Why Counting Votes Isn’t Enough: Thailand’s Cash Trap and the Cost of Short-Term Politics

 Why Counting Votes Isn’t Enough: Thailand’s Cash Trap and the Cost of Short-Term Politics

Democracy is built on votes, but votes alone cannot guarantee a country’s progress. The recent case of Thailand illustrates a deeper dilemma: when politics revolves around short-term popularity, fiscal giveaways, and vote-winning promises, structural reform becomes politically impossible.

As Bloomberg observed, Thailand has fallen into a “cash trap.” For over two decades, governments have changed frequently, each promising quick economic relief but avoiding the tougher path of reform. Political volatility has eroded long-term planning, leaving Thailand indebted, stagnant, and overtaken by regional peers such as Vietnam and India.

The numbers tell a sobering story: the Thai economy today is only 5% larger than before the pandemic—an average annual growth of barely 1%. By contrast, Vietnam’s economy expanded by 40% over the same period. High household debt, limited monetary tools, and a public debt level approaching 70% of GDP are further choking recovery.

Despite these realities, most parties still compete with populist proposals: cash handouts, low-interest loans, guaranteed farm prices. Among the major parties, only a few—like the People’s Party—advocate breaking monopolies or reforming taxation. Yet such reform-minded groups struggle to win rural votes, while populist parties dominate through immediate financial appeal. The ballot box rewards generosity, not sustainability.

This democratic paradox shows how systems built to reflect people’s will can still trap nations in mediocrity when political incentives are misaligned. Without consensus for long-term discipline, policies chase popularity, not productivity. Thailand’s dream of becoming a high-income economy by 2037 now seems remote—some projections push it past 2050.

Counting votes ensures representation, but not vision. Sustainable progress requires what ballots alone cannot deliver: political courage to prioritize structure over stimulus, and stability over short-term applause.

How Government Money Twisted the Market: The UK’s Special Education Dilemma

 How Government Money Twisted the Market: The UK’s Special Education Dilemma

When governments inject vast sums of money into a system, they often hope to improve equity and quality. Yet, the UK’s special education framework shows how funding can distort incentives instead of solving underlying problems.

At the heart of the issue lies the Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)—a legally binding document guaranteeing special support for children with additional needs. Over the past decade, the number of EHCPs has more than doubled from around 240,000 to over 570,000. The High Needs Block, a section of the local education budget that funds these high-cost cases, now exceeds £10 billion, pushing many councils into deep deficit.

Why the rapid growth? The funding mechanism itself encourages it. Ordinary schools, under financial strain, find it rational to refer students for EHCPs since doing so shifts part of the cost to the central high-needs budget. Parents, seeing the same logic, find it rational to appeal when support is denied—especially since nearly 90% of appeals succeed. The result: a procedural battlefield where money flows into assessments and legal processes rather than classrooms or early intervention.

On the supply side, public special schools are scarce, so councils rely on expensive private placements—many costing £60,000 to £100,000 per student per year. Transport costs inflate further as students are placed across districts, with some requiring one-to-one taxi services costing tens of thousands annually.

Meanwhile, preventive and early support programs have been cut, forcing families to escalate to EHCPs as the only route to get help. Fragmented budgets between education, health, and social care deepen inefficiency. Everyone acts rationally, yet collectively the system becomes irrational: schools pass costs upward, parents lawyer up, suppliers raise prices, and councils delay to stay solvent.

Fixing this requires more than just adding or cutting funds—it demands redesigning incentives so that early support is rewarded, collaboration is cheaper than conflict, and quality—not bureaucracy—drives outcomes.