live in present day Russia for a whole variety of reasons, not least of which being its homophobia. But I would happily live in Vietnam on the basis of those parts of the country I have seen and the people i have met.

You mention a corrupt education system. The fact is that today Vietnam is one of Asia's more prosperous countries. It is also one of the most advanced when it comes to education in comparison to the rest of the world.
Vietnam outperforms neighbouring countries in south-east Asia on education rankings, and does well globally too. Its high test scores contributed to its place in the World Bank human capital index — 48th — the highest rating for any lower middle-income country. It stands out relative to its wealth.

The country spends the equivalent of nearly 6 per cent of its GDP on education — high by global standards, and a greater proportion than most of its neighbours.
In the World Bank Report of 2017, Vietnam spends more on education per head of GDP than the USA, the UK, France, Germany, Australia - in fact most other countries.

4 years ago the BBC ran an article about Vietnam's ranking in maths and science amongst 15 year olds.
Vietnam's performance in the last international Pisa tests was a stunning achievement.

Participating in the tests for the first time, the country's 15-year-olds scored higher in reading, maths and science than many developed countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.
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https://www.ft.com/content/da4387d0-aba ... 106866cd8a
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-33047924
Jun

Re: A New Dunkirk? 600,000 European Tourists may Have to be Rescued

Post by Jun »

fountainhall wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:22 pm You mention a corrupt education system. The fact is that today Vietnam is one of Asia's more prosperous countries. It is also one of the most advanced when it comes to education in comparison to the rest of the world.
Paying bribes in education is perfectly compatible with high scores.

I've read several reports on Vietnam where they refer to bribes being required in schools and Universities. I've also read reports of high standards. Perhaps both are true, or perhaps bribes result in high grades.

What I do know is the offshore professional workers I encountered are useful and quite sharp, unlike for example, the typically dopey & frequently useless service from offshore workers in India.
So Vietnam is doing something right, even if cracking down on bribes would be a good idea.
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