Marc Faber explains The Thailand Crisis - Bloomberg 24 May 2010

S&P 500 Index May Tumble as Much as 15%, Faber Says

Marc Faber who lives 700 kilometers from Bangkok : ...basically the country is very peaceful the population is not aggressive they're very tolerant they are a very permissive society , and I think for most Thais including myself to see burning buildings in BANGKOK was really a shock , that's nobody could have anticipated , if a year ago someone would told me that buildings will be burning in BANGKOK I never have believed it , so I think they're some reasons why it happened it is a complex story basically a populist leader that had the support of the ruler who is Mister Thaksin came to power and was then ousted by a military coup in 2006 and then a new government was installed which was more the bankers aristocracy and Thaksin then was condemned for corruption and had also to pay a fine and is in exile and he was again .., he managed again to rally the tour behind him to start the demonstrations , where it has to be said it is not proven that he paid the demonstrators but it is very likely that he paid the demonstrators who have been paid about twice what they would be earning in their salaries if they were working in factories and so on and so forth...and then the trouble went out of hand whether that was again directed by mister Thaksin or he lost control of the movement , that what happened and the violence erupted ...
basically calm has returned because you have to say one thing as in most people in Thailand do realize that Thaksin's aim and red shirts aim is actually not to boost the standards of living of the poor but just to use them as kind of human shield and an excuse and to buy their vote it is not about their group of leaders taking money and then redistributing money to the poor it is about their group of leaders getting hold of the money pot that's now is in the hands of the bank of elite and then carrying out the regime amidst the same or even worse corruption ...etc...
“The market became very overbought in mid-April,” Faber said in a Bloomberg Radio interview today with Tom Keene. “The S&P could still decline by another 10 percent, maybe 15 percent.”