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Student Loan Bt200 Billion Forgiveness Plan Debated in Thailand

student-loan-debt thailand

A student loan forgiveness campaign believes the 700 billion baht budget Thailand has set to reduce inequality should be more than enough to ensure free education.

During an interview with Thai PBS, Prim Maneechote, a member of the #SLFdebtforgiveness campaign said, “It is not about Thailand’s financial situation but its allocation of resources.”. The purpose of this platform is to bring teachers together to share their experiences and ideas

According to Prim, millions of Thais owe Student Loan Funds (SLF) money that should not be considered loans.

“If the government had offered free education, they wouldn’t have had to borrow money,” Prim said. “Why do people have to take loans just because they want to learn?”

According to the BBC, a professor at Thammasat University’s College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Assoc Prof Dr Sustarum Thammaboosadee, holds a similar view.

As part of its plans to reduce inequality, the government plans to allocate 700 billion baht in the upcoming fiscal year [starting October 1]. The budget for monthly basic welfare, and Medicaid subsidies, is separate from the budget Dr. Sustarum said.

In his calculation, it would cost only 150 billion-200 billion baht a year to cover education and living expenses for all Thai university students.

Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Debated in Thailand

Because of this, neither Prim nor Sustarum can comprehend why most people think debt forgiveness for a student loan is “cheating” or “irresponsible”.

There is no demand for debt forgiveness for certain individuals. “The point we are making is that the SLF loans have a high degree of inequality,” Prim explained. Currently, she is running a campaign on welfarewillwin.com.

According to Prof Sustarum, the campaign sought not only to annul SLF debts, but also to provide free education and living expenses.

According to Prim, Thailand’s capitalist society needs quality human resources to sustain its economy, especially as the countries society ages. Educated people earn more and can therefore pay more taxes, she said.

All Thai citizens receive free education starting from kindergarten, but university education is not included.

According to Pumsaran Tongliemnak, acting director of the Equitable Education Research Institute (EEFI), all citizens should have access to free higher education.

The truth is, few countries provide this service. Why is that? Because normally, university students are expected to bear the cost of their own education. However, the amount each country shoulders depends on its policy.

In the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis, the Thai government took a loan from the Asian Development Bank and turned Thai universities into autonomous organizations.

To qualify for the loan, the government had to cut subsidies to state universities. Educators and economists at the time argued most families could afford to pay for the education of 1.4 million Thai university students without government subsidies.

The cost of studying at university has skyrocketed in Thailand

There has been a significant increase in university tuition fees over the past few decades. Thus, I think it is difficult to push the government to start paying for people’s higher education,” Pumsaran said. It is important to note that tuition fees for some fields are almost equal to those abroad.”

The SLF – which offers soft loans to students – receives no government funding now, so it needs the repayments if it is to continue to exist.

In response to US President Joe Biden’s decision to forgive student debt, he said the United States would only forgive the debts of the very needy.

Pumsaran believes that SLF needs only a little tweak, like lifting the hefty penalty attached to defaulters. According to him, it could only write off debts or offer student loan refinancing with government approval and financial assistance.

In 1996, Nalinee (last name withheald) took an SLF loan of 165,000 baht to fund her university education in Thailand. Unfortunately, she was unable to secure a permanent job after graduating, so she was unable to pay back the loans.

“There is a grace period, but I didn’t earn enough to pay it back afterward even with a student loan consolidation,” she added.

A lawsuit was filed against her by SLF after she defaulted on her payments. In 2018, she was stunned to learn that her student loan debt had grown to 428,059.13 baht.

The interest rate on the loan was only 25,802.91 baht, however, the penalties for defaulting on the student loan were a staggering 237,256.22 baht.

student loan debt

A lawyer representing SLF demanded she pay 4,000 baht a month for nine years to cover the loan.

“I begged them to reduce it to 2,000 baht a month, but they refused,” Nalinee said. As a result, I’m having difficulty making ends meet right now.”

Jekita Limwichian, a 31-year-old medical sales representative, said SLF required her to pay just 3,000 baht a year initially and now it’s just a small amount monthly.

The principal amount of my debt has dropped from over 200,000 baht to 180,000 baht. I won’t be able to repay the entire amount right away because I also pay for my car and house on a monthly basis.” she added.

According to Jekita, SLF is a valuable resource for children who want to further their education. If the loan hadn’t been provided, she said she wasn’t sure if her parents would have been able to send her to university.

She added, “My younger sister wants to study nursing, and she will also apply for an SLF loan.”.

It is her opinion that SLF loans should only be forgiven for those who are unable to repay them.

student loans

What politicians are saying about student loans

In a recent speech, Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat stressed that the government should provide free university education if funds were available.

Additionally, he proposed solutions to the student debt issue.

“Thailand may be able to offer more generous repayment terms by capping interest and penalties at 1% per year. It would be ideal if the government waived interest or penalties,” he said.

The Bhumjaithai Party leader, who is also the Minister of Public Health, has vowed to push for interest-free student loans in Parliament.

The Student Loan Fund Bill is currently being debated in the House. It would allow the SLF to negotiate with debtors and restructure debts to ease their burden.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

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Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

shkreli

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

shkreli

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP

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