Tell it to those who |were left stranded

Andrew Drummond claims that the recent occupation of Bangkok's main airports by the opposition movement PAD, which left more than 300,000 passengers stranded, was not as bad as some media made it appear. He writes: "Despite the photos, there really was no serious blockade." And then: "But from what I saw on a daily basis the demo was pretty much restricted to the departure level of Suvarnabhumi".

I have no doubt that Mr. Drummond's observations are correct. All you need to do to immobilise an airport is to prevent air traffic. And that was exactly what the PAD achieved. After that, extending the blockade to offices, banks, shops, restaurants and other facilities would have been futile.

Mr. Drummond's view that the PAD exercised "remarkable restraint" in all its activities will certainly not be shared by all those who have had to shoulder the enormous costs and losses caused by the PAD's illegal actions.

The PAD must face the rule of the law.

MANFRED LIEBIG

CHIANG MAI

PM's message was |necessarily optimistic

Re: "Abhisit has no original ideas of his own", Letters, December 19.

Max Deadhead might be over-generalising with his accusation that Abhisit has no original ideas, with regards to a phrase in his acceptance speech.

The point is that such posturing is nothing new for an elected leader and could even be construed as a common denominator in politics. In other words, a nation's incoming leader would, in one way or another, put forth the message that he or she will work for the whole population, regardless of who is for or against him.

Thus, Abhisit saying he will be "everyone's PM" was neither a copy of Barack Obama's idea nor a pretence that the idea originated from him. Seen from this perspective, the accusation holds no importance to the fact that Abhisit has no ideas of his own.

SAI WANSAI

BANGKOK

Abhisit must start with |the end goal in mind

In solving our recession and rising unemployment rate, our government should follow Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, especially "Begin with the end (objective) in mind." We want to create employment, reduce costs, and add value - which is vastly different from simply throwing money at problems. For example, this year, President Bush gave every US taxpayer up to US$300 for free - but it failed to stimulate consumption because recipients feared a recession and saved most of what they got. Instead, perhaps Bush should have expanded free school lunches or increased training programmes, which would have boosted consumption, not savings, and created employable people.

For us, we know that our road transport system is highly inefficient and costly - so instead of building roads, why not focus on rail and water, thus creating jobs and lowering costs? The One Tambon One Product scheme, to me, has been a success - so, the government can help improve and standardise quality and help entrepreneurs find market needs they can fill (e.g., via mega-retailers' overseas connections) at little public cost. Low-cost housing is highly popular, and rightfully so - but we should make it a BOI-promoted industry rather than doing the building ourselves. Using BOI-promotion would make the scheme less prone to corruption and builders would vie to meet the needs of low-income earners.

BURIN KANTABUTRA

BANGKOK